Yellowface: Asian Whitewashing and Racism in Hollywood | movie | 2019 | Official Trailer - video Dailymotion

A history of anti-Asian racism and yellowface in Hollywood after the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack. | dG1fMmxUZXNTYVVMRmM

Transcript

00:00 Hollywood has a bad track record from way back, of course,

00:03 showing ethnic minority groups of all kinds.

00:06 Native Americans, African Americans were always caricatured,

00:10 almost always, Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans.

00:14 All these groups were depicted usually in stereotypical ways.

00:19 The Japanese character is somewhat stereotypical, you know.

00:22 It is controversial, of course, when you have what they call "yellow face" now,

00:26 with white actors doing Japanese parts.

00:30 Christopher Lee is the dreaded Dr. Fu Manchu.

00:33 The Dr. Ingrid Koch will die an extremely painful death.

00:38 In Hollywood, white actors are really at the top of the food chain.

00:43 They get access to all the lead roles.

00:46 They even can play characters of color.

00:50 Robert, ladies, kind gentlemen, please introduce myself.

00:56 Sakini by name, interpreter by profession.

01:00 That is very different from actors of color,

01:06 especially Asian American actors, who rarely even get to play themselves,

01:10 because white actors are sometimes taking that role.

01:13 And so not only are Asian American actors not part of the lead

01:19 and being able to kind of build their star power,

01:23 so then it becomes this cyclical problem where they're not getting cast as leads,

01:28 and so then they don't become A-list actors.

01:30 So then people are thinking, "Oh, well, we can't cast an Asian to play this role

01:34 because they're not A-list. They're not going to be able to draw any audiences.

01:38 So let's cast an A-list white actor instead to play that."

01:41 And that has been the historical trend

01:44 amongst the casting of Asian actors compared to white actors.

01:49 [♪♪]

01:53 [♪♪]

01:56 (electronic music)