Microaggressions in Movies

Microaggression  is defined as '' a statement, action, or incident regarded as an instance of indirect, subtle, or unintentional discrimination against members of a marginalized group such as a racial or ethnic minority."

In movies, some people may not really see where a microaggression occurs. Mainly, because they don't really care or don't even notice it is a microaggression. But as it is defined, these aggressions may only cater toward smaller groups,. So while some may not care, others might see it as an issue.

One of the biggest microagresions I can find in the movie industry is Racial Changing. (That really isn't a real term, but that's the only thing I could think of.) But basically, Racial Changing is the action of altering a character's race, but that change does not fit within the context of the film.

Personally, I believe Racial Changing can be done to a certain extent. But it really comes down to several factors, which will be explained further on. I don't think it is completely bad, but there are certain times where it does make me wonder why that choice was made.

When I see Racial Changing as wrong:

A big factor into choosing a character's race, is the context of the film. Very recently, a trailer was released called The Outsider, and it is about the infamous Japanese gang, the Yakuza. Yet the movie revolves around a white guy. Within the Asian twitter community, there was a whirlwind of backlash. People were mad that a movie about an Asian gang, but the lead is a white guy. As an Asian myself, I also felt like this was a step in the wrong direction. The premise seems like a far reach just to include a predominant white actor, Jared Leto. Don't get me wrong, I like Leto as an actor, and he plays a World War II veteran joining the gang. Which in my opinion, lessens the damage a little bit, but then again the Yakuza is known as one of the biggest Asian gangs, so to have a white guy be the lead of the role defeats the purpose. Which to me doesn't fit the context of the overall film.

Another factor that I see when it comes to race in films,--Source Material. When a movie is adapted from a book, game, or comics; screenwriters and directors pull from these original ideas to make an adaptation. That is Source Material. One of the best examples is cartoons and anime that get adapted. One of the biggest adaptation flops is The Last Airbender, which is based off of Nickelodeon's show, Avatar; The Last Airbender.  In cartoons and anime, it may be hard to tell what ethnicity that the characters actually are. But when you look at the actual source material, it is clearly shown that there is a lot of influence based off of Asian culture. As seen in an example from the show, the writing is clearly based off of Chinese writing and Asian architecture.

So then based on the Source Material, why go a bunch of non Asian actors for a show based off of Asian Culture? This can be seen with many anime adaptations. For people who don't know what exactly anime is, it is basically a cartoon that is Japanese created. So all the characters speak Japanese, yet in the adaptations they cast predominant white actors. And has caused many issues that you can find all over the internet. Examples like Ghost in the Shell or Death Note.

These small actions that creators may see as  "unintentional discrimination" does cause issues. The argument could be brought up that white actors just pull in more money to the box office, most of the time--which numbers do prove. Or that sometimes it just doesn't matter what the race is for that specific character, which I can also agree on. But when movie creators decide to go against and context and Source Material is when Racial Changing becomes wrong.