Whitewashing, a history

Mon, 14 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

All I have to say is that whitewashing has been going on since as long as Hollywood has existed -- it's a tradition -- and rather than non-white people complaining about it, they should embrace it. It will make going to the movies so much easier and more fun. But there are just a few things you need to understand.

First, stop watching movies as ethnic people and start watching them as white people. There's nothing that white people like more than seeing other white people in movies and on television. When you go to the movies with your ethnic "judgment" eyes, you miss my point. Watch as a white person, and suddenly your outrage turns to understanding and laughter.

Take a minute to walk to your limousine in my Gucci shoes, and you'll realize that I'm just trying to make people smile. Mickey Rooney with buckteeth and a crazy accent in "Breakfast at Tiffany's"? It's so much funnier than finding a real Chinese actor just talking like himself. Then you'd have to get a screenwriter to actually write genuinely funny lines for that character. You get so much more comedy bang with buckteeth and a funny accent. I mean, it made me laugh. Many people, including myself, were also convinced that Charlton Heston truly was a Mexican/Native American/Egyptian/Ape who talked to God. And I think I convinced a lot of Asians that Genghis Khan really did look like John Wayne back in the '60s. "Short Circuit" was one of my biggest hit movies and I was completely convinced that Fisher Stevens was Indian. Who knew he was a Jewish guy from New York? That accent was spot on!

Salon.com > Aasif Mandvi

Whitewashing, a history