Culture appropriation in Hollywood films

hoopla123 said:
She could be half Japanese for all we know.

It is never specified in the series that she is Japanese. Only as one of the asian/oriental races.

WickedHeroine said:
He's an anime character, none of them 'look' Asian. But the thing is, he IS. His name is Japanese, his family is Japanese, he lives in Japan.

Look, I get that people may believe there's a justifiable reason for the Hollywood casting to be white-washed, but here's the thing: there's not. There's no reason the casting should have any main white characters, except perhaps L, because I'm really not sure /what/ he is.

Hollywood has a long running history of white-washing their movies and blatantly refusing to add people of color to the big screen. There have been hundreds of audition sheets that you can find online that specifically ask for white people, or light-skinned black people, or Asians with 'big' eyes instead of small ones. The person in the video doesn't need proof: it's perfectly plausible and believable, and I seriously doubt he's lying. Audition sheets are known to be blunt and cruel.

TLDR: Hollywood is racist, stop trying to advocate for them.

mayukachan said:
did u know that japanese people used to be chinese people

ye

CaimTheJoyful said:
You're joking right? Because that's wrong.

CaimTheJoyful said:
You're really trying too hard here.

It's very much implied she's Japanese.

She's a character from a Japanese work.

She's has a Japanese name.

Guilion said:

Hey don't look at me, I'm just regurgitating what I was taught in my marketing and market research class.

mayukachan said:
It's probably because there aren't many white actors in Japan?

mayukachan said:
i'm not joking... they originated from china and made their own nation, like hong kong

CaimTheJoyful said:
Holy fuck

The Japanese are their own ethnicity.

The Japanese didn't descend from the Chinese, they descended from mongoloids and developed their own traits just like the Chinese and Koreans. They never "used" to be Chinese.

mayukachan said:
so why did japanese take some of their characters (writing) from china????? ???

Currently, the most well-regarded theory is that present-day Japanese are descendants of both the indigenous Jōmon people and the immigrant Yayoi people. The origins of the Jōmon and Yayoi people have often been a subject of dispute, and a recent Japanese publisher has divided the potential routes of the people living on the Japanese archipelago as follows:

• Aboriginals that have been living in Japan for more than 10,000 years. (Without geographic distinction, which means, the group of people living in islands from Hokkaido to Okinawa may all be considered to be Aboriginals in this case.)

• Immigrants from the northern route (北方ルート in Japanese) including the people from the Korean Peninsula, Mainland China, Sakhalin Island, Mongolia, and Siberia.

• Immigrants from the southern route (南方ルートin Japanese) including the people from the Pacific Islands, Southeast Asia, and in some context, India.

CaimTheJoyful said:
Holy fuck

The Japanese are their own ethnicity.

The Japanese didn't descend from the Chinese, they descended from mongoloids and developed their own traits just like the Chinese and Koreans. They never "used" to be Chinese.

iSheep said:
They made an exception for Straight Outta Compton. I think they wanted to be accurate for once.

Hannibal_Lecter said:
Also change your poll its moronic.

dekomaru said:

Because that's not a problem in Hollywood dominated by mostly white actors anyway & it rarely ever happens.

Also white people are never under-represented in media either.

dekomaru said:

Because that's not a problem in Hollywood dominated by mostly white actors anyway & it rarely ever happens.

Also white people are never under-represented in media/entertainment either.

dekomaru said:
To be more specific, Japanese were once Koreans, and Koreans were once Chinese.

dekomaru said:
All of their languages & sentence structures are pretty similar to each other & often have the same words from the chinese language.

DisdainMatto said:
Can we all just agree with movie is going to be shit and move on. There already is a live action Death Note movie series and tv series featuring a Japanese cast, isn't that enough.
Stop worrying so much about shit that you have no control over.

CaimTheJoyful said:
Wrong.
Wrong. They aren't similar. Korean is a language isolate and linguists have stated repeatedly that there is no genealogical relationship between Chinese and Japanese.

FahtahSensei said:

They made Goku a nerdy white guy...I don't want to think of it.

dekomaru said:

Why is this dude like so upset about this lol

FahtahSensei said:
They filled that Attack on Titan movie full of Asians. Wasn't that cultural appropriation???

Don't get me started on the outrage of black "Annie".

They made Heimdall a black guy..I mean wtFFf!

They made Goku a nerdy white guy...I don't want to think of it.

Fuck all movies

dekomaru said:

Why is this dude like so upset about this lol

CaimTheJoyful said:
Wrong. They aren't similar. Korean is a language isolate and linguists have stated repeatedly that there is no genealogical relationship between Chinese and Japanese.

DisdainMatto said:
Can we all just agree with movie is going to be shit and move on. There already is a live action Death Note movie series and tv series featuring a Japanese cast, isn't that enough.
Stop worrying so much about shit that you have no control over.
Also no shit they're going to cast a majority white cast in a movie made for a market the is almost 75% white.

CaimTheJoyful said:
>say something wrong
>get told why he's wrong
>"lol dude why so upset"

There's nothing more disgusting than ignorance.

Foxfire said:
But since OP wants an asian my choice would be the very talented Ken Jeong.

dekomaru said:

P sure most of us agree on that.
Most just care for Hollywood whitewashing in general. Not just Death Note.

Also there are death note & anime fans in america that aren't white you know. And were probably all fine with Asian characters in anime.
That doesn't mean they should feel they have to have an all white cast. If they feel they should, then they should just not touch it tbh.

DisdainMatto said:
Agreed but the problem is, Hollywood doesn't give a shit, so why do you?

hoopla123 said:
If she was full Japanese, the author could have just stated she was from Japan. There are plenty of other characters with Japanese names from anime/manga that are not full Japanese.

The point is: All we know for sure is that Mikasa is 100% asian and nothing else beyond that is confirmed.

So it isn't wrong to say that an asian actor playing Mikasa is at least representing her ethnicity correctly.

mayukachan said:
Can't speak for Korean but many Cantonese/Mandarin words and Japanese words sound the same and have similar (if not, same) meanings.

Mandarin: Qe - Ai (cute)
Japanese: Kawaii

Mandarin: Dian hua (phone)
Japanese: Denwa

CaimTheJoyful said:
Not everything has to be explicit either. Even if it was never directly stated, just about any person with a basic understanding of Japanese can tell that Mikasa is a Japanese name and therefore, make a reasonable assumption that Mikasa is a Japanese character. Putting a Korean or a Chinese actor for a character that is implied to be Japanese would be off-putting and a betrayal to expectations.

WickedHeroine said:


He's an anime character, none of them 'look' Asian. But the thing is, he IS. His name is Japanese, his family is Japanese, he lives in Japan.

Look, I get that people may believe there's a justifiable reason for the Hollywood casting to be white-washed, but here's the thing: there's not. There's no reason the casting should have any main white characters, except perhaps L, because I'm really not sure /what/ he is.

Hollywood has a long running history of white-washing their movies and blatantly refusing to add people of color to the big screen. There have been hundreds of audition sheets that you can find online that specifically ask for white people, or light-skinned black people, or Asians with 'big' eyes instead of small ones. The person in the video doesn't need proof: it's perfectly plausible and believable, and I seriously doubt he's lying. Audition sheets are known to be blunt and cruel.

TLDR: Hollywood is racist, stop trying to advocate for them.

Hannibal_Lecter said:
Most anime characters look white to me anyway.

The movie is in America anyway, not in Japan. So any race should be able to play as long as they fit the role well.

I don't consider it white washing, as Japan and South Korea are already pretty much white washed as a nation.

mayukachan said:
so why did japanese take some of their characters (writing) from china????? ???

Pirating_Ninja said:
This is wrong. I have no other way to put it other than you have probably never actually looked at Japanese history and are making an educated guess based off of the fact they also use Kanji.

I will tell you (perhaps this might clarify a few things) that Kanji was something Japan adapted much later in an attempt to look unified / civilized to China fearing a possible attempt at conquering them.

The Japanese had actually inhabited "Japan" since pre-historic times, before it even separated from the mainland. Thousands of years later, after it had become an island, it is assumed that a group known as the Yayoi came from Korea (based off the fact that they initially settled on the spot in Japan closest to the Korean peninsula) and essentially did "conquer" or "mingle" with the local population known as the "Jomon". This group of people was essentially then isolated and didn't really see any new "massive immigration". As a side note, China wasn't even "China" for a good portion of time after Japan had become isolated, so I wouldn't really refer to any group of people at the time as "Chinese".

DisdainMatto said:
Agreed but the problem is, Hollywood doesn't give a shit, so why do you?
Support the stuff that you believe in and don't support the shit you don't.

dekomaru said:
If you don't think we shouldn't give a shit just because Hollywood doesn't, then you clearly just don't think of it as a problem & its not a problem to you because you are represented enough.

And to fix the problem, we need to make them give a shit.

DisdainMatto said:
There are more sectors to the film industry besides Hollywood. Also look at the amount of actors in the screen actors guild, I bet roughly each ethnicity would equal out to the percentage that the demographic represents, this is fair. If 90% of all actors were white when they only make up 72% of the US population I would definitely see an issue. If 1% of all actors were black when they make up 13% of the general populace then yes there is a problem. The hiring policy of private companies is none of your concern, an insane amount of market research goes into hiring and it's tough for anyone, no matter their ethnicity, to break into this industry. The fact is we live in a capitalist society (thank god) and along with that comes the fact that nobody has any right to dictate how to run a business to anyone else (unless it causes physical harm).

dekomaru said:
You have no idea what nonwhite folk go through just to get somewhere in the industry.
Especially the women.
Sure, its tough in general, but even thougher for nonwhites. Cuz y'know, racism.

MrMagnificent said:
Japan is no better