10 Worst Examples Of Hollywood Whitewashing

Ben Affleck’s thriller about the Iranian hostage crisis won big at the Oscars, and you might remember the public controversy about the portrayal of the Iranians, most of whom were in reality in favour of freeing the hostages, and the Canadian intelligence, who played a bigger role in the mission than was portrayed.

But there's also a problem with whitewashing, even though it's less noticeable than in other films on this list, when considering two of the major characters. The character Affleck played, CIA specialist Tony Mendez, is Mexican-American in real life. Similarly, Clea DuVall’s character, captive diplomat Cora Lijek, is in reality Japanese-American.

This is a different type of whitewashing – it’s not as outrageously offensive as a white actor pretending to be a different race, but the changing of a real-life person’s race so viewers might not even realise the person has ever been anything other than white.

While it may be more difficult to spot, it’s arguably just as bad, as the role of ethnic minority heroes in a real life crisis has been subtly erased.