10 Worst Examples Of Hollywood Whitewashing
5. Emma Stone As Allison Ng (Aloha, 2015)
Oh, Cameron Crowe, what happened to you? The director, once beloved for the likes of Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Jerry Maguire, and Almost Famous, made a return to filmmaking in 2015 with Aloha, a rom-com set around Hawaii.
Filling this with non-Hawaiian main characters would be one thing, but Crowe went one step further into controversial territory by casting Emma Stone as Captain Allison Ng, a character who was apparently quarter-Chinese and quarter-Hawaiian. We say apparently, because she’s clearly quarter-white and three-quarters-also-white. But hey, at least they didn’t try to paint her yellow.
When the controversy about Stone’s casting started to dominate the film’s publicity, Stone acknowledged that whitewashing was an issue and that she regretted taking the role, while Crowe offered what he described as a “heartfelt apology” for her ill-advised casting, trying very hard not to say “I’m sorry, but please will you go see my film now”.
Possibly for the best, people didn’t.