As the big budget film adaptation of David Mitchell's novel Cloud Atlas opened in Canada and U.S. over the weekend, it joins the ranks as one of the most epic displays of "yellowface" in film in a decade.
Directed by Tom Twyker and Lana and Andy Wachowski, the film's trailers, television ads and web banners not only place heavy-hitters Tom Hanks and Halle Berry in the film, but showcase creepy images of non-Asian actors wearing "slanty eyes." If you felt weirded out or was reminded of the times you may have heard someone yell, "Hey, chinky eyes!" from across the street -- you are not alone.
The film opened to mixed reviews -- some called it ambitious, others described it as muddled -- as it attempts to knit the storylines of six reincarnated souls who traverse countries, generations and ethnicities. One of the stories is set in Neo Seoul in the year 2144, where Jim Sturgess and Keith David wear makeup and eye-enhancements to appear ethnically Asian.
This is nothing short of arrogant, bringing a whole new meaning to the term "Asian fail."
Reading about this first on Racebending.com in August, it felt like being personally and professionally spit in the face. As an advocate for diversity, particularly in the representation of diversity in television and film, it was painful to see the trailers on TV and online. Not only are the images unconvincing, they are dismissive. They announce to the world, "We don't care what you think."
The film signals to viewers that if enough money is thrown at it, and enough celebrity worked in, it can't be wrong -- and anyway, there's nothing you can do about it. Accept it. It's Hollywood. All fiction films require some pretending, but this one wants you to believe that with a little adjustment to his eyes, Jim Sturgess is now a Korean character, as though there was nothing more to being Korean-looking.
There is a long history of this practice in Hollywood and it has always been racist.
Jim Sturgess in "Cloud Atlas"
The arrogance inherent to this practice speaks of privilege. You know the kind. It's the same privilege that suggested American viewers weren't ready to watch Bruce Lee or any other Asian-looking man as the lead character in "Kung Fu, The Legend" that David Carradine was sufficiently Asian to play Kwai Chang Caine.
It's also the same privilege that allowed Canadians to pretend the forced detainment and exile of Canadian-born Japanese during the 1940s was acceptable.
I am still sore over the failure to cast an Asian actor for the obvious role of Caine. Adding salt to the wound, the series came back as a spinoff in the 1990s, and yes, it too failed to cast an Asian actor for Caine, and instead added another white male lead!
"Cloud Atlas" reopens this wound with precision and malice.
Considering that the North American TV and film industry has failed to demonstrate any real concern for depicting Asian American/Canadian men in meaning ways, should it care now? Perhaps.
Canadian-born East and South Asians have the highest median incomes among all other ethnic groups in Canada. They are the economic mainstream in Canada, even if they are not seen as the cultural mainstream. Persist with this inequity at your own peril.
Andy Wachowski told HuffPost Entertainment, "But our intention is the antithesis of that idea. The intention is to talk about things that are beyond race." Film school is full of student projects made with good intent. Are they graded on the intent? Of course not!
Imagine your mayor showing up at a Halloween Party dressed in yellowface, as Warner Oland's infamous racist caricature Fu Manchu or Charlie Chan. Would attending celebrities make this any more acceptable? Absolutely not. It would likely be the end of a political career. It's unacceptable in the public space. It's unacceptable in any space where the details matter.
What if Sonny Chiba had not played Hattori Hanzo in Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill." Or if veteran Chinese actor Gordon Liu, who played Pai Mei, had been replaced by some actor in yellowface. He wasn't, because the details count when you want to make an epic film.
My pain over this failed detail in "Cloud Atlas" stems not just from the 100-year-old racist history of yellowface, or not being able getting over the personal injustice suffered by Bruce Lee, but from having met so many unmistakably Asian-looking (and even ambiguously Asian-looking) American and Canadian actors who could have played this role.
The saddest thing is that most, if not all, are not in a position of privilege to say anything (especially on Twitter). Instead, they have to bite down and just take it. "Cloud Atlas "is like a punch in the ribs, even to those actors who have already moved to Asia to stay working.
It hurts too much to sit back and passively watch them get spit on by a big budget bully. So I am officially making "Cloud Atlas" the film I never saw. Yes, an old school boycott. I'm going to stand up for the sacrifice these actors make to fight the good fight for meaningful roles. Even it means being unpopular, and taking a few punches to the face or a kick in the ribs. Bring it.
I'm taking the money I'll save to frame the cover of November's issue of GQ.
Follow Alden Habacon on Twitter: www.twitter.com/aldenhabacon
Love this movie and wil do this rest of my life, the music characters etc. wonderfull and greatest
movies I have seen...
thanks Peter (Haarlem) Netherlands
to korean guy like me. Hollywood White racism using yellowface is to insult Asian male like
myself. Don't talk about how I feel. Your view is your own perspective based on your race, not as same view as my race. We certainly are having different experience in this life as your view
suggest.
On the other hand, some of the people who are so virulently opposed to a film that is trying to fight racism may be upset at that, while pretending not to be racist themselves. Methinks the critics doth protest too much.
impossible, and only way they do use make-up trick. That's how Hollywood racist make-up has continue. It does not matter how your race not see as racism. The victim sees as as they saw
in the past film and they see today film. This is white racist film.
1. a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.
2. a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.
3. hatred or intolerance of another race or other races"
(Dictionary.com).
The movie does not promote racism in any of these senses. There is no message of one race being superior to another, discrimination or intolerance of other races.
I don't know why people believe that when one person plays a person of a different race it must be racist because racially insensitive societies used to do such things. There is no ill intent in Cloud Atlas like there is in other cases of "yellow face". It's all about how interconnected and unified we are, not about segregating and discrimination. Of course they could have hired Asians for the roles that white people play, but one of the key thematic devices in the film is having the actors play multiple roles in multiple times (one that happens to be in Korea in the novel). And read the novel: In the future, facial reconstruction is a big business and could easily account for the "odd" looking characters.
Racism still exists, but let's not call racism where there is none. It only distracts from true cases of racism that actually do need to be condemned and stopped.
The film plays to major stereotypes and terrible prosthetics. Despite the spiritual twist and "modern thinking", this is still Hollywood and it seems like the smoke screen to make yellow facing acceptable worked a charm on most people. "We're all the same, our lives inter weaved and transcended as one in history, but a male Asian actor in modern Korea? impossible, can't be done, lets just get the eyes to slant a little more"
Cloud Atlas has tanked at the box office anyway, so hopefully good bye pretentious, highly ironic film
Here racebending serves the theme of the movie, the reincarnation yet similarity of souls. Your principals are good, but as always, context is king and this choice was conscious to preserve the core theme. That theme would be compromised if they did not racebend.
The yellow facing still removed any asian actors from playing any major role, even a black guy yellow faces, lol.
you see this is about asian male actors being rubbed out of Hollywood, asian actresses are stereotypically used as exotic objects in most Hollywood films, same as this film. Same old Hollywood.
Yellow facing/ black facing in Hollywood was a deliberate act to either insult or cover up minority actors from the big screen, so it's strange that you thought there was actually respect to male Asian actors in this film who were played by white actors.
If you were upset over non-whites portraying whites, why not express why you understood the author's feelings?
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-big-picture/6488-Skin-Deeper
This wasn't about insulting an ethnicity, it was about denying the opportunity to play as an asian guy in a future KOREA, instead hundreds of hours and thousands were spent plodding poor makeup on actors to fancy dress.