It seems like mainstream media consistently whitewashes leading roles instead of providing equal opportunity. So, with the help of Yukina Mitsuhashi we decided to photoshop a few Asian-American people as leads in famous movie posters to prove there is a spot in Hollywood for everyone.
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According to the University of Southern California, only 4.4% of speaking roles were given to Asians in 2013.
And the lack of representation recently sparked outrage on Twitter, inspiring hashtags such as "#StarringJohnCho" and "#StarringConstanceWu," in which people photoshopped high-grossing movie posters with Asian leads.
Steven and Maggie recreated the iconic Mr. and Mrs. Smith movie poster.
Maggie was looking forward to finally seeing faces on posters that looked like her loved ones.
And Steven was ready to challenge the stereotypes people associated him with.
So they turned this…
...into this:
Next was Sean, who was photoshopped into the Jurassic World poster.
According to the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, only 5.3% of characters in the top 100 films of 2014 were Asian. So, Sean was excited to finally see himself shown in mainstream media.
Because even in the roles Asians were given... they were typically cast as harmful stereotypes.
But Sean was about to challenge those stereotypes...
…and he made the poster even more badass:
Safiya, Kevin, and Kane photoshopped themselves into the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows poster.
All three of them were super excited to be doing it.
Each of them remembered how it felt to grow up with limited representation for them.
And they recognized the impact they felt in the rare instances when they did see an Asian lead.
So, they hoped that recreating this poster would make a difference for the next generation.
And they nailed it.
Last but certainly not least, Niki would be in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay.
She talked about how excluding an entire race from such an important conversation puts the rest of the world at a disadvantage.
Niki hoped that one day there would be more diversity and this was just a step in the right direction.
So, with a little photoshop magic...
...Niki gave all of us googly eyes. 😍
Everyone agreed that there needed to be equal opportunities for Asian actors, directors, and writers in Hollywood; and that didn’t mean that other people would be excluded.
And it may not be today or tomorrow, but soon enough, there will be a diverse set of faces and stories to represent all walks of life.
