Whitewashing in American film/ media research findings.

 I did my final project on whitewashing in American media and film. I used many different research sources from scholarly articles to regular news articles. 

    One of my first findings in my research was the deep effects that whitewashing has on Asian Americans. I learned that they are disproportionally affected. In movies Asian American characters overwhelmingly get played by white actors and their stories are shifted to benefit or paint white actors as the hero's. I also learned about the movie Mortal combat that was made in 1995 that had racist portrayals of Asians and how the one that was made in 2021 did an excellent job of erasing those racist portrayals and reshaping the character development in Mortal Combat. That came directly from WHITEWSSHING THE MOVIES peer reviewed article. I also learned about how Hollywood has historically erased Asian characters they paint white culture as the most important and or as the default culture here in America completely taking away from what America truly is. 

    I then also took a deep dive into the power of black film criticism. Black films relationship to society's whitewashing of racial violence. There are many new movies that go into detail on racial violence but are often talked about as crude or inappropriate even though they are historically accurate. They use this as a reason to take away from black American struggles and keep the racist ideologies shaped as realities. Black films and representation are very important to the culture of black media and film presence so that black history can stop being stolen and reshaped to paint white people as heroes in their stories as well. This same thing has happened with native American stories where their stories will be shaped as something that did not happen to take away from the tragedies or racial violence that took place because it can paint a negative picture of white Americans.

    I also learned from many different articles that highlighted the importance on whitewashing in film and who it deeply effects as well as some key examples of it happening. I learned about the whitewashing that took place in the movie doctor strange in The Guardian they highlight the racism behind the character played by Tilda Swinton that is originally a Tibetan person but gets played by a white woman instead. New York times, goes into detail on the ongoing racism in American films that paints Asian Americans in a racist light while also taking away from their traditional hero's and making the heroes in the films white rather than Asian. I also read an article written by BBC that talks about the struggle that non-white actors have getting casted in films where they fit the description of the character due to being pushed aside by their white colleagues.

    Overall, my most important takeaways from my research are that whitewashing in American media and film is an ongoing and very obvious issue. Media needs to work on its portrayal of marginalized groups especially those that are of Asian descent and Native American ancestry. REPRESENTATION MATTERS!!!

Sources:

Shin,Joseph(2022), WHITEWASHING THE MOVIES: Asian erasure and white subjectivity in US film culture

Eka Pratiwi Sudirman;Singgih Daru Kuncara;Ahmad Mubarok(2023), CHANGING POTRAYALS OF ASIANS IN FILMS

Reich, Elizabeth (2016), The power of black film criticism 

Shourd, C (23017) Hollywood whitewashing: Why it happens.

Yam,K (2017) Asian American actors will struggle in a whitewashed Hollywood.

Child,B (2018) Is Hollywood finally moving beyond whitewashing?