MovieChat Forums > Aloha (2015) Discussion > Lazy, racist casting

Lazy, racist casting

posted 10 years ago by omigoddess
29 replies | jump to latest

Okay, first off, I love Emma Stone. She's beautiful and hilarious. But casting her as a part Asian, part Hawaiian woman is just stupid. Yes, some Asian people look white, but Emma Stone is...incredibly white. She's pale and her eyes are bright blue; they take up like half her face. Yes, Asians can have big eyes. But come on! She doesn't look or suit the part!

Why wouldn't they just cast an Asian or Hawaiian women? Someone biracial? There are so many beautiful Asian and Hawaiian women out there missing casting opportunities because Hollywood is so white-washed. This is just exhausting. Her role isn't believable.

[–] Zanza8 10 years ago

Stop being such a bigot. You can't have a beautiful Asian or Hawaiian woman because the character is a biracial woman who looks white and is forced to explain that she is actually biracial. The character of Allison Ng is based on a real woman in Hawaii that Cameron Crowe knows, a red-head who looks totally white and is part Hawaiian. There are biracial people who don't look white, and there are biracial people who do look white. It's time to stop being so racist and prejudiced and accept biracial people.

http://thinkingoutloud-descartes.blogspot.com/

[–] DaliParton 10 years ago

My problem with the Ng character isn't that she looks white - it's rare but there are more than a few hapas like that - it is that as someone born and raised in Hawaii as part of a local family she doesn't sound like it at all. Not even a trace of pidgin in her speech, not even when talking with other locals.

For someone who is constantly concerned with proving her local heritage to not talk pidgin, even once, is not believable. The script had her name drop Gabby Pahinui by first name alone, but she can't even say dakine one time? Fake.

[–] stringpickin1 10 years ago

so tired of racists.

[–] danimal09752 9 years ago

So tired of people that feel EVERYTHING is racial and EVERYONE is racist...

[–] TaraMisoo 9 years ago

I liked the movie.

[–] Zanza8 10 years ago

My problem with the Ng character isn't that she looks white - it's rare but there are more than a few hapas like that - it is that as someone born and raised in Hawaii as part of a local family she doesn't sound like it at all. Not even a trace of pidgin in her speech, not even when talking with other locals.

For someone who is constantly concerned with proving her local heritage to not talk pidgin, even once, is not believable. The script had her name drop Gabby Pahinui by first name alone, but she can't even say dakine one time? Fake.

This is a valid complaint. I remember watching the original Hawaii Five-0 and now I watch the reboot, and there's quite a bit of words unfamiliar to me, I guess they're pidgin or Hawaiian words, sprinkled throught the dialogue. I would call that lazy, that there weren't any local expressions.

http://thinkingoutloud-descartes.blogspot.com/

[–] omigoddess 9 years ago

First off, I AM biracial. Secondly, it's so incredibly dumb that YOU'RE calling ME, a bigot. Do me a favour and look up that word in the dictionary because you aren't using it correctly. I ACCEPT BIRACIAL PEOPLE, that's why I posted this. It's so obvious that Cameron Crowe was too lazy to find an actual Asian or Hawaiian woman, so he made up a *beep* story and just went with a famous white girl. Besides, if it was based on a RED HEAD GIRL, why didn't they dye her hair then either> It's just a dumb, dumb, plot and weak casting choice on everyone's part. And you? You need to get the *beep* over yourself. I am the least racist person you'll ever meet, and clearly not lazy either. Get a freaking reality check, sweetheart.

[–] aerrich 9 years ago

Frankly, you seem so brainwashed that you don't even know what racism is anymore.

Are you Rachel Dolezal?

For all you know Emma Stone could be part black, hispanic, asian, and native american in real life.

Quit exhaling! You are contributing to global warming.

[–] Lolawoo 9 years ago

Frankly, you seem so brainwashed that you don't even know what racism is anymore.

Are you Rachel Dolezal?

For all you know Emma Stone could be part black, hispanic, asian, and native american in real life.

Wow, you are so stupid.

[–] Zanza8 9 years ago

If you are biracial, you should accept biracial people who look white as well as biracial people who don't look white. Why should Crowe get an Asian or Hawaiian woman to play a biracial woman who looks white and goes around explaining her heritage? This character was based on a real person he met in Hawaii. And why should her hair have to be red? Are you so obsessed with color that you stress even about hair color? Try looking at the content of the character and not the color of the skin, or in your case, the color of the skin and/or hair.

http://thinkingoutloud-descartes.blogspot.com/

[–] Naughty-God 9 years ago

It's not about "not accepting" biracial people who look white, it's about Cameron Crowe's lazy and uninspired adaptation of a supposedly real biracial woman he knows, and casting Emma Stone epitomizes this laziness in Cameron Crowe's movie making ability, or inability with regards to this issue.

[–] Zanza8 9 years ago

Nonsense. Can you name a single Asian actress who looks white and would therefore fulfill the visual requirements of this role? I also notice you don't address the numbers of black people playing white people, including Denzel Washington playing a real white man in the movie Unstoppable, a man who was a hero and stopped a runaway train and deserved to be represented more accurately. If a black or an Asian or a Hispanic was a hero and was represented by a white person you would be all over that but you don't care when a white hero gets shoved aside to be played by a nonwhite. It's hypocritical not to care about Denzel playing a white hero but to whinge about Emma Stone playing a woman who is biracial and looks white.

http://thinkingoutloud-descartes.blogspot.com/

[–] DendelionBlu 9 years ago

And just like that, Naughty-God shuts the #### up

[–] accidentalsaints 9 years ago

Saying that it's obvious someone ELSE is racist because his casting choice didn't meet YOUR expectation of what a mixed race person should look like?

Yeah. You're a bigot.

[–] Lolawoo 9 years ago

You're the bigot Zanza8. Anyone with half a brain knows that. Your attempts at trolling are pretty pathetic.

[–] accidentalsaints 9 years ago

Oh. I thought you were talking about Michael B. Jordan in Fantastic Four. Weird how casting out of race is okay for minorities in white roles, but it never goes the other way.

[–] Zanza8 9 years ago

Weird how casting out of race is okay for minorities in white roles, but it never goes the other way.

Nobody ever minds when Denzel Washington plays a white guy either. Even when it's someone like Jess Knowlton, the real life hero of the incident that inspired the movie Unstoppable. Denzel played the character based on Knowlton, and Knowlton is a white guy. Why is it acceptable for a black man to portray a real white man, and it's not acceptable for a white woman to portray a real biracial woman who looks white?

Saying that it's obvious someone ELSE is racist because his casting choice didn't meet YOUR expectation of what a mixed race person should look like?

Yeah. You're a bigot.



http://thinkingoutloud-descartes.blogspot.com/

[–] nelliewilson 9 years ago

Also, each of these actors play white characters:

Clarke Duncan in Daredevil
Denzel Washington in The Manchurian Candidate
Lucy Liu in Charlie’s Angels
Will Smith in I Am Legend
Morgan Freeman as Red in Shawshank Redemption
Jason Momoa as Conan The Barbarian
Samuel Jackson as Nick Fury in Ironman
Idris Elba as Heimdall in Thor and Thor: The Dark World
Peter Mensah as Oenomaus in Spartacus (TV series)
Dwayne Johnson as Hercules (2014)

* I killed god! Well... me and the internet did.

[–] kd4ml 9 years ago

I do not believe all the name calling here! I recently found, through DNA, that I my wife and kids have a little bit of North African DNA. Her family fought in the Revolutionary War. So what... Some of the contributors here remind me of a comment from one of my slower adult students a few years back, "I CAN'T BE RACIST, I'M BLACK!" I think we are all capable of prejudging our neighbor. (...and, yes, Camille, there is also a difference between ignorant and stupid.)

Please, don't get me started about the rights of the "noble savage". No one wants to return to stone age pagan idolatry, human sacrifice, incest and cannibalism.

[–] Zanza8 9 years ago

I do not believe all the name calling here! I recently found, through DNA, that I my wife and kids have a little bit of North African DNA. Her family fought in the Revolutionary War. So what... Some of the contributors here remind me of a comment from one of my slower adult students a few years back, "I CAN'T BE RACIST, I'M BLACK!" I think we are all capable of prejudging our neighbor. (...and, yes, Camille, there is also a difference between ignorant and stupid.)

Please, don't get me started about the rights of the "noble savage". No one wants to return to stone age pagan idolatry, human sacrifice, incest and cannibalism.

I doubt many Hawaiians would actually be happy to have the United States throw them back and let them be independent and try to make a living on nothing but coconuts and fish. They reap a lot of benefits being a state in this country and they wouldn't want to go back to the way a lot of people outside the developed world live no matter how they whinge about their romantic past.

http://thinkingoutloud-descartes.blogspot.com/

[–] cara-stone 9 years ago

Seriously? I guess you'd be surprised to find that many multiracial people look Caucasian. just depends on which genes are dominant in that particular individual.

For Emma's character, she was 1/4 Chinese & 1/4 Hawaiian (her dad) and 1/2 Caucasian (her mom). It's entirely possible for her to be blonde with green eyes. Perhaps she got her coloring from her mom.

It's actually not that uncommon. I have a niece who's biracial (Caucasian & African-American). She has blonde hair & brown
eyes just like my niece.

[–] 9 years ago

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[–] rashka-vizla 9 years ago

I'm guessing, but I think it's an educated guess, that all the people ripping the OP and defending Emma Stone's casting are all white people playing the reverse-victim card.

My advice to all you fools, do some travelling and meet some new folks that don't have your exact pigmentation before you lecture a bi-racial person on the meaning of bi-racial.

[–] happyphantom9 9 years ago

Yup. Thank you.

[–] uglyroommate 9 years ago

I'm guessing, but I think it's an educated guess, that all the people ripping the OP and defending Emma Stone's casting are all white people playing the reverse-victim card.

Completely agree. Notice how these people defending the casting regard Hawaiians in this thread too. Happy to see this film flop and its embarrassing RT score.

[–] ldlamb74 9 years ago

The character was 1/4 Hawaiian. One of the main points of the character's emotional core was that she was Hawaiian but knew she did not look it.
Casting someone that was obviously Asian would defeat the purpose.

[–] 9 years ago

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[–] jimb14 9 years ago

One of the dumbest things I have ever read on IMDb.

"No matter where you go, there you are."

[–] dasanimet 9 years ago

Sorry, but I believe Emma Stone can be cast as 1/4 Hawaiian which is what they said she was.