Hellboy: Ed Skrein Leaves In Protest Over Whitewashing
Score one for positive action.
Following on from the controversy that met his casting as Major Ben Daimio in the Hellboy reboot, Ed Skrein has taken the dramatic (and seemingly unprecedented) action of stepping down from the role.
In the comics, Daimio is of mixed race - Japanese and American - while Skrein is white and British (though he is himself of mixed heritage), and inevitably his casting brought accusations of whitewashing once more. Instead of shrugging and wondering what he was supposed to do when he got given work, Skrein instead backed out of the role publicly.
In itself, protesting against the casting of white actors in roles that should go to Asian actors (or any other racial minority) can only go so far: you have to suspect that Hollywood would only start paying attention if actor like Skrein weigh in like this in meaningful ways.
That way we'll see less cases of the likes of Doctor strange and Ghost In The Hell race-changing unnecessarily. And given that more Asian voices are needed in mainstream movies, that can only be a good thing.
Hopefully too, Skrein comes out of this with even more work, because he absolutely deserves it for being that respectful alone.