Racist '21' Casting - The Real-Life Book Characters Were Mostly Asian Males
 

Has anyone else heard about how most of the real-life characters in the book 'Bringing Down the House' were mostly Asian Americans, but that the movie stars mostly Whites, with some token Asians in small roles? That is RACIST TO REWRITE THE ETHNICITIES of this real life story from mostly Asian to White. Jeff Ma, John Chang, Mike Aponte, Andrew Tay, 'Kianna', and others were all Asian American and somehow in the movie they magically became White people named 'Mickey Rosa', 'Ben Campbell', and 'Steve Fisher'.

This is racist, because if you read the book their Asian ethnicity is central to the plot and their ability to gamble lots of money in Vegas:

[excerpt from book: The MIT team thrived by choosing Big Players who fit the casino mold of the young, foolish, and wealthy. Primarily nonwhite, either Asian or Middle Eastern, these were the kids the casinos were accustomed to seeing bet a thousand bucks a hand. Like many on the team, Kevin Lewis was Asian, and could pass as the child of a rich Chinese or Japanese executive. “When you’re recruiting, you don’t recruit white kids. They look conspicuous. Asian kids, Greek kids, dark skin fits in better with lots of money in the casinos. White 20-year-olds with $2 million bankrolls stand out,” explains Andrew Tay, one of Lewis’ teammates. “A geeky Asian kid with $100,000 in his wallet didn’t raise any eyebrows.”]

Just another example of racist Hollywood casting, and the complete exclusion/suppression of American-Asian men in Hollywood ('Pat Buchanan' racist mentality that Asian American men can't play Americans on screen). Based on this article below , the studio initially wanted to write out all Asian American men:

[2005 Interview: "Mezrich mentioned the stereotypical Hollywood casting process — though most of the actual blackjack team was composed of Asian males, a studio executive involved in the casting process said that most of the film’s actors would be White, with perhaps an Asian female. Even as Asian actors are entering more mainstream films, such as “Better Luck Tomorrow” and the upcoming “Memoirs of a Geisha,” these stereotypes still exist, Mezrich said." ]
http://www-tech.mit.edu/V125/N43/43vegas.html

Here is a link about Jeffrey Ma, who was the Chinese American protagonist in the book "Bringing Down the House" that actually had all those crazy things happen to him. He is called "Kevin Lewis" in the book, and was in a fraternity and played water polo at MIT:
http://www.thelavinagency.com/images/bios/ma.jpg
http://www.thelavinagency.com/usa/jeffreyma.html

This is like that recent HBO movie 'Marco Polo', with a White guy playing Kublai Khan, or that 'Tsunami' movie focusing on White British tourists, and starring no South Asians. Can you imagine the outrage if Hollywood had remade 'Coach Carter' (a real life story) starring a White guy instead of Samuel L Jackson? Producers added in Aaron Yoo at the last minute for cosmetic reasons, based on early reviews he's in the film for 5 minutes, this casting is still racist as hell.

Not too much has changed from when Bruce Lee was passed over for the TV show that he wrote, by David Carradine (for 'Kung Fu'). And yes, '21' is based specifically on the book 'Bringing Down the House', and the new versions of the book even have the movie poster on its book cover.

The Real Life Jill Taylor confirms the team was mostly Asian American men, with one blond girl (herself):
http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/arti...out/?page=full

It's really stupid. I don't think it's racist, though.

white people just sell more tickets.

And Jeff Ma, at least, supports the movie.

If I wanted to see Asian people doing impossible things I'd rewatch Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Instead I want to see a kickass movie about white people cheating casinos that doesn't star George Clooney.

WHY The Casting Is Racist
 

Why The Casting is Racist:
-----
By any definition the casting process in "21" is racist.

The claim that the casting decision 'was for profit and has nothing to do with racism' is entirely fallacious and based on circular reasoning. Plantation owners were initially motivated by profit and owned slaves to realize this goal. But this decision is based on inextricably racist logic that establishes a hierarchy of self and other. The decision is intended on subverting a group of people in order to further one's personal goals. It is impossible to claim that one is not racist just because he is trying to make money.

Likewise, 21's blatant race transformation of Jeffry Ma's character is rooted in profit, but remains inherently racist. One group of people remains as "other" in order and perpetuates white hegemony.

One of the most popular form of entertainment in America at the turn of the 20th century was, believe it or not, blackface minstrel and cinema. That's white people putting on makeup and portraying a stereotyped "Darkie" as they called it.

Today's form of racist marginalization is typecasting and recasting as in the case of 21. It is irrelevant whether or not the people involved in these decisions are personally racist in everyday situations. Merely by being part of the process or being apathetic to the process, they are condoning racist acts.

Today's racism occurs on a more subtle level although it is still obvious for those of us that are socially conscious.

shut up.

Yeah. I read the book and I don't remember their race being central to the plot. It's not like they're going on some mythical quest through Tiger Land in Downtown Dojoville in the heart of the hills of Japan looking to take down some legendary dragon and only those with the blood of the Orient within can defeat the dragon by pulling a sword of one thousand truths out from the mantle of the dragon's cavern and using it as a javelin to pierce the heart of Puff's cousin.

Racist Casting
 

1. First of all, Asian AMERICANS are American too. Do you geniuses bring up Africa when you talk about Black American issues?

2. Multiple responses to the 'make money' excuse...being okay with racial prejudice is the same attitude that slaveowners 200 years ago had, and what sexist White men said about women's right to vote, basically just to 'deal with it'. It doesn't make it right or just. Also, nonWhites all over the world watch Hollywood movies starring Whites in their theaters, so are you implying that White Americans are the most racist people on the planet? I personally don't buy this argument because plenty of foreign language films have done well in America, and also people who pay to see this are going to see the supposedly non-fiction cool story, Kevin Spacey, and Laurence Fishburne. Jim Sturgess is not putting butts in the seats, anymore than Aaraon Yoo who should have played the lead student.

3. It doesn't matter if Jeff Ma is okay with it. There are tons of Uncle Tom Asians out there. For example, Michelle Malkin defends Japanese internment during WWII. Lucy Liu went on The View to defend Rosie O'Donnell's ching chong joke. Abercrombie's racist Asian t-shirts were co-designed by an Uncle Tom Asian. If a self hating Jewish American person publicly said he didn't mind anti-semitic remarks or the holocaust, would you give him/her any credibility?

Well, the book it's based on is pretty racist, too. Of course, I'm basing that off the previous film adaptation. That Steve Martin is a hoot, though.

And how is their 'being Asian' central to plot? Oh. Because Asians are better at numbers than whites and blacks.

I read the book as well and QFT

Isn't it more important if the character is done justice rather than have the actors all be played by Jackie Chan or some stereotyped asian american actor. Yeah it sucks that they changed it, but like it's said above, it really makes no difference whatsoever to the story so much.

lol@your pre-edited post.

Wait....did you create this profile specfically to start this thread? Or do you plan on going on Lewis Black-ish rants on all other Asian related misfortunes?

I don't remember giant asian faces on my book over to begin with. I'm pretty sure the old book cover was some playing chips and a deck of cards.

Asian Ethnicity Central to Plot
 

No Stonewall, the author writes at length in the book about how these students used the casino's stereotypes against them. Their Asian ethnicity is mentioned multiple times in the story and how it is central to the plot. Mezrich specifically says White students walking around with tons of cash raises alarm bells, whereas these Asian American kids could pretend to be sons of tycoons and just throwing money around.

The film itself pulls the contents of the book so far out of whack that it's hardly the same story, if they were making an actual account of what they did, then yes, having all asian characters would have been essential. But that's probably the exact opposite of what they did.

/read the book, read the screenplay

The key: is the ethnicity an integral part of the storyline?


Think: if they put Asians in there, us Asians get stereotyped even MORE as math nerds who have nothing else better to do. Yes, it may be "racist" to leave them out, but they may be doing us a favor.

That, and everything they do is $$$ driven anyways. This isn't a problem unique to this movie.

p.s. I forget the original MIT Blackjack group. A few Asians (the ones you mentioned), Andy Bloch is the famous name in there, who else? I'm pretty sure no females...

Asian Ethnicity Central To Real Life Story
 

In response to the "loosely based" excuse...

This book is specifically about 'Bringing Down the House'. The new versions of the book even have the movie poster as the book cover, for Christ sake. And in THAT book, most of the team is expressly described as Asian American, and also explains why their ethnicity is central to the plot. This movie was NOT about any other people. Some of you sound like if Hollywood made the movie 'Coach Carter' starring a White coach instead of Sam Jackson, and their excuse was a White person coached the team either before or after the real-life story of the Black coach that the movie was based on. It doesn't matter that other people coached the team, the movie isn't based on their story, at all.

Here is what infuriates me. Various people involved with the movie keep bringing up how it's loosely based on the book, which is loosely based on the real life story.

Well... the only reason it was a best seller in the first place was its premise that it was non-fiction and not too made up. Otherwise, it's a pretty crappy book with poor writing that any hack writer could write up. Additionally, the huge draw for the movie is that it was real, that it really happened, not to go see some fictionalized fake story.

You can't have it both ways. People pay to read the book or watch the movie because it is supposedly non-fiction. You can't then claim much of it is just fiction and entertainment in defending the offensive casting decisions, because then the story just looks average, nothing special, any average hack could probably think up something even better than this cliche'd plot they've created with White-washing of the real-life characters.

I disagree. I think that Asians walking around with loads of cash would be a lot more suspicious than White folks. And there are probably more White children of "tycoons" that gamble their money away in Vegas than Asians.

You have to remember, other than the basic plot of it all (MIT students going to Vegas every weekend pwning the tables), and some seagulls, that's about where the similarities end. Anyone who really likes the book and cares about accuracy will hate this film. The character's races is really just a chip off of the iceberg.

Blogosphere
 

"Every time you think Hollywood can’t stoop a little lower they somehow manage to find a way."
http://www.topsocialite.com/hollywoo...-white-people/

Trans-Racialization in '21'
http://www.racialicious.com/2008/03/...9C21%E2%80%B3/

This isn't central to the story of fleecing the casino.

This isn't central. It is at best of slight importance to their means of fleecing the casion. Of far more importance is being from MIT or a similarly ridiculous smaaaahht university/college and the characters being realistically believable and not some douchebags on a plane who just learned to count cards last weekend.

Only not at all. Mezrich is wrong.

off topic: lol eternity and lol drama

on topic: The real story here is not about the characters but about the cards. The movie is trying to turn the story into one about the characters instead of the cards. This is where I think the anger should be directed at.

More Blogosphere
 

"No Dogs or Chinese Allowed"
But it's outrageously disrespectful to the actual students, and to Asian-Americans in general, to hand over most of the roles to "audience-relatable" white actors, and relegate the one Asian-American actor to a supporting spot. Still, I suppose it could be worse; his part could always be played by Rob Schneider in yellow-face.
http://www.nerve.com/CS/blogs/screen...e/default.aspx

"Bringing down the Asians"
http://www.ultrabrown.com/posts/brin...own-the-asians

If it were all asians wouldn't that be kinda racist, assuming that because asians are good with numbers means they would be the greatest card counters?

Constant Negative Stereotyping of Asians
 

Yes it's more important if the character is done justice, which means not trying to trans-racialize it for White supremecist reasons. There are TONS of quality Asian AMERICAN actors who could have played the part.

Using your thinking, Jewish Americans shouldn't have a problem if an East Asian plays Jesus if he was 'true to the character'.

The thing is, Whites love to bring up how Will Smith played a fictional White guy in 'I Am Legend'. The thing is, White males already have TONS of positive, normal, or 3-d images in America media, so this doesn't really make a difference to them. On the other hand, Asian American men are constantly marginalized, negatively stereotyped, and forced to play 'chinky' foreign accented roles. This was a perfect chance for Hollywood to break out of its institutionalized racism, and they blew it. I guarantee you this wouldn't have been as big a deal, if not for the fact that Asian American males are constantly demeaned by Whites in Hollywood.

I suggest everyone to google 'Slanted Screen Documentary' about this.

Thats so racist, presuming Asians would be better at cheating with cards. This author is a stereotyping bigot.

I'd much rather fuck Kate Bosworth than some Asian guy. I'd imagine studio heads would be thinking the same.

There's also the fact that, if you ignore the original races entirely, these people were obviously nerds. And people don't go to see 'entertainment films' about nerds playing cards and struggling to breathe behind their headgear and acne.

So if you're going to change the entire composition of people, and the plot, anyway, there's nothing inherently wrong about changing their races. In order for this casting to actually be racist, Bosworth and Spacey would have to have their eyes taped back, walk around in pointy straw hats, and keep bowing to each other.