MovieChat Forums > The Good Earth (1937) Discussion > Reasons for non-Asian Actors, wikipedia

Reasons for non-Asian Actors, wikipedia


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Earth_%28film%29:

"Trivia
Irving Thalberg envisioned casting only Chinese actors for the movie, but gave up the idea because there were not enough suitable Chinese actors.

Because the Second Sino-Japanese War was in progress, the Chinese government threatened not to approve the movie if any Japanese actors were cast in any role.

Furthermore, during [[World War 2]]/[[Second Sino-Japanese War]], there were a lot of racial tensions and hostilities towards Japanese Americans. "

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"Irving Thalberg envisioned casting only Chinese actors for the movie, but gave up the idea because there were not enough suitable Chinese actors."

Well, it's essentially racism. I don't believe that in all of California, there weren't two lousy suitable Chinese actors fit to play the two main characters. They could have even used an unknown if necessary. They certainly found hundreds of Chinese people worthy enough to play all the secondary characters and extras.

"Because the Second Sino-Japanese War was in progress, the Chinese government threatened not to approve the movie if any Japanese actors were cast in any role."

Since when did any American movie studio ever look for the approval of any other country before making decisions as to how to cast their movie? If they wanted to use whoever in the making of this movie, I don't think any American movie-makers cared one inkling what the country of China thought about it. If they were to reject the movie, there are plenty of other countries who would run it.

"Furthermore, during [[World War 2]]/[[Second Sino-Japanese War]], there were a lot of racial tensions and hostilities towards Japanese Americans. "

Now that I believe. In those days with regards to movies, white America ruled and there were many ethnicities that were intensely disliked for various "reasons" including the Japanese.






"Which lever do I pull to be crushed by a safe?"-Karen(Will & Grace)

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Well, it's essentially racism. I don't believe that in all of California, there weren't two lousy suitable Chinese actors fit to play the two main characters. They could have even used an unknown if necessary. They certainly found hundreds of Chinese people worthy enough to play all the secondary characters and extras


That's not racism. Racism would be if the producers had tested several Chinese actors who they felt were good, but didn't hire them on the basis that they were Chinese.

There's also a huge difference between being an extra and being a lead actor. It doesn't take much to stand around and do menial things, but it takes a lot to support an entire film.

-J. Theakston
http://centraltheater.blogspot.com

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"There's also a huge difference between being an extra and being a lead actor. It doesn't take much to stand around and do menial things, but it takes a lot to support an entire film."

As I said, they didn't need to hire big name, known actors to fill these parts. What you are saying is that out of the hundreds of Asian actors they auditioned and hired for smaller parts, not one of them was worthy or talented enough to do anything more than "menial things". That's racist. Even if there were, they wouldn't have been hired to play main characters. Asians were not hired to play the main characters because, at the time it was made, society (and studios) had many prejudices against most groups of people in the U.S. that were not white and it is reflected in the movies produced, not just in this movie, but countless others made in those days. Black people had to produce their own movies in their own studies, not because there weren't any black actors capable of carrying a major motion picture but because the majority of the time, if they wanted a role, it was that of a step-n-fetchit. They had to either accept those demeaning parts or make their own productions. If you've ever seen any of those black studio produced movies, you'll notice that the characters in those movies behave close to the way you'd see black characters in current movies. They aren't stereotypical as "beneath white people" kinds of parts. They weren't just playing servants or mammies to white people the way they always were in white studio productions of the time. Asians and latinos and other non-white races were treated the same way. And I'm not the only one who got that: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028944/board/thread/131271100?d=131273448 &p=1#131273448 "Irving Thalberg (the movie's original producer, before he died) seeked to cast all chinese actors in this movie. However, that was not possible, because studio executives cast Paul Muni. This meant the actress who would play his wife had to be white under the Hays Code's ultra-conservative miscegenation act.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hays_Code"; (user,haadurin)

One of the reasons this movie is dying to be remade to correct that error.


"Which lever do I pull to be crushed by a safe?"-Karen(Will & Grace)

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"Since when did any American movie studio ever look for the approval of any other country before making decisions as to how to cast their movie? If they wanted to use whoever in the making of this movie, I don't think any American movie-makers cared one inkling what the country of China thought about it. If they were to reject the movie, there are plenty of other countries who would run it."

Since they started filming in foreign countries. Some scenes were filmed in China, therefore the Chinese government had opportunity to put conditions on the use of their sovereign territory, including "Japanese need not apply". As if film executives of the time would care about discriminating against the Japanese.

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They could have used an unknown? Why not use all unknowns. Just head to the local laundry and get your actors. That would make a great film and I'm sure everybody would flock to the theater to see that. I'm sure no one saw the film because Paul Muni was in it, huh?

This specific movie is about China. I would expect a decent chunk of the box office was from screenings in China.

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It seemed the real reason would be because they used big named, publicity invested names to promote their films and attract an audience. An audience of mostly white customers. At that time, the number of films churned out per year by the studios was huge and it was competitive. This use of fake ethnicity does not surprise me at all and gives an insight into historical fact on race relations at the time. To apply modern standards to it and get mad about it being "racist" seems illogical. The biggest problem they had in the execution was a lack of uniformity in the look of the lead actors as asian. Paul Muni's appearance varied greatly.

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I think only academics/intellectuals/artists really believe that the race of a person is not important when it comes to acting out a character of a specific race. I can easily see various college professors and such saying that such a thing is perfectly fine and that society should be willing to accept such things (although I'd imagine that even college professors would find it troubling if 99% of all movies portraying non-white characters were 99% acted out by white actors. There's a breaking point that can be reached, I'm sure.)

Still, I'd imagine no marketing/PR person would ever agree to such a notion, especially for any film that had a decent budget. They would be too interested in the bottom line, maximizing profits. They would exist in the real world, not the world that they think should be, but the world that is.

Five hundred years from now, I have little doubt that no movie about George Washington, with a decent budget, will have a non-white person play George Washington. No non-Asian person will play Mao Tse-Tung. No non-black person will play Nelson Mandela. It simply will not happen outside of some insignificant micro-budget B grade independent films, or perhaps some comedy film.

In regards to this movie, I think common sense tells us that even if ALL of the best actors in America were of Chinese descent, they would not have been selected to appear in this movie in the main roles. Because that ignores the obvious fact that the quality of the actor does not necessarily correlate with the popularity of the actor. And in 1930s America, the race of an actor is absolutely a big factor when it comes to popularity.

So the idea that race played no part in the casting of this movie seems very naive. The likelihood that the casting directors were all "race blind" seems extremely low, as it is a concept that wasn't remotely even considered during the time except perhaps amongst very Communist white people, and it's a concept that is still considered very unpopular in the year 2010.

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They could have used an unknown? Why not use all unknowns. Just head to the local laundry and get your actors. That would make a great film and I'm sure everybody would flock to the theater to see that. I'm sure no one saw the film because Paul Muni was in it, huh?


There certainly have been quite a few blockbusters made with relatively unknown actors like Sylvester Stallone's Rocky. I don't think there were huge stars in E.T. either. It's not that unusual.


SPIKE: Look at you. You're a— You're a bloody puppet! You're a wee, little puppet man!

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Except this was a high-budget movie (Rocky was not and E.T. at least had the directorial star power of Spielberg) and in the 1930s NO WAY would a studio green-light a big-budget movie with unknown leads.

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