Why was Linda Hunt chosen to play this part?

Besides, she took home the academy award for her performance.

Have you seen the film?

Regardless of her ethnicity, or her gender - she did a marvelous job. Of all the characters in this film, she's the one that stands out the most. Well deserved Oscar.

Little by little the look of the country changes because of the men we admire.

men have traditionally played womens parts for centuries. men have played women of different cultures for those same centuries. what is your problem if the table has been changed and a wonderful female actor brilliantly plays the part of a man? welcome to the new world.

To me, this sounds like reverse sexism and reverse racism. It suggests that one sex or one race is so different from the other that there can't possibly any meeting in between.

I thought Linda Hunt's Portrayal of Billy KwanWAS BRILLIANT. When TYOLD first came out, I had not idea the actor was a man.

An Asian guy critiquing a movie that he's apparently neither seen or understands? Bolowongji is just a plain idiot.

a half-asian dwarf. And her performance is absolutely brilliant. I actually don't think anyone else could have brought what she brought to that role. Have you seen it? She's not feminine at all.

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"A woman to play a guy? An anglo woman to play an ASIAN guy? It's an insult to asian guys, Wier is just a plain idiot"

So what? That's what they called it an acting. You don't need to be a real criminal to play a murderer.

Look at the performance....not at the performer....

I'm all for it, that is, unless I'm agin' it

she plays the role of a half chinese half australian man which sounds plausible to me.

People playing other genders is fine, but people playing different races is offensive. LIke when Katherine Hepburn played an Asian girl in Dragon Seed, or when Mickey Rooney played an Asian guy in Breakfast at Tiffany's. It's just wrong.

"...the young man would love it too, but he can't afford it."

It works for me. Really works.
Its not just a non-asian woman playing an asian man. It's one of the biggest performances in cinema history.

Yes. I'm sure they could have found a half-asian male dwarf to play the part. Even if he can't act, just to have authenticity. Now the really hard part would be to get a half-asian male dwarf named Billy Kwan because it wouldn't be authentic if the actor didn't have the same name as the character as well.

Well I just saw it and I think that Linda was marvelous. Actually I would never have guessed this character to be played by a woman if someone had not put me onto it previously. Therefore this shows a good job of acting. Also this is not the first time people of one racial group have played others. Now specifically for playing Asians how about in "Anna and the King of Siam"?

The Billy Kwan character is HALF Asian and half white. And Linda Hunt's performance transcends gender and race... you sub-mental fool.

Ultimately, it shouldn't matter whether Linda Hunt is a man or a woman, just whether her performance works. Acting, like any art form, is a practice of sympthetic imagination. Saying that Linda Hunt couldn't play this part is akin to saying Renee Zellwegger couldn't play a Brit simply because she's American. Yet, she pulls off playing Bridget Jones.

didn't know that Gibson was a weird reactionary conservative idiot


WTF?

Linda Hunt's casting is a mystery to me, given that it was such a stretch for its time (and still is today) to cast a woman as a man straightforwardly. My best guess is the makers of the film wanted to capture a sense of ambiguity at the heart of the character of Billy, sort of the spirit of Indonesia as it throws over one dictator for another. Also, we are meant to wonder at the devotion of Billy for Guy, whether or not it is a sexual thing or something else. The shot of Linda Hunt's face after Billy realizes his plans to get Guy together with the woman Billy himself claims to have loved is a wonderful essay of someone getting exactly what they wanted, and not knowing whether it is a success or tragedy. Why is Billy so conflicted?

Not a great film, but Hunt's performance is the best thing in it, and I think it's because she adds a spiritual dimension that adds to the casting and of which the makers of the film may well have not anticipated. It's a tough part, man or woman, and she plays it very well.

Dr. Ngor's performance as Dith Pran in "The Killing Fields" is much more compelling in a better film, but I think Hunt was the right man for the job here, regardless that she's no man at all.

I notice that you are very familiar with the theories of this Judith Butler that you cite but that you did not state that you agree with her ideas. In the early days of Israel many of the Kibutzim attempted to raise their childern in a gender nuetural manner and found that the old patters still emerged. I personally believe that men are men and women are women. I am not an expert in gender confusion issues but they seem to occur mainly in enlightened prosperous cultures. Consider the fact that "eating disorders" (read a cultural manifestation of mental illness) only occur in America and Western Europe.

Judith Butler is, I'm afraid, hopelessly incorrect. That idea is not taken seriously anymore by anyone who has spent time in the fields of psychology, neurophysiology, evolutionary ethology, cognitive science etc. Male genes (in combination with key bursts of testosterone) build male brains. They operate differently from female brains. (And, indeed, our hormones are a major part of the causal basis of our behaviour at any given time, and males and females usually have a very different hormonal mix coursing through their bodies.) It is not social conditioning. That can amplify, but it cannot create.

"Maybe someday, in the future, we'll reach a point where all theatrical parts are open to all people, regardless of whether they're male or female (or Yellow, or White, or Black, or Brown), and based purely on their ability to play the role..."

Every (white) person who made a comment here about Linda Hunt's selection to portray the Chinese photographer, Billy, raves about how well she portrayed him and can’t understand why Asian American males, like myself, get upset with her having been cast in the role. Well, even though I've already made a comment here saying I agree that she did a great job and deserved the Oscar for her portrayal, I still stated that I was upset about her being selected for the role in the first place. Let me try to expand a little more here in reply to this particular comment by clairmarie83. Firstly, as I said previously, "can you imagine if Peter Weir had slapped 'blackface' on Ms. Hunt and had her portray such an unattractive and misshapen Black man – why, most likely, he'd have been been lynched..." but, as is perfectly clear from current movies now 24 years after The Year of..., nobody (either producing a Hollywood film or watching it) seems to give a rat's a__ about Asians - especially males. As much as I really do go along with the sentiment "but, why should any role belong to any race?" the simple fact of the matter is that there are precious few - if any - positive roles for Asian men in any big box office Hollywood movies to date. I'm actually not against using stereotypes in movies - I love comedy and think that stereotypes can be very funny (even Mickey Rooney in Breakfast...) - as a multi-ethnic society, we can all stand a little ribbing every now and then to provide a little entertainment to all of ourselves as a people. But there is a condition here - if you portray any one particular ethnic group in a disparagingly buffoonish or otherwise negative way, then, you should make up for it by portraying that same group in some positive and ennobling way as well, i.e., provide some balance... Now, Hollywood has bent over backwards to do this for African Americans, Irish, Italians, Poles, Jews, gays, the physically challenged, women - every minority or disadvantaged group you can think of - except Asians. The simple fact of the matter is that there aren’t enough positive portrayals of Asians especially males, so, yes, we Asian American men do get a bit riled by such negative portrayals – time and again in movie after movie... Now, if the producers and directors in Hollywood ever get around to giving us Asian males equal time as leading attractive masculine men and not keep portraying us as effeminate even sinister "me no speekee engrish" clowns in films, then, I'd be only too happy to laugh or cheer along with all of you nice "White folks" at a performance like Ms. Hunt's - or even Mr. Rooney's...

To; maffucci mh;

I too, remember seeing this movie for the first time, and not realizing that Billy Kwan was played by a woman. I made a point of looking for the real name of whoever played Billy Kwan, and I was stunned that I'd been fooled so completely. I don't care what anyone says, Linda Hunt did a fantastic job portraying a man, and her performance should never be forgotten. It never will be by me, anyway. I found the movie on DVD, and wasted not one second buying it. Something else I love about this movie, is the music. I'm not talking about the '60's junk they play, but the other pieces, especially the one they play when Guy and Kumar are driving up into the hills. Fantastic. Definitely one of my top 10 favorite movies.

I really like this movie...and I really like the way Weir creates ambiguity by casting the role Billy Kwan.

We voyeurs get all nice and safe in our darkened rooms, watching things that meet our expectations. Sigourney and Mel certainly stroked a few great expectations of what our leading man and woman should be.

But Weir wants to pull us out of our safe narrative expectations and shake us up. Just as we might be shaken up if we were to find ourselves in a European hotel in mid century Indonesia with a Chinese-American dwarf photographer.

It was something Fellini often toyed with but his sense of the grotesque was so steeped in the clown that he would have his poor little creature perform as we saw in La Strada. But Weir is about humanity, and Billy Kwan as played by Hunt absolutely rings with humanity, and loneliness, and passion.

So Weir makes us uncomforatble with this character, even as the voice of Linda Hunt draws us into his world view and creates a deep and affecting empathy.

And when Billy dies... the show goes on. How brilliant and disturbing to the western mind to kill the narrator. We feel the loss because we lose the voice that guided us through the story, told us who these people were, took us into his confidence...it breaks so many conventions - and it moved you. And ccentral to that was a "impossible to peg" ambiguity of Billy Kwan when played by Linda Hunt.

Casting Linda Hunt was genius

I had no idea the character was being portrayed by a female until I read the credits. Great job. The character is not supposed to be a strong, imposing male figure.