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'user :Erik', are you the Misplaced Pages Thought Police? Do we need you to tell the rest of the community which sources to use on a subject that is inevitably contentious?
It's funny to see Sir Sean Connery on the list, given the famous memes comparing him to Ayatollah Khomeini. Jews have been hit the hardest — Jewish actors playing characters of other races (or even other Middle Easterners) are recognized as white, while non-Jewish actors playing Jews are already considered whitewashed. The absolute absence of any clear systematics, and as colleagues have pointed out — a purely American view of the subject, where people do not distinguish such radically different concepts as "ethnicity" and "race". Iktsokh (talk) 17:10, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
I agree that the list is problematic. My suggestion would be to drastically cut it down, and provide a few paragraphs of prose rather than a list. We should mention significant historical examples and ones that provide some illustration of the concept. We should collect the strongest sources about whitewashing, not about one individual film, and select our examples from those strong sources. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:30, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
Things are especially bad with examples with Middle Eastern characters, given that most European and West Asian populations are de facto of the same race, just different anthropological types within it. For this reason, I've included a small clarifying footnote to make this point. Iktsokh (talk) 19:03, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
No. The public should be warned about these films so that they don't financially contribute to a practice they may find abhorrent. The reader can decide for themselves whether this or that film qualifies in their view. 96.57.161.2 (talk) 22:26, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
Yes, the list does have a good portion of nonsense, as well as clear cut iconic examples of what is meant; such as the Mickey Rooney/Tiffany role. I agree with above that the prominent, culturally iconic and undeniable examples be given, and cut away the endless chaff.Halbared (talk) 18:39, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
I totally agree. Against this background, it is very strange to see the example of Mean Girls, where an actress of Jewish origin plays a Lebanese character. Or with the ethnic Italian Al Pacino who played the Cuban Tony Montana (as if Caucasian Cubans don't exist). Or Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein... It's like people lost the thread of the narrative during editing and strayed from the point. Iktsokh (talk) 19:24, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
This is where it goes into nebulous territory, such as the examples given above. Undeniable examples are the Tiffany one, then you have something like the Marvel characters who get mixed up multiple times in the their original medium and simply changed for he film medium. The two are not analogous.Halbared (talk) 21:12, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
Focus on the reliable sources that call it whitewashing. We can remove unsourced listings. For sourced listings, the sources should be reviewed for quality. Like Mean Girls having PopSugar as a reference isn't a reliable source. If it can't be improved, it can then be removed. Erik (talk | contrib) 02:47, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
"Nebulous territory" is for the reader to decide for themselves. These instances should be pointed out here if they have elsewhere (reliable sources, of course).
Ironically, the Breakfast at Tiffany's example is not really whitewashing, it's straight-up yellowface, so that one is arguably even more disputable. 96.57.161.2 (talk) 22:04, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
No, "whitewashing" encompasses both yellowface (and similar masking) and white-instead-of-nonwhite portrayals. The Encyclopedia of Racism in American Film writes, "...Breakfast at Tiffany's also embodies one of Hollywood's most infamous examples of 'yellowface' performance... besides the whitewashing of an Asian character, Mickey Rooney's performance... stereotypes Asian in general and Japanese people in particular." Per the sources, the essence is the same, a white actor instead of a nonwhite one. Erik (talk | contrib) 22:51, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
Here, I removed all the unsourced listings, and the WP:BURDEN is on others to restore it with reliable sourcing. Here, I also removed listings that had sources that were not reliable, like YouTube and blogs and student newspapers. Please feel free to review my removals and challenge any of them. Despite a content dispute about Wuthering Heights, I removed it here since there is no actual film yet. Erik (talk | contrib) 16:18, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
Proposal: blackwashing in film
Why not also create the article "blackwashing in film"? It's clear that black actors have been cast in many historically white roles (see, for example, Bridgerton); the same is true for live action and TV series (see, for example, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Peter Pan & Wendy and many, many others). Before some extremist user insults me, I just think this article should be created, nothing else. JacktheBrown (talk) 16:16, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
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