Written by Hannah Dang, with support from the DAC Team
What is an “identity?” As I’ve come to quickly understand, the world — and the people living in it — likes their labels. Our races, ethnicities, nationalities, sexualities, gender identities, and even our species, homo-sapiens, have a place in Earth’s family tree. But I have more questions to ask. Are our identities measured by where we live? The color of our skin? The people we’re around? Is it measured by our abilities? Our values? Is it all of the above? Or none? If you’re anything like me, a sleep-deprived college student, you’ll find the answer to be complicated to explain.
Living in the United States as an Asian American or person of color would be an experience unlike any other to people who aren’t a part of our communities. But, it is the only world I’ve ever known. It hits differently, as the United States is one of the few countries to put a strong emphasis on labeling and separating a person’s different identities. From their nationality to their race, and then to their ethnicity, we’re no different than condiments in a grocery store, labeled by the color of our skin. At some point in my life, I’ve considered my identity to be a mix of three bodies: American, Asian American, and Vietnamese American. To most people living in America, I’m viewed as only “Asian.” As a result, I’ve been viewed as a peculiarity for the past two decades I’ve lived.
As a reminder, this isn’t only a discussion about race. It is a discussion about “identity.” And I am not the only person to have experienced this social phenomenon. Consequently, people of color, people who are a part of the LGBTQA+ community, people who have disabilities, and innumerable others are “whited out,” in other words, their experiences as members of diverse communities are undermined in comparison to other people’s experiences. Multiple factors contribute to the civil debate at hand. On the subject of race, there is an overwhelming population of European residents in the United States in comparison to people of color. Alongside pure demographics, the unequivocal oppression people of color have endured for centuries still matters today. Interchangeably, people with disabilities are a minority in the seas of able-bodied people; their confrontation of problems related to healthcare, accessibility, and ableism occur to the same degree.
In Hollywood, America’s byname for the cinema industry, “white-washing” sadly became a common occurrence in their films and was a natural effect of the majority of the executive board members not being a part of any minority groups. Oftentimes associated with social issues concerning representation, “white-washing” is a mainstream and cultural phenomenon; people of color, non-American cultures, gender and sexual identities, and disabilities are taken advantage of under the guise of “taking creative liberties” to make a profit by making it accessible to a dominantly “white” audience instead of people in minority groups (Cedillo). For example, if a character was written to be black and disabled, the character played by the film’s counterpart always seems to include a white and able-bodied actor. By choosing to only represent one faction of people, the movies’ themes are ruined and people of minority groups are subconsciously raised to see themselves as abnormal.
The problem of “white-washing” is cited in the film studios’ readiness to cater to only one fraction of people. Therefore, “white-washing” isolates minority groups and counters Hollywood’s inclusivity policies. Another definition of “white-washing” is the overuse of heavy censorship to the extent that the content’s original themes, story, characters, and everything in between are erased. Otherwise, “white-washing” can also function under the pretense of committing to transparency only to hide information about somebody or something to make it seem better than it is. As we can see, the three definitions have similarities that overlap in the representation of people of all identities.
I recall the release of the 2010 live-action film, Avatar: The Last Airbender, which was based on the Nickelodeon show by the same name. What do I remember exactly? If I were to summarize, I’d say that the catastrophe levels of the film were astronomical. For starters, the original series was strongly and proudly based on East Asian and indigenous cultures and people, but the producers appropriated the show by casting non-Asian and non-Indigenous actors for the roles (Choudhary, Sania). Although the director and production team planned the film to be a part of a trilogy, the second and third movies were canceled due to the poor ratings and negative feedback the initial film received. In addition to plainly ignoring the characters’ ethnic-based identities, one of the characters’ disabilities, a critical aspect of his character, was flat-out disregarded (Aditya).
In the original show, The Fire Nation’s banished Crown Prince Zuko’s had the left side of his face badly burned by his father, Fire Lord Ozai, for bringing dishonor to his family. The character was rendered partially blind on his left side with a deep scar. Throughout the series, we saw Zuko’s scar as a reminder of his failure to live up to Ozai’s expectations and his ambition to regain Ozai’s favor as well as reclaim his honor. To show extra appreciation, we saw Zuko’s partial blindness as a potential weakness, physical and emotional, that was exploited by the other characters in the animated series. In the film, Zuko’s character origins and the importance of his scar were completely written out. As the Fire Nation was based on a mix of Chinese, Korean, and Japanese culture, Zuko’s character should have been played by someone with East Asian origins. Although Dev Patel, the British-Indian actor who played Zuko in the 2010 film, was Asian, the decision to cast someone of an entirely different ethnicity to the original was a disrespectful decision by the producers who claimed the film to be a tribute to the original show. I understand Patel portrayed Zuko as best as he could considering the hefty changes the producers did, but Patel’s portrayal of Zuko reduced the character to someone unrecognizable, not only in appearance but also in personality.
Not only that, but the makeup design team barely exerted the effort to make the scar visible to the viewers. Perhaps, it would be a different story if the scar was added as a “coolness factor” to Zuko’s character design, but the scar and his partial blindness play a huge role in his characterization. At the start of the animated version of the show, the scar only represented shame to Zuko, but the point of Zuko’s character arc was to understand his scar wasn’t a symbol of cowardice or weakness, but a source of strength for defeating his father and regaining his honor. By practically writing out the character’s disability, it is no wonder longtime fans of the show, disabled fans included, were furious and disappointed at the production team. As bad as I feel for the producers, actors, and other creative artists involved, I’m grateful the films were canceled because their portrayal of the other visibly disabled characters would indefinitely have been ruined as well.
As 2024 approaches, Netflix plans to release a remake of the previous live-action adaptation, but skepticism and controversies have plagued Netflix’s production team in regards to their casting choices. To give context, Ian Ousley was picked to portray the series’ beloved non-bender and the sister to Katara, Sokka (Hudspeth). In Avatar: The Last Airbender, Sokka’s status as a non-bender causes his character to be treated differently than the rest of the cast, but Sokka perseveres and makes use of his skills as a tactician and swordsman. He, Katara, and the Water Tribe are based on the Inuits, members of an indigenous people who inhabited parts of northern Canada, Alaska, and Greenland. According to an investigation, Ian Ousley was speculated to have deceived the production team by lying about his indigenous ancestry to land a role in the production. If the rumors are true, Netflix’s reputation would be dragged through the mud for not performing proper background checks on all of their hired cast members. The show production was already treading in deep waters for attempting to redo the original live-action, but if there are repercussions, Netflix’s credibility will be inhibited and stain the reputation of Ousley’s co-stars. As of late, neither Neflix nor Ousley have made any public statements regarding the controversy (Gates). To potentially ruin the allegory of a diverse disability community would be a poor executive decision.
America hasn’t ever felt “welcoming” to my family and me. Growing up, there were hardly any non-white actors or characters represented on the television channels I browsed as a kid. Disney Channel, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, PBS Kids – the “default” race to scores of fictional characters was white, and if there were people who shared an ethnicity similar to my own, the connection I was supposed to feel wasn’t there. Added to that, I rarely met any other people of color other than my family members, which led to a lack of interest in my ethnicity and culture. Instead, I was forced to “assimilate” into another racial group because everyone else was white. I wished to belong, but my ethnicity was treated as a barrier between me and the world. The scenario is similar for people with disabilities.
In YouTuber Annie Elainey’s video, “Is Disability Being “White-Washed?,” Elainey asked, “Why does disability representation almost never come up when discussing diversity in the media?” (Elainey). In 2018, Vilessa Thompson, a black activist for disabled people, created and popularized the hashtag #DisabilityTooWhite on Twitter to highlight the film industry’s overrepresentation of white disabled people and “the lack of racial diversity in disability representation” (Elainey). One of the examples brought up was Jake Sully in James Cameron’s record-breaking film series, Avatar. The character was a paraplegic wheelchair user who used to be a part of the Marines and was called by the Resources Development Association (RDA) to replace his brother, who was a scientist studying the planet, Pandora, and the Na’vi, in the Avatar Program. Considering the viewership of the movie series, Jake Sully’s character contributed to the prevalence of Hollywood’s white-dominated casting choices, intentional or not. To be honest, I barely remembered Jake Sully’s original body needing a wheelchair because the character was in his Avatar’s body for the majority of the movie.
For full disclosure, I am not claiming there aren’t non-white people who have disabilities. The social issue I wish to address is the erasure of stories that include disabled people of color. Over time, disabled characters of color are slowly being incorporated into the mainstream. I firmly believe the inaction of inclusivity was partly due to outdated and prejudiced laws that excluded people of color, especially disabled people of color, from being represented for centuries. In an attempt to erase us and erase history, our rights to representation were confiscated, and people of color were mistreated. As a disclaimer, the #DisabilityTooWhite campaign did not propagate to ignore the ableism and inherent lack of accessibility faced by disabled non-POCs. Thompson only wanted to dissect the intersectionality between race and disability (Cedillo).
Our different races are one of humanity’s greatest beauties, but it has prolonged externalized and internalized racism, ableism, homophobia, and other forms of hatred. Since the end of the Civil Rights Movement in the twentieth century, the violence committed against people of color has not died but only heightened. Because there is an irrefutable connection between race and disability, danger and discrimination is practically being invited into our communities. Hate breeds hate, and if we don’t speak up, our rights and our livelihoods are forfeited. An absence of proper representation only encourages prejudice and harmful stereotypes because the prejudice or the producers’ poor research on certain ethnicities and cultures shown on-screen easily translates into the physical world. For too long, there has been a prevalent, utopian ideology of “sameness” among character portrayals. For some unknown reason, countries are too preoccupied with influencing people of different ethnicities to conform instead of embracing their individuality.
Actual, exceptional representation of disabled people is minuscule as is, but the representation of disabled people of color as well as other identities is microscopic. For there to be little to no representation, the present and new generations of people will not be educated about our existence and place in the universe. We have to show people we are as human as everyone else. We are humans who have our struggles regardless of our race and our disabilities. Only through visibility can we be depicted as something other than a public enemy or a community to be pitied and nearly wiped out by human atrocities or forgotten.
I don’t know if the film industry and the social channels will ever be fully rid of “whitewashing” because it goes beyond the scope of representation. We’ve reached a golden and peaking age of representation and inclusivity in our books, in our movies, and in the world through the power of social media, but there will be racial, ableist, and other discrimination of all kinds behind the scenes. Many cultures and stories were rewritten to portray certain groups of people in a more favorable light because everyone is the protagonist of their own stories, heroes, villains, or supporting roles, and all we can do is tell our side of the story.
WORKS CITED
Aditya, R.P. “Decoding the Politics of Hollywood Whitewashing Through M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender.” Offscreen, Canada Council for the Arts, Oct. 2021, offscreen.com/view/Decoding_the_Politics_of_Hollywood_Whitewashing_through_M_Night_Shyamalans_The_Last_Airbender. Accessed 05 Nov. 2023.
Cedillo, Christina V. “#DisabilityTooWhite: On Erasure’s Material and Physical Dimensions.” Spark, Spark: A 4C4Equality Journal, 29 Sept. 2022, sparkactivism.com/disabilitytoowhite/.
Choudhary, Kelly Yang and Sania. “Revisiting The Last Airbender’ (2010).” The Stanford Daily, THE STANFORD DAILY PUBLISHING CORPORATION, 28 Aug. 2020, stanforddaily.com/2020/08/27/revisiting-the-last-airbender-2010/.
Elainey, Annie. “Why Is Disability Representation So White? #DisabilityTooWhite [CC].” YouTube, 22 Sept. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6daBu3ACbc. Accessed 16 Oct. 2023.
Gates, Don. “Who Is Ian Ousley? What Is His Ethnicity? Avatar Actor Accused of Lying about His Cherokee Background.” Bodhi Zazen, 7 Nov. 2023, bodhizazen.net/who-is-ian-ousley-what-is-his-ethnicity-avatar-actor-accused-of-lying-about-his-cherokee-background/. Accessed 10 Dec. 2023.
Hudspeth, Christopher. “Live-Action ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ Emerges in 2024. Here’s Your First Look.” Netflix Tudum, 17 Oct. 2023, www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/avatar-the-last-airbender-release-date-photos-news.
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