Perspective | 98 times a white actor played someone who wasn't white (2023)

Hollywood still hasn't thought about the fact that the ancient Middle East wasn't entirely populated by handsome white men with neatly trimmed beards. It's well documented that the area was once home to people with darker skin than, say, Richard Gere, Russell Crowe and Christian Bale, who played a biblical hero (David, Noah and Moses, respectively). But here we are again, with "gods of egypt” is scheduled for release next month, and a cast of white actors star in a film about a place whose ancient inhabitants had olive skin and black hair.

That's not to say Hollywood hasn't learned a thing over the years: as far back as 1965, the New York Times was horrified when a British version of "Othello" featured Laurence Olivier in blackface, and now everyone agrees that Mickey Rooney's false teeth teeth were the worst thing about "Breakfast at Tiffany's".

But even though Hollywood is making actors alter their physical appearance less than they used to, it's not necessarily giving minority actors the chance to play minor roles. Instead, they're making these white papers. More than a dozen times, Hollywood has taken source material (from real life to Japanese novels and anime) that featured people of color and turned it into movies starring white people. When the scripts are written, black Halmea is white Alma ("Hud", 1963) and Hispanic Irina is lily-white Irene ("Drive", 2011). These moves aren't necessarily made to accommodate great acting talent.

How common is this practice? Check:

“Birth of a Nation”, 1915: The first movie to be shown inside the White House featured several white actors with black faces. One of them, Walter Long, was listed in the credits as a "renegade Negro".

“Broken Blossoms”, 1919: Richard Barthelmess, a white actor, played Cheng Huan. It's not a good sign that the film's alternate title is "The Yellow Man and the Girl."

“The Sheikh”, 1921: a white actor, Rudolph Valentino, played the sheikh of the same name, an Arab character named Ahmed Ben Hassan.

“The Thief of Baghdad,” 1924: Douglas Fairbanks, a white actor, played an Aladdin-like character who was supposedly from, well, Baghdad. Julanne Johnston, a white actress, played a lovestruck princess of Baghdad.

"The Sheikh's Son", 1926: Rudolf Valentino resumed his role as sheikh. Vilma Banky, a white Hungarian actress, played Arab dancer Yasmin.

“The Jazz Singer”, 1927: A white actor, Al Jolson, played the title role in Blackface. Black audiences were not necessarily opposed to the representation, which they saw as potentially paving the way for (real) black actors to take lead roles in future films. The Amsterdam News, the country's oldest black newspaper, called "The Jazz Singer" "one of the greatest films ever made" and wrote that "[all] artists of color are proud of" Jolson.

"Charlie Chan Continues", 1931: Warner Oland, a white actor, played the Chinese character for the first of seven times. He wore the same ridiculous mustache every time.

"Swing Time", 1936: Fred Astaire appeared black-faced in a musical number that most people read as a tribute, not a mockery, to black tap dancer Bill Robinson.

“The Good Earth,” 1937: All of the main actors in this film, based on the Pearl S. Buck novel about a Chinese farming family, were white.

"Everybody Sing", 1938: Judy Garland's character in this musical was not black, but tried to join a musical company by auditioning with a black face.

“Dragon Seed”, 1944: Katherine Hepburn wore prosthetic eyelids to play Chinese heroine Jade Tan. Hepburn is the most famous white actor in the cast, but certainly not the only one: Chinese actors only played children and extras.

“Anna and the King of Siam”, 1946: Rex Harrison, a white British actor, played King Mongkut.

“Fiesta,” 1947: Usually blonde actress Esther Williams played María Morales, a Mexican woman who dreams of becoming a bullfighter.

“Lost Boundaries”, 1949: Mel Ferrer, son of a Cuban father and an American mother, played a light-skinned black doctor who posed as white in an attempt to get a job.

"Winchester '73," 1950: Rock Hudson, a white actor of German, Swiss, English, and Irish descent, played a Native American character named Young Bull, who uttered the memorable line, "All white men are thieves." Apparently from parts of movies and also from land.

“Show Boat,” 1951: Ava Gardner played a mixed-race character who posed as white, making her marriage to a white man dangerous and illegal. Lena Horne, an actress who was actually of mixed race, was considered for the role but was turned down due to discomfort with the interracial love scenes.

“Othello”, 1952: one of the most famous black characters in literature is also one of the most commonly portrayed in blackface. But Orson Welles, who played the title character in this adaptation of the classic play, had the good sense to skip the blackface in favor of a "soft tan."

“Apache”, 1954 – go ahead and guess what kind of character Burt Lancaster played here.

“Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing”, 1955: Dr. Han Suyin, the mixed-race doctor from China who falls in love with an American in Hong Kong in this film, claims, "I'm Eurasian!" through the film. But the actress who played Suyin, Jennifer Jones, was neither European nor Asian; Jones was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma to American parents.

"The Tea House of the August Moon", 1956: Marlon Brando played a Japanese woman named Sakini.

“O Conqueror,” 1956: John Wayne plays Genghis Khan.

“The Ten Commandments”, 1956: American Charlton Heston and Russian actor Yul Brynner, both white, played a Hebrew hero and an Egyptian pharaoh, respectively, in the biblical epic.

“The King and I”, 1956: It was a busy year for Yul Brynner. In addition to playing Ramses II in "The Ten Commandments", Brynner starred as King Mongkut of Siam in what would become a lifetime role for him. (He played Mongkut 4,625 times on stage.)

“Touch of Evil,” 1958: Charlton Heston played a Mexican character with shades of brown that varied considerably throughout the film.

Imitation of Life, 1959: Susan Kohner, a mixed-race actress, won two Golden Globes for her portrayal of Sarah Jane, a mixed-race young woman. So far so good! But Kohner's mother was Mexican and his father Czech; Sarah Jane was supposedly half black and passed for white.

"West Side Story", 1961: Natalie Wood played Puerto Rican María.

"Breakfast at Tiffany's", 1961: If an offensive Japanese-related stereotype occurs to you, Mickey Rooney probably used it in his portrayal of Mr. Yunioshi. yellow face? Check. Bull teeth? I have it too. Outrageous accent? Yes. Rooney defended the role for years, but finally made an apology of sorts.

“King of Kings,” 1961: White actor Jeffrey Hunter played Jesus in another biblical epic populated almost entirely by white people playing characters of Middle Eastern descent.

“A Majority of One”, 1961: Alec Guinness, a white British actor, played Japanese businessman Koichi Asano.

“The Outsider”, 1961: Tony Curtis, a white actor of Hungarian descent, played Ira Hamilton Hayes, a Native American soldier creatively nicknamed “The Chief”.

"Lawrence of Arabia", 1962: Repeat offender Alec Guinness played Arab Prince Faisal.

"Cleopatra", 1963: Elizabeth Taylor played the last Egyptian pharaoh.

“Hud,” 1963: Patricia Neal, a white actress, won an Oscar for her role as Alma, a coveted housekeeper who dodges the advances of several men. In the book the movie was based on, “Alma” was “Halmea”, a black woman. The film's screenwriter later said, "We would have loved to keep her black for the movie", but "back then you just couldn't do that". She admitted that it wasn't “for lack of talent, there were at least half a dozen powerful black actresses who could have played that role. But the times weren't ready for that yet."

“The Face of Fu Manchu,” 1965: Before playing Saruman the White in The Lord of the Rings series, Christopher Lee was “a Chinese evil genius” with an extravagant beard and suspiciously narrowed eyes. The actor would play Fu Manchu in several sequels.

“The Greatest Story Ever Told,” 1965: White actor Max von Sydow played Jesus.

“Othello,” 1965: Laurence Olivier played the black-faced title character so outrageously that New York Times critic Bosley Crowther was forced to use an exclamation point in his outrage.revisionof the movie.

“Stay Away, Joe”, 1968: Elvis Presley played Joe Lightcloud, a Native American character.

“The Party,” 1968: Peter Sellers, a white British actor, played the title character, a swarthy-faced Indian named Hrundi V. Bakshi.

“The Wind and the Lion”, 1975: Sean Connery played Raisuli, a character loosely based on the real-life Mulai Ahmed er Raisuni, a sort of Moroccan Robin Hood figure.

“The Year of Living Dangerously”, 1982: Linda Hunt, a white actress, played a Chinese-Australian dwarf. We don't know either.

“A Passage to India”, 1984: Alec Guinness (hello again!) played Indian scholar Narayan Godbole.

“King David”, 1985: Richard Gere played David.

“Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins”, 1985: Joel Gray, a white man from Cleveland, played Chiun, a Korean martial arts master.

"Delta Force", 1986: Robert Forster played Abdul.

“Allan Quatermain & the Lost City of Gold”, 1986: Robert Donner, a white actor, played Swarma, a vaguely Asian guru who is always causing trouble. In stills from the film, Donner appears to be brown in the face and is doing something silly with his hands in every scene.

“Short Circuit”, 1986: white actor Fisher Stevens played Indian engineer Ben Jabituya.

“Curto Circuito 2”, 1988: A young Aziz Ansari was delighted to see this film. “An Indian main character? With a Caucasian love interest? In the 1980s? What's going on here?" he wondered. Well, brownface. A few years later, Ansari hopped on IMDB and discovered that "the Indian was white".concludingthat he was a "well-meaning, if slightly misguided, young actor who needed a job at a more culturally insensitive time".

"The Last Temptation of Christ", 1988: You already know the exercise. Biblical epic, so we have a white guy (Willem Dafoe this time) playing Jesus.

“Not Without My Daughter”, 1991: British-American actor Alfred Molina played Sayed Bozorg “Moody” Mahmoody, an abusive Iranian character.

“The House of the Spirits”, 1993: Winona Ryder, Meryl Streep, Vanessa Redgrave and Glenn Close portray Blanca Trueba, Clara del Valle, Nivea del Valle and Ferula Trueba, respectively, in this adaptation of Isabel Allende's novel. Despite being set in Chile and featuring characters supposedly of Latin American origin, the film's only black women played a prostitute, a rape victim, and a babysitter.

"Carlito's Way", 1993: Al Pacino played Puerto Rican "lisp" Carlito.

“Father of the Bride Part II”, 1995: Canadian-Jewish actor Eugene Levy played Mr. Habib, an Arab character.

“Starship Troopers,” 1997: White actor Casper Van Dien played Johnny Rico, a now-white character who was of Filipino descent in the book the film is based on.

“The Mask of Zorro”, 1998: Welsh actor Anthony Hopkins played the Spanish hero Zorro (as well as Antonio Banderas, who is actually Spanish).

“Pay It Forward,” 2000: Kevin Spacey played social studies professor Eugene Simonet, who was white in the film but black (and named Reuben St. Clair) in the book. Rumor has it that Denzel Washington was offered the role of Reuben but turned it down. Obviously, the next option was Kevin Spacey.

“The Human Stain”, 2003: Anthony Hopkins played Coleman Silk, a black teacher who passes for white.

“The Passion of the Christ”, 2004: white man Jim Caviezel played Jesus.

"Memoirs of a Geisha", 2005: Okay, this one didn't involve whites, but it caused problems. Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Ziyi, both Chinese actresses, played the Japanese characters Mameha and Sayuri, respectively. It made people angryacrossAsia: Japanese critics were outraged that Japanese actresses were not cast in the roles, and their Chinese counterparts resented seeing Chinese women in geisha roles, particularly given the story of Japanese soldiers kidnapping Chinese women and forcing them women to be sex slaves during World War II. 🇧🇷 🇧🇷

“World Trade Center,” 2006: William Mapother played Marine Sgt. Thomas, one of the men who helped rescue two Port Authority police officers from the rubble of the World Trade Center. In real life, Thomas is black; Mapother is white.

“A Mighty Heart”, 2007: Angelina Jolie played Mariane Pearl, the wife of kidnapped journalist Daniel Pearl. Pearl is a French woman of Afro-Cuban descent; jolie appeareddarken your skinand change the hair to the paper.

"Stuck", 2007: Mena Suvari played Brandi Boski, a character clearly based on Chante Mallard, who is black in real life. There might have been some plausible deniability here were it not for the decision to put Suvari's blonde hair in braids.

“30 Days of Night,” 2007: Josh Hartnett played Eben Oleson, a character of Inuit descent in the original comic book series.

“The Love Guru”, 2008: Canadian Mike Myers played supposed Indian guru Pitka (and “Young Pitka” and “Teenage Pitka”) in this comedy. He skipped the swarthy face, but opted for an elaborate brown beard. You know who didn't make a mistake in this movie? The character of Deepak Chopra, who was portrayed by Deepak Chopra.

“21”, 2008: Virtually every actor in this movie was racially miscast. The mostly white cast included Kevin Spacey, Jim Sturgess, and Jacob Pitts, among others, but nearly everyone involved in the real-life card counting scheme that inspired the film was of Asian descent.

“Dragonball: Evolution”, 2009: Justin Chatwin, a white Canadian actor, played the main character Goku, who was Japanese in the original manga on which the film was based.

“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”, 2009: Here's a surprise: In the early Harry Potter films, Lavender Brown was a Gryffindor student who appeared on screen several times but didn't have a large role. In these early films, she was played by black British actresses: Kathleen Cauley in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" and Jennifer Smith in "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban". But before Lavender Brown's role became a speaking role in "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," the filmmakers made an open call for the role and replaced Smith with Jessie Cave, a blonde British ballerina.

“Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time,” 2010: In a widely derided casting decision, Jake Gyllenhall was cast as Dastan, the aforementioned prince.

“The Social Network”, 2010: Max Minghella played Divya Narendra, who was one of the creators of HarvardConnection, the predecessor of Facebook. Minghella is a British actor of Chinese and European descent; Narendra is an American Indian.

“Avatar: The Last Airbender,” 2010: In the anime series that inspired this movie, all of the characters were Asian or Native American. In the film version, the three main protagonists were turned into white characters; only the villain remained a person of color.

“Drive,” 2011: Carey Mulligan played Irene, who was portrayed as white in the film but was Hispanic in the original novel. The script initially called for an "Irina", but the name was changed to "Irene" after Mulligan joined.

“Day of the Falcon”, 2011: Spanish swordsman Antonio Banderas played Emer Nesib, an Arab character, and white actor Mark Strong played Sultan Amar.

“Argo,” 2012: Ben Affleck played Tony Mendez, an American whose father was Mexican. Some people have criticized the casting choice, but Mendez has officially said that he doesn't consider himself Hispanic and wasn't opposed to Affleck playing him.

“The Lone Ranger”, 2013: Johnny Depp played Native American Tonto. Don't worry; Depp was adopted by the Comanche Nation a year before the film's release.

“Star Trek Into Darkness,” 2013: Benedict Cumberbatch played Khan, a villain of Indian descent.

“Warm Bodies,” 2013: Analeigh Tipton played Nora, who appeared white in the film but was half Ethiopian in the original book.

“Exodus, gods and kings”, 2014: where to start? In this film you can find Christian Bale as Moses; Australian Joel Edgerton as Ramses; John Turturro as Seti; The Spanish actress María Valverde as Séfora, Sigourney Weaver as Tuya and the British Ben Kingsley as Monja. What you won't find is anyone from Egypt in a leadership role.

“Noah”, 2014: This biblical epic does no better. Top billing goes to actors from New Zealand, the US and Great Britain, including Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins and Emma Watson.

“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” 2014: White actor William Fichtner played Eric Sacks, a villain often portrayed as Japanese; he will reprise the role in future films.

“Aloha,” 2015: Light-skinned Emma Stone starred as the lead, who was written as a mixed-race character with a Swedish mother and a half-Chinese, half-Hawaiian father.

“The Martian”, 2015: The filmmakers really mixed things up here. Mackenzie Davis, a white actress, played Mindy Park, who was Korean-American in the original novel. And they turned Venkat Kapoor, who was an Indian in the novel, into "Vincent", played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, a British actor of Nigerian descent.

Pan, 2015: Rooney Mara she played the Native American princess Tiger Lily, much to everyone's annoyance.

“Dr. Strange,” 2016: Tilda Swinton will play “The Ancient One,” a male Tibetan mystic.

“Ghost In the Shell,” 2017: Scarlett Johansson has signed on to play Motoko Kusanagi, who is Japanese in the anime series the film is based on.