And even when Hollywood takes a risk and casts an Asian American actor in race
neutral work, they replace her with an alien because
people don't want to buy merch with our face on it. So first a
little history. Asian Americans have existed in the
United States for around 200 years, and yet we remain
largely left out of films and TV shows. And if we do exist we're played as
caricatures or by white people. And why is this? Well for many reasons my young
grasshopper. Firstly, when Hollywood was still in its infancy it adopted the Hays
code and one of the rules was that it couldn't show
white and non-white people in romantic relationships.
And back then women weren't in movies unless they were attached to a man, and
therefore the most common role for women was that of a girlfriend or wife, and
because the lead man was always white the lead woman
would also need to be white, and thus women of color were pushed out of the
lead actress category altogether. The leading lady role was and still
is the highest paid and most prestigious role for women,
and back then it solely belonged to white women, meaning that
the opportunity for women of color to be seen and recognized was slim to none.
Asian women in particular were not cast as leading ladies next to
Asian lead actors, but rather as dragon ladies and gesh girls who killed
themselves over white men. And asian men were portrayed
as bumbling bucktooth comic relief characters
and later wise masters who spok in riddles to help the white protagonist
beat up some local bullies. However, to get around the Hays code, which
prohibited interracial relationships, yellowface was implemented.
Asian people were thus replaced by white people in racist makeup to make their
eyes look slanted, they wore black wigs or dyed their hair,
black and they spoke with racist and xenophobic accents.
Some white actors won oscars for best actress
for portraying an Asian person - even post Hays code! And before I go on, it's
important to note that Hollywood and the Academy awards actors for doing
yellowface for transforming themselves and disappearing into a role
and that's why a lot of actors and productions defend themselves and their
actions for doing yellowface, even to this day.
Being a chameleon is a desirable trait for an actor to have in Hollywood. "If you
can trick us into thinking that you're another race,
gender or have a disfigurement or disability, well you deserve a million
dollars, not like real trans, people of color, disabled and disfigured
people, they can't act anyway!" Even after the Hays code was ruled
unconstitutional during the 1960s Civil Rights movement,
only one Asian American woman has ever won the best actress
Oscar and that was in 1956! And today Asian American films are still seen as
other and Asian American actors are still seen as foreign. Be Kind Rewind
mentioned in her video about Asian American representation that during the
2020 Oscars, The Farewell, which has long sequences in Mandarin, was nominated as a
foreign film, even though it was produced and directed by Americans
and cast American actors. Conversely she mentioned that Inglorious Bastards,
which has long sequences in foreign European
languages, was nominated as a domestic film. Asian American faces are still seen
as foreign in the eyes of Hollywood, and rather than casting Asian people in
race neutral work to take that stigma away
they continue to cast white people. And even in movies that take inspiration
from Asia or have characters with Asian names they
continue to cast the white and familiar faces rather than
the "foreign" ones. And even when Hollywood takes a risk
and casts an Asian American actor in race neutral work,
they replace her with an alien because people don't want to bite
merch with our face on it. Unless the movie portrays
Asian people and their culture as exotic, mysterious, and oppressive they're not
hiring Asian Actors. So part two - What's happening today? So
things have gotten better for Asian representation.
Constance Wu recently starred in Hustlers and they didn't whitewash her
role or have an actor doing yellowface. It
wasn't race neutral work, but at least, like I said, they didn't cast a white
actor and pretended that she was Asian. Lana Condor, Ross Butler, and Charles
Melton have been cast as teen heartthrobs, so that's kind of cool.
Charles Melton especially seems to be getting a lot of work, but of course it's
only because he's half Asian. It's important to note that full Asian
representation is still desperately needed,
especially due to colorism and featurism, which puts
half white Asians at the top of the casting list.
Charles Melton and Jimmy Yang are apparently set
to premiere in this rom-com on Netflix that centers around
a white girl. She's fallen in love over a dating app
and she's going to meet the person she's been talking to for the first time
and you can all see how this is going to play out. Jimmy being a full Asian
doesn't want to disappoint this woman with what he looks like, so he's going to
ask Charles to pretend to be him and it's going to be a whole liar
revealed, but of course she's going to love Jimmy anyway for what's on the
inside. And things are even getting a little bit
more dicey with white people taking yellow face to the extreme.
Different eye makeup looks and fox eye surgery to make your eyes appear slanted
is all the rage. And even extreme brow lifts to give you that
exotic arch and restructuring your bones is what white people
want. White people want to look half because to them
it's a game, it's a trend, and also a way to make more money. And I find that
extremely insulting to actual Asian people who are still
struggling to be seen as people at all. So part three - Where are the
opportunities? The most common thing you'll hear Asian
actors say when it comes to diversity in Hollywood
is that there are no opportunities. Even after her success in The Joy Luck Club
Rosalind Chao went back to playing a Chinese stereotype in Freaky Friday.
James Hong, who has been in the Hollywood industry
for decades, still doesn't have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Lucy Liu never won an Academy Award, but of course was cast as the villain in
Kill Bill. And nowadays Hollywood continues to cast
the same two Asian American actresses in everything!
And those two people are Constance Wu and
Awkwafina, even though they only represent a small
sliver of the entire Asian population. As for directing Cathy Yan did a great
job with Birds of Prey and Alice Wu recently directed a movie
called The Half of It, which is an Asian American
lesbian coming of age story. And Mindy Kaling recently wrote and produced Never
Have I Ever, which is about a first generation Indian girl coming of
age in the U.S. Hasan Minhaj has a late night show aptly named
The Patriot Act, so that's kind of cool. And Lily Singh is going to get
her own comedy sketch show. And these are awesome
wins and I'm really proud and happy for all these people and all the
representation that we're getting and I am happy that you know being
outwardly racist is just kind of not a thing anymore that
you could just be. However, in general things still look
kind of bleak. There's this new Disney animated movie coming out called Raya
The Last Dragon, which of course stars Awkafina and a
white director. So it was recently reported that Kelly
Marie Tran will be playing the lead in Raya The Last Dragon. She'll be playing
Raya and is replacing a mixed white actress
who was originally cast in her role. And of course it's set in a
fantasy world, so you can probably guess that race will not be addressed. And I
think that we continue to lack opportunities because people just aren't
hiring Asian people behind the scenes and
giving them large sums of money. White Hollywood just doesn't want to bet
on Asian films and TV shows that essentially look foreign to them. So
the conclusion. It makes sense why white people in
Hollywood don't see Asian people as full human beings when you've grown up
seeing them as comedic side characters, offensive stereotypes,
and the token diversity point, but when you're Asian those images
hit differently. They tell you that you don't belong, that you're ugly,
and they teach you to hate yourself and your culture and force you to assimilate.
And this gives white people the opportunity to make documentaries about
"Asian American whiz kids" and "breaking stereotypes" that they created for us!
Even when we assimilate the white people continue to take control of our stories,
but thankfully there are Asian Americans working
behind and in front of the scenes to create race neutral work
for Asian people, and as long as we know this history we'll be sure not to repeat
it. Hey everyone thank you so much for
watching this video. If you liked it please give a like,
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Tuesday and Friday and the next video is going to be about
COVID racism and how COVID is not an excuse to be racist towards
Asian people. Thank you all so much to all of my subscribers
and to my patrons, and I'll see you in the next one bye :)