Cast aside: Indian, Asian actors get sidelined in Hollywood

Hollywood hasn't seen a lead actor of Indian descent from the time a young mahout named Sabu Dastagir was typecast in movies such as 'Elephant Boy' and 'Jungle Book' in the 1940s.While Priyanka Chopra's small-screen debut earlier this month as the lead in the terrorism-thriller `Quantico' is perceived as a breakthrough for actors of Indian-origin on television (where there appears to be more diversity), big screen remains a big disappointment for people of Indian-origin, with stereotyped casting and downsized roles.
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Over the weekend, Media Action Network for AsianAmericans (MANAA), an organization that monitors how the mass media portrays and covers people of AsianPacific Islander descent, came down on the latest instance of Hollywood's ethnic sidelining that will resonate greatly with Indians who believe they have a good run of both science and entertainment in America.
It turns out that in a sci-fi novel 'The Martians', Nasa's director of Mars operations is “Dr Venkat Kapoor", a decidedly Asian Indian character who identifies religiously as being “a Hindu." But in the Ridley Scott movie released last week, his name is changed to “Vincent Kapoor",'' and he is played by British black actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, who says his father was “a Hindu" but that his mother was “Baptist“. The change, implies that his father was Indian but his mother was Black, MANAA observed, noting that in the same movie, the role of Mindy Park, a Korean-American character, was played by Caucasian Mackenzie Davis. In the movie, both Kapoor and Park play crucial roles in Nasa's attempt to rescue astronaut Mark Watney played by Matt Damon who has been left on Mars by his crew, who thought he died in a sand storm.
“Was Ridley Scott not comfortable having two sets of Asian Americans talking to each other?" asks MANAA Founding President Guy Aoki, noting that so few projects are written specifically with Asian American characters in them and by changing them to a white woman and black man, a “great opportunity to give meaty roles to talented Asian American actors -and boost their careers -which would've enabled our community to become a greater part of the rescue team has been lost."
“This feel-good movie, which has attracted Oscar buzz, shouldn't get any awards for casting," he added.
Indeed, this is not the first time Ridley Scott has been attacked for casting exclusionism. He was also panned for casting Caucasian actors in Egyptian roles in his previous film `Exodus: Gods and Kings'. Earlier this year, MANAA led the media outcry against Cameron Crowe's film 'Aloha', where most of the cast members were white, Hawaiians only spoke in a seven minute scene, and white actress Emma Stone played a character that was supposed to be half Hawaiian Chinese. Crowe later apologized. But Scott, according to MAANA, is unapologetic, arguing that he can't find financing for a film where he has to explain that his lead actor is “Mohammad so-and-so from such-and-such. I'm just not going to get it financed."
Apparently , even Asian directors are not immune from such pressure. MAANA points to M Night Shyamalan, an Indian-American, who took 'Avatar: The Last Airbender', ' a popular Saturday morning cartoon series populated with Asian and Inuit characters, and cast white actors as the good guys and Dev Patel as the bad guy.
“This insulting practice of white-washing has got to stop," says MANAA president Aki Aleong, a long-time actor himself. “Alarmingly , it has been increasing in frequency . Today's audiences expect multiracial casts in entertainment, as they reflect the multi-cultural environment in which they've grown up." In fact, he points out, three of the TV series that are “doing very well" this television season star 'Asians actors: Fresh off the Boat', 'Dr. Ken', and Priyanka Chopra-starrer 'Quantico'.
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