Constance Wu, actress for hit show Fresh Off the Boat sitcom, has recently commented on Matt Damon’s casting in The Great Wall movie, claiming that the casting of Damon ensures the “racist myth” of whitewashing.
Wu has recently commented on social media her dislike of the casting choice for The Great Wall, which tells a story about a lone white man saving the Chinese Song Dynasty from peril. She went on to say heroes don’t always look like Damon and that heroes are people of minority descent. She mentioned great civil rights leaders, Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr., as her defense for her opinion.
Wu’s also stated how Matt Damon’s role in a majority Chinese-casted film produces the myth that the Caucasian race is superior to other cultures. She claims that this practice can make audiences believe that a white man is the only person who can save the degenerate minority population (Aka. China).
Lately, there has been a lot of backlash against whitewashing cast practices in feature films, like in 2016’s God’s of Egypt movie. Before the film’s release, the film was criticized for not casting Egyptian actors and actresses for their film that took place in Ancient Egypt. Even though an African American actor, Chadwick Boseman, was cast as a supporting actor, his character embodied the repulsive magical Negro archetype.
Alex Proyas, the director of God’s of Egypt, commented during the backlash that since the film was financed and made mostly in Australia, they demanded more film roles to native Australians. Proyas also commented that the film was meant to be a fantastical story with Egypt as the film’s backdrop. Although he tried his best to reason with audiences who were disappointed in the lack of minority casting, the film only made 145 million dollars at the box office. The film’s overall budget was 140 million dollars, causing the film to become a huge financial flop.
Constance Wu continued to comment on social media that it is not the actor/actresses, casting crew or the studio’s fault for this practice of typecasting and whitewashing. She claims that everyone in the filming industry has to be aware of how they portray characters of ethnic backgrounds.
