Edward Zo - Too Asian
for Light Yagami
Actor Edward Zo is the latest to comment on the whitewashing furore surrounding the US live action Death Note movie.
Yet his might be the hardest-hitting commentary to date, simply because it relates personal experience to back up what so many are saying about inappropriate casting bias.
Ever since a strong rumour circulated that Nat Wolff (Paper Towns, Naked Brothers' Band) will star in the Death Note US remake, there has been much dissent amongst the masses. Voices raised on Twitter and other social networks, petitions, and a lot of angry talk elsewhere.
The issue being that Light Yagami is a Japanese man, who is being played by a white American half-Jewish actor. The important fact there being 'white'.
It feeds into a wider, quite repugnant tradition, whereby only white actors are cast in meaningful roles (or indeed 'roles' full-stop much of the time). Even if it means changing the ethnicity of the character in order to do so.
But one American actor - who was told openly not to bother auditioning for Death Note because he's too Asian - is hitting back.
Yet his might be the hardest-hitting commentary to date, simply because it relates personal experience to back up what so many are saying about inappropriate casting bias.
Ever since a strong rumour circulated that Nat Wolff (Paper Towns, Naked Brothers' Band) will star in the Death Note US remake, there has been much dissent amongst the masses. Voices raised on Twitter and other social networks, petitions, and a lot of angry talk elsewhere.
The issue being that Light Yagami is a Japanese man, who is being played by a white American half-Jewish actor. The important fact there being 'white'.
It feeds into a wider, quite repugnant tradition, whereby only white actors are cast in meaningful roles (or indeed 'roles' full-stop much of the time). Even if it means changing the ethnicity of the character in order to do so.
But one American actor - who was told openly not to bother auditioning for Death Note because he's too Asian - is hitting back.
Edward Zo's Racist Hollywood? Death Note Whitewashing YouTube Testimony
Edward Zo's video message to Hollywood is twenty minutes long, yet well worth affording the time to watch.
It's not merely a rant from an actor feeling entitled to something because of his ethnicity. It's an intelligent, multi-faceted look at the inherent racism of the film industry as a whole.
There's plenty of background, giving history and context, before zooming in on the specifics facing 'actors of colour' in Hollywood today. Not least that there just aren't that many roles with 'layers and depths' available for those who aren't white. Light Yagami should have been one of them.
This isn't just about an actor thwarted in a sought after part. It matters in a much wider setting.
Zo emphasizes the fact that visibility is key here. One demographic dominates the movie industry, and media per se. Whether we wish it or not, such things corrupt our perceptions of other cultures, races, classes, or whatever else feels unknown despite being part of the same human story.
Edward Zo is not Bruce Lee, nor is he Jackie Chan, yet he frequently encounters folk for whom those two gentlemen are their only frame of reference for his skin colour and features.
It's not merely a rant from an actor feeling entitled to something because of his ethnicity. It's an intelligent, multi-faceted look at the inherent racism of the film industry as a whole.
There's plenty of background, giving history and context, before zooming in on the specifics facing 'actors of colour' in Hollywood today. Not least that there just aren't that many roles with 'layers and depths' available for those who aren't white. Light Yagami should have been one of them.
This isn't just about an actor thwarted in a sought after part. It matters in a much wider setting.
Zo emphasizes the fact that visibility is key here. One demographic dominates the movie industry, and media per se. Whether we wish it or not, such things corrupt our perceptions of other cultures, races, classes, or whatever else feels unknown despite being part of the same human story.
Edward Zo is not Bruce Lee, nor is he Jackie Chan, yet he frequently encounters folk for whom those two gentlemen are their only frame of reference for his skin colour and features.
Edward Zo, not Jackie Chan, nor even Bruce Lee. What else have you got?
For Death Note fans, there's the added impetus of Zo's personal experience. A manga fan since childhood, he has long been passionate about Death Note.
Hence the excitement when he learned that a live action Death Note movie was being made in his native USA. It sounded like the kind of vehicle crying out for talented Asian-American actors. He couldn't be more wrong.
Informal inquiries, regarding auditions for his dream role of Light Yagami, led to the grapevine rustling back some unsettling news.
Hence the excitement when he learned that a live action Death Note movie was being made in his native USA. It sounded like the kind of vehicle crying out for talented Asian-American actors. He couldn't be more wrong.
Informal inquiries, regarding auditions for his dream role of Light Yagami, led to the grapevine rustling back some unsettling news.
This would have been an amazing opportunity for an actor of colour, for an Asian actor, to take the global stage and break barriers and break stereotypes... (but) they were not looking to see Asian actors for the role of Light Yagami.
~ Edward Zo, Racist Hollywood? Death Note Whitewashing, YouTube, October 9th 2015
Despite being blatantly told not to bother applying, Edward Zo brushed aside the grapevine rhetoric enough to pursue the part through official channels. He asked his manager to submit his profile to Death Note's casting director.
He heard nothing back. Just the news that we all heard, which is that Nat Wolff is in 'final negotiations' to play Light Yagami.
No Asian actor at all, but an apple pie, ex-Nickelodeon, white American.
Not that Edward Zo has anything against Nat Wolff. He enjoyed the Naked Brothers Band and thought Wolff was great in his recently released movie Paper Towns. Nor is any of this necessarily Nat Wolff's fault.
Nevertheless, it feels, smells and looks like cultural imperialism from Zo's point of view.
He heard nothing back. Just the news that we all heard, which is that Nat Wolff is in 'final negotiations' to play Light Yagami.
No Asian actor at all, but an apple pie, ex-Nickelodeon, white American.
Not that Edward Zo has anything against Nat Wolff. He enjoyed the Naked Brothers Band and thought Wolff was great in his recently released movie Paper Towns. Nor is any of this necessarily Nat Wolff's fault.
Nevertheless, it feels, smells and looks like cultural imperialism from Zo's point of view.
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Edward Zo highlights another example of Hollywood whitewashing
The Cultural Approximation of Death Note
Nat Wolff's lead role casting in Death Note conveys a message loud and clear to all Asians watching. Summed up, in Zo's own words, as:
Our version of your story does not include you.
~ Ibid
Hollywood is happy to take stories from all over the world; authors may be any ethnicity, colour, race, creed, hail from any country, write in any language. But their tale will be told through a culturally white Protestant lens.
Thus it becomes white Protestant by tradition, as the loudest voice is usually the one most heard.
While the current highly extensive fandom is well aware that Death Note is Japanese, a whole new audience about to be exposed to a potential block-buster which swears that this is an American story.
Does that matter in the long run? Well put it this way, when you think of Romeo and Juliet, is it a Shakespearian play set in Verona? Original author Masuccio Salernitano would be amazed to find that his tale moved out of Tuscany and no-one today recalls that it was ever there.
And just ask the Welsh what contortions King Arthur went through after being wrestled from our grasp. Let's just say that nothing in the legend now looks like it does in the fragments that remain of our heritage.
Cultural approximation can so easily become cultural imperialism. That's the warning Edward Zo makes with regard to Death Note. Today Japanese, tomorrow white American.
Assuming it doesn't flop like other whitewashed Asian films. We're all looking at you, Dragonball Z and Airbender.
But the actor remains defiant.
Thus it becomes white Protestant by tradition, as the loudest voice is usually the one most heard.
While the current highly extensive fandom is well aware that Death Note is Japanese, a whole new audience about to be exposed to a potential block-buster which swears that this is an American story.
Does that matter in the long run? Well put it this way, when you think of Romeo and Juliet, is it a Shakespearian play set in Verona? Original author Masuccio Salernitano would be amazed to find that his tale moved out of Tuscany and no-one today recalls that it was ever there.
And just ask the Welsh what contortions King Arthur went through after being wrestled from our grasp. Let's just say that nothing in the legend now looks like it does in the fragments that remain of our heritage.
Cultural approximation can so easily become cultural imperialism. That's the warning Edward Zo makes with regard to Death Note. Today Japanese, tomorrow white American.
Assuming it doesn't flop like other whitewashed Asian films. We're all looking at you, Dragonball Z and Airbender.
But the actor remains defiant.
Mobilizing on Behalf of Asians in Hollywood - Edward Zo's Rallying Call
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In his discussion of the perceived whitewashing of Death Note in the US, Edward Zo also covers the counterpoints to such views.
Primarily, it's all about the money, which Zo disdains with reference to movies like those just mentioned, that flopped despite the white actors inserted into ethnically diverse lead roles. Then he alights upon the second consideration - that he should put up and shut up, or else leave the country for one more open to casting Asian actors as its movie stars. Suddenly he sounds very American. I was born here. Why should I have to relocate, or move, to get the same privileges that everyone else does? |
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Take it from a Briton, Americans really don't like being told they're liable for taxation without representation. Nor any of its modern equivalents. Like 'buy tickets for movie presentations without being in them'.
Hard work and persistence is supposed to realise the American Dream. If no hope in its actuality exists, then the good folk Stateside tend to bite back...
Hard work and persistence is supposed to realise the American Dream. If no hope in its actuality exists, then the good folk Stateside tend to bite back...
Dear Hollywood, you cannot just bleach the soul out of Death Note literally and then expect the rest of us not to notice. Because we noticed.
~ Ibid
... and start revolutions.
It's up to us as young people to vocalise and to mobilize whenever we see something that is not right.
~ Ibid
And older people too. I'm so far past young, that Edward Zo looks barely old enough to be out of diapers, but I heard and I vocalised. A life-long believer that silence means approval and no change was ever made without each of us speaking up wherever we perceive something wrong.
Especially when it seems endemic, institutionalized and so commonplace that we barely notice unless its pointed out.
Edward Zo pointed out something important here, and it behoves us to listen to what he has to say. Else nothing ever changes and this one is far bigger than even Death Note.
Especially when it seems endemic, institutionalized and so commonplace that we barely notice unless its pointed out.
Edward Zo pointed out something important here, and it behoves us to listen to what he has to say. Else nothing ever changes and this one is far bigger than even Death Note.
Books about Whitewashing Hollywood
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