This morning GLAAD released its annual report on diversity and LGBT representation, measuring the 126 movie releases by the major Hollywood studios in 2015. As part of its classification of material under a “studio responsibility index,” the advocacy group criticized Hollywood for “a lack of substantial LGBT characters in mainstream films,” while also citing an absence of racial diversity in the LGBT characters which do make it to the screen, especially in comparison to the films the studios produced just last year. None of the big studios received a “good” rating from GLAAD, but Paramount, Disney, and Warner Bros. did get hit with “failing” grades.
This is about the third or fourth time in the span of a year I’ve written about controversies which entail arguments about how well, or not so well, a demographic group is portrayed in media. Much debate occurred after the Oscar nominations were announced and no people of color made the cut in almost all of the major categories. And just this past month, two productions were hit with charges of white-washing Asian characters—the upcoming adaptation of Ghost in the Shell and Marvel Studios’ Doctor Strange. The issues surrounding these controversies usually entail how the application of societal stereotypes impact the story and bottom line. A common theme in a lot of these dust-ups is how “whiteness” is considered the de facto norm for marketing purposes, and any deviation from this default is considered a possible threat to the bottom line. Therefore, racial minorities and LGBT characters get to be in the background, the sidekicks, the colorful, sassy friend who makes quips as comic relief, but whose existence is not three-dimensional or intrinsic to the overall plot. On the other hand, there is an argument which says some of this is a “Kobayashi Maru,” where there will be unfortunate implications no matter which choice is made.
But moreover, this is arguably a cycle which uses its own biases to justify a vicious circle. For example, why hire a white actress to portray an Asian character? Because, in the parlance of a devil’s advocate, there are no A-list Asian actresses capable of being a big draw on opening weekend (at least in the North American market). And why is that? Well, maybe because they’re never given a chance, and the powers that be always feel they have to hire a white actress who’s more “bankable.”
According to GLAAD’s criteria, which measures the quantity, quality, and diversity of LGBT representations in movies annually, the movie industry is lagging “far behind any other form of media when it comes to portrayals of LGBT characters."
- Of the 126 releases GLAAD counted from the major studios in 2015, only 22 (17.5 percent) contained characters identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, which is the exact same share of movies LGBT characters appeared in with the 2014 releases analyzed.
- Of those 22 films, 77 percent of the movies featured LGBT characters who were gay males, 23 percent included lesbians, and only 9 percent had a character who was bisexual. Only one movie counted by GLAAD included a transgender character—Warner Bros.’ Hot Pursuit— where the character’s orientation was used comically.
- Overall, there were 47 LGBT characters in all mainstream films during 2015. By around 3-to-1 ratios, those character were more male than female, and more white than non-white.
- Only eight of the 22 movies passed the Vito Russo Test. The test, which is named after the author of The Celluloid Closet and takes its inspiration from the Bechdel Test, attempts to gauge the quality of LGBT representation in film beyond just an appearance. In order to pass the test, a film must include a character who is “identifiably” lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/or transgender. The character must not be defined by their orientation. And the character must have an impact on the plot. 2015 had the lowest share of films passing the Russo Test since GLAAD started doing these annual reports.
- As part of its recommendations, GLAAD is urging Disney to add LGBT characters to Star Wars and other genre films.
From Brent Lang at Variety:
“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” was praised for featuring a female and an African-American protagonist, but GLAAD says that the diversity push needs to be more expansive. It wants “Star Wars: Episode VIII,” currently shooting in London, to wave the rainbow flag, too.
“As sci-fi projects have the special opportunity to create unique worlds whose advanced societies can serve as a commentary on our own, the most obvious place where Disney could include LGBT characters is in the upcoming eighth ‘Star Wars’ film,” the report reads. “2015’s ‘The Force Awakens’ has introduced a new and diverse central trio, which allows the creators opportunity to tell fresh stories as they develop their backstory. Recent official novels in the franchise featured lesbian and gay characters that could also be easily written into the stories.”
That point about women now being seen more and more as the leads and major protagonists in action films is an important one, and where two films are experiencing controversy based on how race and culture interact, instead of orientation and culture.
With Ghost in the Shell, based on a 1989 manga and the 1995 anime, which is considered by many to be one of the best genre, many of the arguments which surround the controversy come down to whether one believes the story is inherently Japanese—a Japanese story told from a Japanese perspective—and casting a “white girl” is a white-washing of the property. On the flip side is the contention that Scarlett Johansson has shown she’s able to pull off being an action star, with the Marvel films and Lucy cited as examples. So adapting the material and casting her is necessary for the financials of getting the movie produced and seen, and overall no different than Martin Scorsese adapting Infernal Affairs into The Departed.
From Angie Han at /Film:
It would probably be naive of me to suggest that Hollywood leave such a big, fat, juicy potential franchise alone, but it would be nice if they’d at least tried to adapt it in a way that demonstrates respect for its Asian roots … To make matters much, much worse ... Screen Crush published a report claiming the studios had commissioned visual effects tests to make Johansson appear “more Asian.” In fairness, according to their sources, the production rejected the idea “immediately” after seeing the test. And it’s true lots of crazy ideas get thrown around in the development process. That’s what it’s for. But the fact that the studios even considered a digital yellowface makeover is, to put it frankly, some fucking bullshit. Clearly, the studios understood they’d get some blowback for their casting decision. Just as clearly, they have no clue why. The problem was never one of aesthetics — people weren’t mad because Johansson’s skin, hair, and eyes were the wrong color. It was one of politics — Johansson, a white woman, was claiming an iconic Asian role as her own. Or maybe the studios did understand that, which is almost worse. What does it say when filmmakers decide they’d rather invent an Asian person out of pixels than cast an actual Asian person in their movie?
For the most part, both sides are not seeing the forest for the trees. Instead of bickering over fidelity to source material when it comes to white-washing, the people upset about the lack of roles and opportunities for people of color should attack the problem at the source, which is that Hollywood productions are overwhelmingly staffed by white men who usually write about and make movies (and TV shows) about what they know: mainly other white people. Because it says more about the lack of opportunities for Asian actresses in Hollywood, as an industry, that there is not one Asian female lead considered A-list enough to be in consideration for Ghost in the Shell.
This has also become an issue for Marvel’s upcoming introduction of Doctor Strange. The teaser trailer was released about three weeks ago, and since then the controversy has snowballed over Tilda Swinton’s portrayal of the Marvel Comics character named The Ancient One. In the original comic book incarnation, he is a Tibetan master who is the mentor of Doctor Strange, passing to him the title of Sorcerer Supreme. In this version, The Ancient One is a Celtic woman.
One of the writers of the Doctor Strange screenplay, C. Robert Cargill, gave an interview where he argued there was no possible way to make the character work without offending someone, likening the situation to Star Trek’s Kobayashi Maru no-win scenario, since The Ancient One is an oriental fantasy that was cooked up by white people to begin with.
This is also an issue with Marvel’s and Netflix’s plan to adapt Iron Fist, and ties into criticisms that Marvel’s movies don’t feature enough minorities and women. There have been many online debates about whether the character of Danny Rand, who is white in the comic book, should be updated and made Asian for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The story follows the usual beats of a white savior who ends up in a foreign land, only to be trained in and learn a unique skill, and low and behold Rand is better at it than everyone who lives there. This becomes problematic, because they can either keep the character white and deal with the criticism, or change it and get into another unfortunate implication of putting an Asian character in an Asian stereotype based on a comic book created by white people in the 1970s.
Marvel Studios ultimately decided to keep Danny Rand a white guy, casting Finn Jones as The Immortal Iron Fist.
From Caroline Siede at the A.V. Club:
Cargill explains, “There is no other character in Marvel history that is such a cultural land mine. That is absolutely unwinnable... I could tell you why every single decision that involves the Ancient One is a bad one and just like the Kobayashi Maru it all comes down onto which way you’re willing to lose.” Cargill argues that not only is the character in the comics an unfortunate “racist stereotype,” his Tibetan origin makes him a potentially problematic character on a geopolitical scale. After all, China—a major factor in a film’s international box office success—doesn’t acknowledge the independence of Tibet. Cargill explains his biggest frustration is hearing people suggest potential Chinese actresses like Michelle Yeoh for the role, arguing, “If you are telling me it’s a good idea to cast a Chinese actress as a Tibetan character, you are out of your damn fool mind and have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about.”
He also runs through other potential “fixes” for the characters, all of which he claims have their own downfalls: Casting an actor of a different Asian background—say Japanese or Indian—would be seen as “disrespecting the original ethnicity” of the character. Regardless, having the Ancient One be an Asian character at all would further perpetuate the “white hero” narrative in which a white protagonist learns a skill from an Asian character only to surpass all of the Asian characters in that skill (i.e. The Last Samurai). And to simply remove the Ancient One altogether, he argues, would be seen as eradicating a character due to his race. So as Cargill puts it:
Scott [Derrickson] decided, “There’s no real way to win this so let’s use this as an opportunity to cast an amazing actress in a male role.” And sure enough, there’s not a lot of talk about, “Aww man, they took away the job from a guy and gave it to a woman.” Everyone kind of pats us on the back for that and then decides to scold us for her not being Tibetan. And that’s just the way it’s gonna go... The social justice warriors were gonna get mad at us for something this week. They were just gonna do it, there was no way to avoid it. So the hill Scott decided to die on was the one of feminism.
Cargill’s use of “social justice warriors” was heavily criticized in some internet circles, and led to the writer making clear that he was just expressing his opinions and not specifically the views of Marvel Studios. That came later when Marvel released the following statement.
Marvel has a very strong record of diversity in its casting of films and regularly departs from stereotypes and source material to bring its MCU to life. The Ancient One is a title that is not exclusively held by any one character, but rather a moniker passed down through time, and in this particular film the embodiment is Celtic. We are very proud to have the enormously talented Tilda Swinton portray this unique and complex character alongside our richly diverse cast.