July 2012

Adapting foreign stories to American cinema

AKA: Making movies white for no good reason

It has been a trend in American cinema ever since the first film hit the screen - using white actors to portray the roles of ethnically diverse people.  At first the reasons were blatantly discriminatory.  Those in Hollywood didn’t want to hire actors and actresses who were black, Native American, Mexican or any other race they felt was “inappropriate” to allow in a movie.  But even years after this stigma has been broken down and people of all ethnicities are making their names as exceptional performers, the trend of “whitening” movies still continues.