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Covering The Coverage: New York Magazine Declares This "The Summer Of Brownface"

PSA alert! Because there are no Latino, Arab or Black actors in Hollywood, all roles as minorities will helpfully be portrayed by White people in this, the “Summer of Brownface.” Or, in the case of Mike Myers in The Love Guru, Indian Summer. The New York Times offers a humorous and cringe-inducing look into how the taboo of having Anglo actors portray minorities has been lifted, much to the delight of whoever still watches Mike Myers or Adam Sandler movies:

Not so in You Don’t Mess With the Zohan, opening tomorrow, where Adam Sandler plays an Israeli and Rob Schneider an Arab; both have seemingly taken a dip in the same substance used to honey up Angelina Jolie in A Mighty Heart. And Mike Myers’s The Love Guru is quite possibly the first Hollywood comedy entirely devoted to tittering over turbans since Peter Sellers played Hrundi V. Bakshi in The Party, from 1968. Ben Kingsley, naturally, shows up to meta-travesty his own half-Indian heritage, and by extension his Gandhi role, with a cameo as Guru Tugginmypudha. (Should the homophonic hilarity of that name prove too subtle, there’s also Guru Satchabigknoba.)

Kingsley is also onboard for the just-announced Prince of Persia, the cast of which — unveiled in the past week — includes such notable Persians as Jake Gyllenhaal and Alfred Molina. Nor is the trend limited to Hollywood blockbusters. In the indie thriller Stuck, out now, ethnic Estonian Mena Suvari rocks the cornrows to play a character based on a real-life black woman. On the small screen, meanwhile, it’s a fairly safe bet that the two-month overlap between the general-election and the TV-production cycles will bring us a lot more Fred Armisen as Barack Obama come September.

Oh brown people! They’re kind of like real people, but funny and, gosh, so vibrant. How kind, then, of Hollywood to take an anthropological interest in our way of life and humorous accents and hair textures. We hope the endeavor proves lucrative enough to bust their blocks this summer.

The Summer of Brownface [NY Mag]

I think it’s only fair that we have our turn! The yellow folks have been having all the fun for years as inscrutable casting choices like Mickey Rooney, Peter Sellars and Alec Guiness play them.

Posted by Quintana | June 05, 2008

And even more recently, Rob Schneider in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.

LOL White guys as Asians!
LOL Guys getting married!

Posted by Marco | June 05, 2008

For the record, Fred Armisen from SNL is Latino (Venezuelan)…

Posted by La Optimista | June 05, 2008

Next will be a remake of Amos and Andy where like before, a couple of white guys will be painted black to play them. Mickey Rooney as a Chinese man in Breakfast at Tiffany’s is SOOOO yesterday…

Posted by oohlala | June 05, 2008

@marco: rob is half filipino, and even less talented.

@oohlala: Mickey was playing Japanese, but like white people, they all look alike to us brown people

Posted by el smrtmnky | June 05, 2008

And Jessica Alba as a Latina! Absurd AND offensive!

Posted by pocachica | June 05, 2008

Pocachica wins, hands down.

Also, Fred Armisen is half Venezuelan and half Japanese.

But have we forgotten about our lovely Vanessa Anne Hudgens, chocha-baring star of Disney’s High School Musical, who plays Latina but is actually Half Irish and Half Filipina? You know, because there just aren’t enough real Latinas out there, certainly not in California and Florida, where those shows are usually made.

Posted by o sea, que? | June 05, 2008

Mike Meyers in The Love Guru is VERY OBVIOUSLY playing a “white person”. Do some research, like maybe the first paragraph of the plot. Previously, I had avoided Guanabee because the servers it is hosted on are known to also host Very Bad Things, and I had rationalized the avoidance of this site by thinking that the content couldn’t be worth the possible Very Bad Things. Turns out that my instincts were correct. I think that’s why they call them instincts.

Posted by fever | June 06, 2008

@ fever: Usually, I have no patience for people who comment while refusing to read or understand a post, but as this is, I feel, an important issue, I’ll bite.

“Covering the Coverage” means we take a look at what other media outlets opine about issues that interest us - in this case, Anglo actors portraying minorities in a way that is socially and culturally ignorant or irresponsible. So any insinuation that Mike Myers is playing a person from India was not made on Guanabee’s part.

However, the fact that Mike Myers is playing an-American-as-Indian to comedic effect is problematic because instead of laughing at how silly this one White, American person is, we’re laughing at stereotypes, accent and religious thought associated with people from the Asian subcontinent. So this is still “Brownface,” it’s still shitty, and should still be called out.

If you don’t care enough to make these connections on your own then, yes, perhaps it’s best that you avoid us and our Servers of D00m.

Posted by ...dijo Alex | June 06, 2008

Where are these awesome “Very Bad Things” I’ve been missing?

Posted by La Cindy | June 09, 2008