The Lack of Asians in Hollywood and on Broadway

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/opinion/the-lack-of-asians-in-hollywood-and-on-broadway.html

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To the Editor:

Re “Why Hollywood Won’t Cast Asian Actors,” by Keith Chow (Op-Ed, April 23):

From its beginning, film has had the power both to reflect and to influence society. “The Birth of a Nation” is an iconic example of how that power can be misused — in that case, to perpetuate malicious stereotypes of African-Americans.

Although much has improved in the century that followed, Hollywood still dramatically lacks diversity and inclusion, a point Chris Rock brilliantly and bravely delivered home as host of the last Oscars. But in almost the same breath, Mr. Rock, and later, Sacha Baron Cohen, used the momentous occasion for equality to perpetuate enduring and offensive stereotypes of Asian-Americans.

Once again, Asian-Americans are excluded from the diversity dialogue. And that has real impact, as we see with the casting of white actors to play the main characters, who are Asian, in “Doctor Strange” and “Ghost in the Shell.”

Those powerful voices who are courageously demanding diversity and inclusion in Hollywood must be mindful to speak up for all groups that are underrepresented. To paraphrase the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., inequality for anyone is a threat to equality for everyone.

AUSTIN SO

New York

The writer is a board member of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association and a member of the Leadership Advisory Council of the Korean American League for Civic Action.

To the Editor:

Hollywood’s arguments defending its casting decisions — basically, that casting Asian-American and other minority actors in lead roles would be a box-office gamble — sound remarkably similar to the old arguments defending segregated neighborhoods, because of what ethnic diversity would do (they argued) to property values.

Welcome to the self-justifying logic of institutional racism, which, conveniently, just so happens to preserve the wealth of those who already have it.

ROBERT HONEYWELL

New York

The writer is an actor, playwright and composer and co-founder of the Brick Theater in Brooklyn.

To the Editor:

For a short period in the late 1950s and early 1960s, there was a surge of Broadway and movie opportunities for Asian-American actors. “The World of Suzie Wong” and “Flower Drum Song” were the most successful, with almost all the predominantly Asian roles filled by Eurasian and Asian-American performers.

Nancy Kwan, who starred in both films, noted in a lecture at the New-York Historical Society that it took 25 years before there was another major American movie with a mostly Asian cast, the 1987 film “The Last Emperor.”

Last year, George Takei mounted a production of “Allegiance” on Broadway with an extraordinary cast of Asian-American performers; the show closed earlier this year and, poof, they’re gone from the scene. Will it take another 25 years before such talent will be appreciated, hired and win awards?

MARNIE MUELLER

New York

The writer is the author of “The Climate of the Country,” a novel set in a Japanese-American internment camp during World War II.