"Sighing, he dipped his brush and passed it along the topmost plank; repeated the operation; did it again; compared the insignificant whitewashed streak with the far-reaching continent of unwhitewashed fence, and sat down on a tree-box discouraged. Jim came skipping out at the gate with a tin pail, and singing Buffalo Gals. Bringing water from the town pump had always been hateful work in Tom’s eyes, before, but now it did not strike him so. He remembered that there was company at the pump. White, mulatto, and negro boys and girls were always there waiting their turns..."
- Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer, Chapter Two, published in 1876.
It's a curious ouroboros of fate that the idea of "whitewashing," as it pertains to the modern practice of film and television casting white actors in roles that were crafted for people of colour, finds its roots in the practice of painting over a surface with a solution of lime and water. "White" in the America of Mark Twain was a symbol of purity and cleanliness, the absence of dirt. It's through this original meaning that the slang use of "whitewash," i.e. to cover up or otherwise mask someone or something's crimes, came to be.
It's curiouser still how the newest meaning, "whitewash," has taken on a literal sense in skin colour. Indeed, as Twain wrote, "White, mulatto, and negro boys and girls were always there waiting their turns..." though of course he did not and could not have assigned the hidden meaning that quote now takes in this context: that People of Colour in Hollywood are still waiting their turn on the big screen.
Personal photo from my trip to Beijing: a wax Jackie Chan, not a real Jackie Chan
There are times it seems when we may finally be collectively reaching a turning point in how we cast films. The commercial success of blockbusters like Black Panther or the high ratings of TV series like Black Lightning tell us that audiences are more than ready for films with people of colour in the lead, yet studios still wring their hands with anxiety, or throw them up in dismay, whenever audiences question their steadfast commitment to an endless cavalcade of young white men.
Yet it's not merely a slavish devotion to always putting the "correct" race forward that promotes good representation. Increasingly, people of colour are craving - and very occasionally, being given - the opportunity to see themselves in roles traditionally reserved for white people. Case in point: the immortal Iron Fist.
Forgetting for a moment that Netflix's Iron Fist was a critical and commercial bomb solely on the merits of its garbage writing, garbage acting, and garbage action, the series was subjected to scrutiny from day one, originating as it did in a somewhat problematic comic book celebrating a white man's journey to becoming the Best Asian Bro Ever. Coupled with this was the promise that a white man would be given the lead role, and you had a recipe for controversy galore.
For my part, I was never ANGRY at Iron Fist. I was...exasperated. See, key to the ongoing defence of Finn Jones' casting was the repeated insistence that Iron Fist MUST be white, for a core part of his characterization is an alienation from the mythical powers he is granted, and the culture behind them. This "fish out of water" backstory, as the series' promoters claimed, was intrinsic to their thematic story arc.
Here's my problem: in what way is skin colour the sole definition of alienation?
Personal photo from my trip to Beijing: same same but different...a subway is a subway, but Chinese
When I went to Beijing, I was visiting a country that I had never been to before. I speak very little to no Mandarin (or Cantonese, or even Toishanese, the language of my Chinese grandparents). I know about ten characters. And you bet your ass that I don't know a damn thing about kung fu.
It's this mistaken belief that second-or-more generation immigrants have greater ties to the countries of their ancestors, rather than to the countries of their birth, that is so harmful in modern rhetoric. When you hear a racist screaming at a person of colour to "go back to Africa/China/India/etc.," they are refusing to recognize that person of colour as a fellow citizen of equal rights and equal opportunity.
So too does the person who claims that an Asian-American in the role of Iron Fist could not POSSIBLY be alienated from Asian tropes and culture. In Beijing, I was the alien. If my skin tone and facial features weren't an obvious clue to my outsider identity, my accent certainly was. And that's OK. I expect to be an alien in most countries around the world, and I enjoy that feeling and celebrate the differences when I encounter them. But I deeply resent being made to feel like an outsider in the country of my birth, and that's really what whitewashing is all about.
I don't want to sit my turn at the pump, I want to be part and equal, participating in all our shitty comic book adaptations. Lashing ourselves to the expectation that skin colour and culture go hand-in-hand is a recipe for failure. Cultures are born out of shared experiences, shared pain, and shared celebration. The more we extend the invitation to participate, and the more we respect identities as complex and unique, and not just a matter of appearances, the quicker we'll get past whitewashing, and on to better and greater things.
This is Part Three in a Series of posts I will be writing in May 2018, which is Asian Heritage Month in Canada. I will be writing about my experience visiting Beijing, my perceptions of Asian representation in media and art, and more. Part One is here. Part Two is here. If you'd like to subscribe to my posts, click here.
Thank you for reading!