User:Kassidiamos/Whitewashing (beauty)

Article Issues
The issues with this article include the lead not being neutral, global examples (they only have Japan,) lack of citations and dead links, and not a big variety in white washing beauty examples.

My Plan
I plan to add a political examples section and add to the film section.

Film
In 2017, Rupert Sanders’ Hollywood rendition of the 1995 Japanese manga Ghost In the Shell came under scrutiny for casting a white actress (Scarlett Johansson,) to play the Japanese protagonist. Though this wasn't physical whitewashing through skin whitening or hair relaxant, it is still considered whitewashing since a white actress was used instead of a Japanese one and the role was rewritten for a white actress.

In the 2014 film Aloha, directed by Cameron Crowe, Emma Stone (a white actress) was cast for the role of Captain Allison Ng, a woman who was partially Hawaiian. Similar to Ghost In the Shell, a white actress was used in place of a person of color, effectively whitewashing the role and the film itself.

In Harry Potter. Lavender Brown is one of the minor characters was originally played by a black actress. She was replaced by a white actress later on.

Japan
A Japanese term called "bihaku" refers to skin whitening products. A 1997 study valued the face-whitening market at approximately ¥160 billion yen.

Edited Film Examples Section
In 2017, Rupert Sanders’ Hollywood rendition of the 1995 Japanese manga Ghost In the Shell came under scrutiny for casting a white actress (Scarlett Johansson,) to play the Japanese protagonist. Though this wasn't physical whitewashing through skin whitening or hair relaxant, it is still considered whitewashing since a white actress was used instead of a Japanese one and the role was rewritten for a white actress.

In the 2014 film Aloha, directed by Cameron Crowe, Emma Stone (a white actress) was cast for the role of Captain Allison Ng, a woman who was partially Hawaiian. Similar to Ghost In the Shell, a white actress was used in place of a person of color, effectively whitewashing the role and the film itself.

In Harry Potter. Lavender Brown is one of the minor characters was originally played by a black actress. She was replaced by a white actress later on.Whitewashing (beauty)

in films is commonly identified when a non white role is casted by a white person. An example that dates back to 2007 but still endures heavy criticism in 2022 is the biopic film A Mighty Heart which was directed by Michael Winterbottom. In this film, Angelina Jolie who is white played Mariane Pearl who is of French black descent. Speculations on why a black actor wasn’t casted to portray the real life Mariane Pearl began to occur. A white actress portraying a black woman in a biopic film is whitewashing the beauty standards of the real life Mariane Pearl.

Furthermore, dating back to the 1970s Greek films have promoted the idea of whitewashing. In some Greek films, those of African descent are put beneath their white counterparts as they’re seen as less of beauty, intelligence, and European culture. In these films a mockery is made out of those of African descent, only for the Greek film industry to call It “just a joke” that holds no merit.

New Political Figures Examples Section
Political figures have also been known to engage in whitewashing beauty standards. Former governor of Louisiana Bobby Jindal’s, 2008 portrait featured a whitewashed Bobby Jindal. Bobby Jindal is Indian yet appears white in the portrait. Many speculated as to why Bobby Jindal’s portrait was painted to appeal to European beauty standards and in this case European beauty standards in politics. Bobby Jindal’s official political portrait even sparked controversy on popular social media platforms in 2015 accusing the portrait as not even looking like the real Bobby Jindal whowho has a much more brown skin tone. Bobby Jindal even accentuates on a surface level to white beauty standards as he uses a different name under his political  reign. His real first name is Piyush but goes by a more whitewashed first name which is Bobby.