Third International Conference on Communication & Media Studies

Abstract

Whitewashing is a widely used but little-examined term. By casting a white actor/actress to play a non-white character in film and television, the term ‘whitewashing’ has been used to describe a sense of racial sensitivity and is accused as an “ongoing problem” of Hollywood in the racial representation of the ethnic Other. It is noteworthy that such sense of meaning has directly pointed to the United States as its cultural landscape and Hollywood as the most pervasive of media both of which are considered to be terrains of ‘the dominant White/Anglo-American group’ (Coser 1978). As Fiske (1994) asserts, there is a complex relationship between being white and acting white. Displaying white to other ethnic groups produces rich values and social meanings, especially within the American context. In this regard, I want to interrogate whitewashing at a national level which to a large extent functions as an agent of White/Anglo-American cultural dominance. I mainly focus on examples of whitewashing Asian-Americans, and the underlying logic of this racial transposition. I would argue that transforming an Asian character (mostly a true person) into the ‘Great White American’ stereotype, is not only a deconstructive move to the Asian minorities and their cultures but an openly possessive investment of whiteness.