Pablo Luna
Hollywood used to get away with “white-washing”, casting white actors to play non-white roles, but not anymore. Our more culturally sensitive generation will tolerate these Hollywood idiosyncrasies no longer. It reflects how much more diverse films are and how badly some white-washed movies have bombed.
Whereas Hollywood was originally intended for your typical white western audience, globalism and a push for more diverse voices have made the industry lean towards more non-white participation.
But if you were to predict the probabilities of a movies’ cast being mostly white, you would be right on the money. Still, we are trending towards more inclusion and that’s great.
In the meantime, let’s look at five big Hollywood films that bombed thanks to white-washing.
5 Recent Hollywood Movies that Bombed Thanks to White-washing
White-washing has become a sensitive topic for today’s filmmaking, but some producers are still so tone-deaf they’d insist on casting white actors on the belief they’re the breadwinners.
Thankfully, audiences have become less tolerant of this and have boycotted several films that blatantly white-washed.
Here are five times recent Hollywood films hilariously failed because of white-washing.
1. The Last Airbender (2010)
Reluctant excitement quickly turned to the five stages of grief when Nickelodeon’s beloved animated television series received highly suspect casting choices amongst a plethora of problems.
The main character, Aang, along with the rest of the supporting cast were largely Asian but were cast to be completely white. The entire concept of Avatar: The Last Airbender was based around Tibet and its surrounding areas. Hint: not white people.
But the white-washing was just the start of the film’s problems. The story, acting and directing all sucked.
The movie got a 5% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and lead actor Noah Ringer made one more film and was never heard from again.
2. Dragonball Evolution (2009)
Of all the terrible anime adaptations, you’ll be hard-pressed to find one that can outdo this insult. The idea to adapt the series was already met with mixed reactions. But upon news they a white actor was cast as Goku, the proverbial **** hit the fan.
You might argue that Goku was an alien and thus could’ve been any race, but just imagine if they cast Superman as an African-American.
The movie predictably bombed in both the box office and viewer reception and any planned sequels were immediately canned.
The movie’s title spelled as “Dragonball” as opposed to “Dragon Ball” may have been a subconscious effort to set itself apart from the cherished source material.
Fans of the anime, and everyone involved in this movie, then proceeded to erase this film from their memories.
3. The Lone Ranger (2013)
Poor Johnny Depp. Many might say his ongoing feud with ex-wife Amber Heard is why he hasn’t landed any big movie roles lately, but maybe this mockery of a film is probably the bigger reason.
Depp ill-advisedly played Tonto, the titular character’s Native American sidekick and the narrator of the story. Being a white actor playing a Native American was just the starting point to Depp’s problems here. He and co-star Armie Hammer had terrible on-screen chemistry.
The movie was a box-office bomb (third all-time in estimated loss) and was nominated for five Golden Raspberry Awards winning one.
To Depp’s credit, he stated he tried to “right the wrongs of the past” and also believed he had some Native American ancestry from a great-grandmother. As they say, the road to hell is paved by good intentions.
4. and 5. Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014) and Gods of Egypt (2016)
If you can’t differentiate between these two films, we don’t blame you. Both were set in Egypt, both used a predominantly white cast despite their characters, both insulted everyone misguided enough to give the films a chance.
Exodus: Gods and Kings would be Ridley Scott’s (and everyone in the film’s) biggest mistake as it was a lewd white-washed take on the Biblical tale of “The Exodus”. The movie was so bad it was banned in both Egypt and the United Arab Emirates for “historical inaccuracies”.
Gods of Egypt two years later did not learn from its 2014 counterpart and actually doubled down by casting all-white actors to play the titular Gods. The movie was a box office bomb and was nominated for five Raspberry Awards.
Director Alex Proyas came out and openly apologized for the “inaccurate casting”. Well, that’s something.
