Top 10 Worst Whitewashed Movie Roles

Hollywood movies could certainly use a little more diversity. Welcome to WatchMojo.com and today we’re counting down our picks for the top 10 whitewashed movie roles.

For this list, we’re taking a look at roles in movies that really should have gone to a person of color, but the filmmakers went with a Caucasian actor instead. However, we’re excluding deliberate blackface and yellowface roles that were done with comedic or humorous intention, such as Mickey Rooney in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” and Peter Sellers in “The Party.” We're also excluding perceived cases of whitewashing, like Jake Gyllenhaal in “Prince of Persia," that were not in fact actual cases, since Persians, or Iranians, are Indo Europeans and thus indeed Caucasian, or white.
  

This epic historical drama has no shortage of stellar performances. For a movie called “Lawrence of Arabia,” though, you’d think that there would be more Arab actors in key roles. To his credit, Alec Guinness by no means gives a bad performance. He clearly did his homework on Prince Faisal and maintains a strong screen presence. The same can be said about Anthony Quinn as the Howeitat leader. As committed as these two acting giants are, though, wouldn’t their roleshave felt infinitely more authentic with people of Arab descent? 

 

Inspired by actual events, a majority of the characters in Ben Mezrich’s best-selling novel were Asian American. While this film adaptation isn’t without a few actors of Asian decent, the main players are all white. The casting choice that infuriated people the most was Jim Sturgess as Ben Campbell, who was based on a Chinese-American named Jeff Ma. Producer Dana Brunetti claimed that he would’ve “LOVED to cast Asians in the lead roles,” but the filmmakers reportedly had no bankable Asian American stars at their disposal. While that *might* be true, you have to wonder how hard they looked...

On paper, the idea of a live-action “DragonBall” movie sounds awesome. Fans of the franchise knew this big screen adaptation was going to suck, however, solely based on the casting of Goku. As an icon of manga and anime, Goku is one of the most recognizable characters to ever come out of Japan. Thus, people were enraged when the role went to Caucasian actor Justin Chatwin. Considering how unfaithful “Dragonball Evolution” is to the source material, it isn’t surprising that the filmmakers couldn’t even properly represent the main character. Nevertheless, it still feels like a royal kick to the Dragon Balls.

To be fair, this isn’t the first time a white actor has been cast as Ramesses. Yul Brynner previously portrayed the pharaoh of the Egyptian Empire in “The Ten Commandments.” Of course, that biblical epic was released in 1956, whereas “Exodus: Gods and Kings” came out in today’s supposed-to-be PC world. Naturally, casting another white actor as Ramesses felt like one of the biggest steps backwards that Hollywood could take. It didn’t help that most of the other actors were Caucasian as well, but Edgerton in particular seemed grossly miscast. Where Brynner at least looked the part of a pharaoh, Edgerton feels more like somebody playing dress up at a costume party.

Dating back to the early 17th century, this film’s source material is a William Shakespeare tragedy revolving around a Moorish general. Though the titular character’s exact race has never been confirmed, the term ‘Moor’ did mean people with dark-skin, most likely from Africa, back then. So why in the Bard’s name did we get British actor Laurence Olivier in blackface for the role?! Sure, by the mid-60s, Olivier had made a name for himself in multiple Shakespeare adaptations, but the actor also had to create an accent and a distinct walk as well as deepen his voice for a performance that – while Oscar-nominated – was unfavorably likened to Al Jolson’s infamous blackface character Jack Robin in “The Jazz Singer.”

Johnny Depp has taken numerous risks as an actor that have ultimately paid off. Alas, every performer has their limits and audiences drew the line when they heard Depp would be playing the Lone Ranger’s Native American sidekick. Granted, Depp claims that he likely has some Cherokee ancestry in him, but that’s never been confirmed. In any case, would it have killed the filmmakers to find an actor who’s definitely Native American to play Tonto? We know that Depp is one of the biggest stars in the world, but that doesn’t automatically make him the most qualified man for the job.

Anybody who’s familiar with the story of “Peter Pan” knows that Tiger Lily is Native American. The folks behind this reimagining apparently didn’t get the memo, though, as they cast the light-skinned Rooney Mara in the role. The filmmakers tried to compensate for this by having Tiger Lily’s tribe be made up of various different races and nationalities. While that’s a noble gesture, there’s still no reason why Tiger Lily couldn’t have remained Native American. While Mara is an immensely talented actress, she simply looks uncomfortable in this whitewashed role. As far as missteps go, it may not be “What Made the Red Man Red” bad, but it's not that good either.

Now here’s a casting choice that made the Internet erupt like a volcano. Although 70% of Hawaii’s residents aren’t white, this box office bomb enlisted Caucasian actors across the board. To make matters worse, Emma Stone was cast as a character who’s supposed to be one-quarter Chinese and one-quarter Native Hawaiian. As much as we love Stone, even she felt this was a misguided decision in retrospect. Director Cameron Crowe additionally wrote an apology on his blog. If there’s a silver lining to this controversy, it’s that more people started to realize just how common whitewashing is, which will hopefully influence change in Hollywood.

Inspired by Eastern philosophies and Japanese anime, the characters in “Avatar: The Last Airbender” were largely depicted as Asian and Inuit. In this despised live-action interpretation, however, our heroes are all white and any Asian actors are restricted to minor roles. You could argue that the cast isn’t completelywhitewashed, seeing how M. Night Shyamalan populated the Fire Nation with actors of Indian and Middle Eastern descent. Since the Fire Nation is primarily depicted as villainous, though, this ultimately sent out a negative message, fanning the flames. Failing to accurately represent a single character, it’s easy to see why “The Last Airbender” helped coin the term, “Racebending.”

Before we get to our top pick, here are a few honorable, or in this case dishonorable, mentions:
 
Ben Affleck as Tony Mendez
“Argo” (2012) 

Natalie Wood as Maria
“West Side Story” (1961)
 
Angelina Jolie as Mariane Pearl
“A Mighty Heart” (2007)
  
Mena Suvari as Brandi Boski
“Stuck” (2007)
 
Kevin Spacey as Eugene Simonet
“Pay It Forward” (2000)
 

John Wayne will forever be remembered as a screen legend. With that said, it was hard imagining the actor playing anybody other than a cowboy or cavalryman. Given his narrow range, it was especially hard to accept the Duke as Genghis Khan. No seriously, we’re not making this up. John Wayne, the most American actor who ever lived, plays the founder of the Mongol Empire. That sounds like the setup to a joke and “The Conqueror” is admittedly pretty hilarious at times. Of course, none of those laughs were intentional. On that basis, this was undoubtedly one of the most ill advised casting choices ever. 

Do you agree with our list? What whitewashed movie role do you think was the most misguided casting choice? For more entertaining Top 10s published everyday, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.