situating a diverse ensemble around a white character will help make the show more palatable to viewers across color lines,

They didn’t dance around it. He stated quite clearly that the character Damon plays wasn’t intended to be Chinese. Rather, the fact that he is a white man defending China along with four other Chinese heroes fits the narrative. If the director says it wouldn’t make sense to have Damon’s character be Chinese, don’t we…

I have a feeling this might be a false flag and we should be very careful about launching an attack, If 80% of the protagonists in a historical FANTASY setting are non-white, we need to very careful about how we lodge our complaints. Because if we start saying that all movies set in foreign countries need to have 100%…

OK, that’s fair. But the director, himself Chinese, stated quite clearly that Damon is but one of FIVE heroes (saviors). The other four are Chinese.

“One could argue that writing a role for a white man doesn’t take a role from an Asian actor the way literally changing a character’s race does, but it’s still just another role marked for a white actor.”

I have faith in Zhang Yimou—I actually choose to believe what a famed Chinese director has to say about the movie he is directing.

Yet a white American feels sufficiently entitled to critique a movie she hasn’t watched.

And when white people are critiquing a movie made by Chinese people for whitewashing maybe they should shut the fuck up.

I’m far more disturbed by the people being so dismissive of the greatest living Chinese filmmaker (a man whose 20s were spent as a victim of the Cultural Revolution) wanting to make a crossover hit.

Have you seen Zhang Yimou’s other movies? They do tend to give multiple characters focus—see Hero or Curse of the Golden Flower. It’s really not hard to imagine what he’s talking about if you’ve seen those movies.

Matt Damon and Zhang Yimou’s point is that the trailer does not give us enough knowledge of the movie’s plot to conclude the Damon is intended to be the white savior of China. Yimou explicitly says he’s not. It’s also bizarre for a movie that features a whopping three non-Chinese actors, one of whom is not white, to…

Hollywood absolutely has a white savior/white washing problem.

I don’t really care cause it seems as if Zhang is attempting to figure out the key to unlocking the US market, in the same way American directors are always trying to figure out the key to unlocking the Chinese market. The thing that both have in common is that they don’t quite understand the cultures and the cultural…

Damon’s comments are stupid, but I’m far more disturbed by the people being so dismissive of the greatest living Chinese filmmaker (a man whose 20s were spent as a victim of the Cultural Revolution) wanting to make a crossover hit. The utter absurdity of arguing that Zhang Yimou hasn’t done enough representation of…

It seems like they earmarked a role specifically for famous actor and box office draw Matt Damon rather than just for a “white actor.”

Uhh, this just seems like saying “white people can’t be in movies with Chinese people”. The Chinese director who made this Chinese film wrote the role for a white actor.

This is even worse than when no Isla Nublareans were cast in Jurassic Park.

A Chinese director making a Chinese movie filled with mostly Chinese actors wanted it to do well in the US, so he decided to try to pander to US audiences by including a white major character. That’s not a good idea, but it isn’t Hollywood white washing, not in the usual sense anyway. Maybe be outraged that the…

Movie paid for, written for and asked for by Chinese audiences yet white American lady is telling them they are getting it all wrong.

Much ado about nothing.