Asian Actors Not Hired To Play Roles In Production Set In Ancient China

Asian-American actors in California were pushed aside from being cast in a new stage production set in ancient China. Standards for ethnic casting need clarification.

Comments

[Crankcase08]

10:17 PM on 08/06/2012

There's currently a production of Shakespeare's 'Julius Caesar' in London with the title part being played by a black man. Anyone here prepared to criticise that? Go on, surprise me.

[dopplerthesexybeast]

05:10 PM on 08/06/2012

Let's hire Jackie Chan to play Chuck Norris in a biopic next year. Surely no one will notice. Better yet, I think we should get Denzel Washington to play George Washington... because that would be totally historically accurate. Totally.

[LittleL]

07:24 PM on 08/06/2012

When it's a biopic about Gandhi...it's okay for Ben Kingsley to play the role. When Prince of Persia was cast, it's okay for Jake Gyllenhaal to play the role. When The Last Airbender was cast, it's okay for the leads to be white. When the Engineer in Miss Saigon was cast, it's okay for Jonathan Pryce to play the role. When the Chinese Emperor was cast in the Nightingale, it's okay for a white person to play the role. "Surely no one will notice." You know for a fact it is completely acceptable for white people to play different ethnicities including their own. But Asian will only be able to play Asian, and, as you can see, from true factual examples, we don't even get that privilege.

[dopplerthesexybeast]

12:33 AM on 08/08/2012

It's unfortunate, but sadly it is true. The day we have an Asian play a white historical figure, I will clap my hands and applaud the entertainment industry.