Here’s the problem with Hollywood today: in the same week that Disney announced the casting of 14-year-old native Hawaiian Auli’i Cravalho to voice the lead Hawaiian heroine in its upcoming animated film Moana, Warner Brothers released Pan, in which Rooney Mara, a Caucasian female, plays the Native
American princess Tiger Lily.

Current films such as Moana, are taking steps toward diversity, but with movies like Pan, it seems reasonable to ask just how far we have come in casting people of color in film.

Hollywood has whitewashed movies for decades. From the days of white actors blackfacing in movies to today’s inconsistent casting, the film industry has often struggled to depict an accurate representation of color.

Critically acclaimed movies such as Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave and Lee Daniels’ The Butler may seem progressive because of their predominantly African-American casts, but in these cases, the casting of people of color was a necessity. Both movies were historically based—there was no feasible way to cast a white actor—so to claim that this movie was a conscious choice to cast people of color is a cop out. There really was not a choice at all.
Unfortunately, when the casting decision is not so black and white, the part often goes to a white actor. Do we have any mainstream African-American superheroes? Any Asian actresses playing the lead in a romcom?

And while we’re at it, when was the last time a Native American was accurately portrayed in film? Because Johnny Depp being cast as Tonto, the “Native American warrior” in the 2013 remake of The Lone Ranger, can surely not be deemed an accurate representation. In many instances, a white actor is actually chosen to play a character of color. Jake Gyllenhaal was cast as the Persian prince in the 2010 film, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, whose subsequent cast of characters in the Persian desert was also predominantly white. There was uproar from black activists in 2007 after Angelina Jolie was chosen to play Afro-Cuban Mariane Pearl in the the movie A Mighty Heart, a role for which she wore skin-darkening makeup. And in the Academy Award-winning 2012 film Argo, Tony Mendez, who is of Mexican descent, is portrayed by white actor and director Ben Affleck.

These roles may seem of little consequence, but they discount the importance of diversity and representation in film. But with the rise of social media, the public is holding the film industry accountable for its casting decisions.

The message to Hollywood is clear: A Hawaiian teenager voicing a Hawaiian teenager? Took you long enough. A white woman playing a Native American princess? Probably not.

​The representation of race on the big screen has seen little improvement over the years, and it is time for casting directors and filmmakers to remove their white-colored glasses.