The Lone Ranger and Hollywood’s History of Miscasting Ethnic Roles

Thanks to last weekend’s release of The Lone Ranger, an age-old trend in Hollywood history is back to the forefront: casting white actors in non-white roles. At best, this practice is a disappointing fact of the history of Hollywood; at worst, it’s a blatant attempt to stereotype and caricaturize an ethnicity to highly offensive results.

Either way, it’s a reflection of a time when no thought was given both to minority actors in leading roles and the wider societal affect this had on race relations. I’ll get to the latest offender in a bit, but first let’s take a trip back through this unfortunate rabbit hole and see how we got here.

Let’s start with one of the worst instances in film history: Mickey Rooney as Mr. Yunioshi in 1961’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The Asian landlord of Audrey Hepburn’s Holly Golightly is the epitome of a sideshow ethnic character, embodying pretty much every negative Asian stereotype. From the accent to the make-up, this character is a thoroughly ridiculous and insensitive representation of Asians.

I recognize that this movie is over fifty years old and that such portrayals were pretty much par for the course at the time, but to state the obvious, that doesn’t justify the choices made here. And to make matters worse, Yunioshi is the definition of a side character, completely unnecessary to move the story forward, serving only as an antagonist to Holly Golightly, and an ineffective one at that.

He’s there simply because somebody thought it would be comic relief to put Mickey Rooney in Asian make-up and hear him do a funny voice. It wouldn’t excuse the offensiveness if he was more pivotal to the plot, but it certainly doesn’t help that he’s totally superfluous.

One of the highest-profile examples of this mishandling came soon after, and it’s also one of the most debated. In 1965, Laurence Olivier starred in a film version of Shakespeare’s Othello. In order to play the lead character, Olivier dropped his voice a full octave and, more egregiously, covered his entire body in different shades of black and brown make-up, taking the execution of blackface to whole new level.

Clearly Olivier’s decision to play the character at all, and particularly during a time when the Civil Rights struggle was so prevalent in America, gave pause to many moviegoers and critics alike. But unlike in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Olivier’s Othello is intended to be taken seriously. His performance is dignified and tragic, garnering Olivier an Oscar nomination, and for many it is a defining portrayal of the character in film. But even so, when you watch it today, when such blackface would be the furthest thing from filmmakers’ minds outside of Tropic Thunder, it is a jarring and uncomfortable thing to see.

These are in no way the only examples, but they are two of the most prominent that have led us to today. In Disney’s latest release, Johnny Depp plays the Lone Ranger’s Native American sidekick Tonto. Depp himself has claimed to have Native American heritage (though I haven’t found any definitive evidence one way or the other), and in interviews his stated purpose for taking on the role was to right past wrongs of Tonto’s portrayal – and those of other Native American characters – on radio and television.

First off, even if he does have a Native American ancestor, it doesn’t mean it is automatically acceptable, or at the very least the best choice to play Tonto. Which brings me to the next point I’d like to bring up, though it’s not originally mine. In an interview with NPR last week, UCLA professor and Kiowa member Hanay Geiogamah pointed out that, considering this is clearly Depp’s vehicle, he could have played the Lone Ranger himself and brought in a Native American actor to play Tonto. Alas, that ball was dropped.

But none of that would have mattered a whole lot if Depp had accomplished what he set out to and given audiences a more progressive version of the character. According to many reviews of the film, however, Depp and director Gore Verbinski may have missed the mark.

Apparently, this “new” Tonto (and though I haven’t seen the movie, I’ve been able to devise as much from the trailers) maintains many of the stereotypical characteristics of the versions that came before – most notably the stunted English he uses – while adding in others that may rub certain moviegoers the wrong way, such as the white war paint on his face and the dead crow he wears on his head.

I can’t fault Depp for his motivations for taking on the iconic role, but at the end of the day, it seems that The Lone Ranger will wind up as just another entry in a long line of movies that have mishandled ethnic roles.