By: Nguyen
What is the reasoning behind the lack of Asian American actors in leading roles?
My opinion is that the movie studios have no guts to take a risk on Asian-American actors and of course systemic racism in the Entertainment industry.
Left: Jet Li, Bruce Lee, Donnie Yen & Jackie Chan
When I ask my Non-Asian friends as well as Asian friends, “Can you name some Asian actors in leading roles?”, they always say: “Jackie Chan” and “Jet Li” (occasionally Bruce Lee). It’s pretty sad and funny that all these Asian actors are associated with martial arts and nothing else. Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, Asian men were always portrayed as “Mr. Miyagi” (wise elderly person), “kung fu masters”, “nerds”, “asexual friend” and so forth. What about Asian romantic leads, got any of those?
According to Annenberg (2015) when looking at the top 100 films of 2007-2016 (900 movies, 39,788 characters):
- 44 films have NO Asian speaking characters
- 14 out of 100 films had leads or co-leads played by 16 actors from underrepresented racial groups.
So what is wrong about the lack of Asian leading roles?
The lack of representation of Asian American actors along with perpetuating the same stereotypical roles (e.g., Chinese gangster, Kungfu masters, ninjas, nerds, prostitutes, dragon ladies, etc) can lead to real life consequences. For instance, online dating due to the emasculation of Asian men, sexual violence against Asian women, bullying in sports, and internalized racism. The same old stereotypical roles can have a long-lasting imprint on Non-Asian people and how they interact with Asians.
For instance (Fox reporter interview and mock Asian people, and Alexandra Wallace former UCLA student):
Annenberg (2014) mentioned that Asian males in the top 100 films in 2014 were less likely than White, Black, and males from “other” racial groups to be shown in sexy clothing (p<0.01). In addition, Black males were more likely than Asian males to be referred to as physically attractive (p<0.05). These number seen below were outputted using Chi-square.
The percentage in sexy attire by race in Top 100 films in 2014:
- 7.2% White Actors
- 6% Hispanic Actors
- 11.8% Black Actors
- 1.4% Asian Actors
The percentage referenced as attractive by ethnicity in Top 100 films in 2014:
- 2.7% White Actors
- 5.7% Black Actors
- 0.7 Asian Actors
It did somewhat improve in 2016 for Asian men:
The percentage in sexy attire by race in Top 100 films in 2016:
- 5.9% White Actors
- 4% Hispanic Actors
- 6% Black Actors
- 5.3% Asian Actors
The percentage referenced as attractive by ethnicity in Top 100 films in 2016:
- 3.6% White Actors
- 3% Black Actors
- 3.8% Asian Actors
I am a bit skeptical about the increase in percentage in the “sexy attire” and “referenced as attractive” when referring to Asian men in 2016 films, since the movies in 2016 that I’ve observed that have Asian men were “sidekicks” and non-leading men:
- Doctor Strange (Benedict Wong)
- The Jungle Book (Neel Sethi)
- The Magnificent Seven (Lee Byung-hun)
- The Handmaiden (Foreign film: Ha Jung‑woo)
- Star Trek Beyond (John Cho)
- The Great Wall (Andy Lau)
- The Monkey King 2 (Foreign film: Aaron Kwok)
- Jason Bourne (Riz Ahmed)
- Skiptrace (Jackie Chan)
- The Edge of Seventeen (Hayden Szeto)
- Office Christmas Party (Randall Park)
- Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Donnie Yen, Jiang Wen, Riz Ahmed)
- Dangal (Foreign film: Aamir Khan)
None of these movies mentioned above (other than foreign films) have Asian / Asian American actors in a leading role.
- White American 76.6 %
- Black American 13.4 %
- Asian American 5.8 %
- American Indian or Alaska Native 1.3 %
(United States Census Bureau, 2017)
According to UCLA (2016), Caucasian was overrepresented among all top movies in 2016, while the minority groups were significantly underrepresented. However, Black representation is much closer to the demographics of the US population (13.4%)
- White Actors: 78.1%
- Black Actors: 12.5%
- Hispanic Actors: 2.7%
- Asian Actors: 3.1%
- Mixed: 3%
- Native: 0.5%
As a reader, you may probably say:
“Wait a minute … the percentage of roles by ethnicity is so close to the US demographic statistics from the US Census Bureau, I know minorities are underrepresented, but we are getting there!”
Hold your horses! There are stark differences in the QUALITY of roles minorities actors get in contrast to their white colleagues.
According to UCLA (2016, pg. 14), they found that leading roles by race in top theatrical films in 2016:
- 86.1% were white actors
- 13.9 % were minorities which are nearly unchanged from 13.6% in 2015 (or 12.9 percent in 2014)
Essentially, 1.4 out of 10 lead actors are people of colour!
Ridley Scott, Quentin Tarantino and 4 Fellow Filmmakers| Hollywood Reporter
Could the reason for the inability to produce leading roles for people of colour be due to directors and writers?
87% of the directors of theatrical films in 2016 were white. And the writers on those movies were 91.9% white, with only 8.1% of the writers non-white (UCLA, 2016)
Here is a story of an Asian artist and his struggles due to racism in the entertainment industry:
In conclusion
UCLA also mentioned that based on top 173 films in 2016:
“Movies with casts that were 20 percent minority or less made up a major of all movies in 2016 and had the lowest global box office.”
Therefore, movie studios should recognize that having fewer people of colour in films will have horrible results in the global box office.
Also, Motion Picture Association of America – Theatrical Market Statistics (2016) mentioned that in 2016 the number of African American, and Asian/Other frequent moviegoers increased in contrast to 2015, while the number of caucasian frequent moviegoers declined from 2012 to 2016. In addition, per capita attendance increased for African Americans and the Asian/Other audiences compared to 2015. The Asian/Other audiences were the highest annual attendance per capita in 2016. They went to the movies an average of 6.1 times in the year! (They really love Marvel films 😉 )These statistics show that movie studio executives cannot make an excuse by saying “white people are the only ones watching films in theatres, thus white actors should be the lead protagonist”.
Annenberg (2015) solution to prevent systematic racism on screen and behind the camera is to:
- Set target inclusion goals
- Combat implicit and explicit bias
- Equity Rider
- Create inclusive consideration list
- Shareholder Activism
- Ensure environments do not trigger stereotypes
- Support inclusive films
John Cho – By Elizabeth Weinberg
We started to see an Asian American actor, John Cho finally becoming a leading man. After the popular trend of #StarringJohnCho two years ago, the Asian American community has been very vocal about Hollywood. For instance, the movie The Ghost in the Shell (2016) with Scarlett Johansson as the protagonist caused a huge discussion of whitewashing, since Asian American voices are starting to get louder when they see the injustices in Hollywood.
John Cho said in Vanity Fair about his new movie Searching (2018):
“…what is meaningful to me is seeing the image of a whole, loving Asian-American family [more] than anything else,”
He continued:
“It’s very rare in movies. The image of that is much more startling than it should be. It was surprising to me how powerful it was. I want the future to be where it’s completely normal to see an Asian-American family on-screen.”
Please go watch Searching (2018) in theatres on August 24, we need to make history and show Hollywood that an Asian American protagonist can sell tickets!!
Resource:
History of Asian American Men in America
Feel free to comment below your opinions and feedback.