Despite constituting 4.5% of the U.S. population, numbering over 12.5 million people, Asian Americans have a major problem in representation in the media. The few times they are given roles in movies and television shows, they are forced to play the stereotypical ideology that has represented Asians for decades, such as math wizards, hard-working servants, terrible drivers, masters of martial arts, or convenience store owners with a thick accent, which gives off a misrepresented and exaggerated impression of what Asian Americans are actually like. This habitual Hollywood unwillingness to give Asian Americans individuality beyond stereotype is what manifests in the viewers’ minds and affects the way they view Asian Americans as a whole far after …show more content…
Historically white actors were made to look Asian instead of casting an actual Asian actor since “it is the institutional barriers which bar Asian actors from major roles, relegating them for the most part to extras” (Lee 177). Using well known white faces to play major Asian roles occurred throughout the 1950’s to 1980’s, with one classic example being the 1919 film Broken Blossoms by D.W. Griffith where the leading role of a Chinese male was instead played by a white male actor named Richard Barthelmess. In addition to Hollywood films, non-Asians were casted to play Asian roles even on Broadway, such as in the 1996 play The King and I where the lead role of King of Siam was played by an actor named Lou Diamond Phillips who was part Hispanic. Just because Asian Americans are a racial minority, people believed that “Asian Americans do not fit the profile of most big Hollywood stars” (177). With all these movies and plays having non-Asian actors as the lead role, Asian American actors were bound to be agitated and actually started to protest after a 1990 Broadway production of Miss Saigon when they casted a British actor to play one of the leading