Advocacy groups are calling The Martian movie racist after changing the character's races in the movie.
An advocacy group is attacking The Martian filmmakers for changing the races of some of the Asian-American characters from how they are described in the book on which the movie is based on.
According to the Media Action Network for Asian Americans' (MANAA) complaint, author Andy Weir's 2014 best selling novel featured Dr. Venkat Kapoor, a character of Southeastern Asian descent, whose name is changed to Vincent Kapoor, and is played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, an African-American actor. In the movie, the character explains that his father was “a Hindu” and his mother was “Baptist”.
Another character that changed races after casting was Mindy Park, who is Korean American in the book, is played by white actress Mackenzie Davis.
Kapoor and Park are both involved in key scenes in the movie.
“Was Ridley Scott not comfortable having two sets of Asian Americans talking to each other?” said MANAA founding president Guy Aoki in a statement. “So few projects are written specifically with Asian-American characters in them, and he's now changed them to a white woman and black man.”
“This was a great opportunity to give meaty roles to talented Asian American actors — and boost their careers — which would've enabled our community to become a greater part of the rescue team,” Aoki continued. “This feel-good movie, which has attracted Oscar buzz, shouldn't get any awards for casting.”
This is not the first time Ridley Scott got into trouble for his alleged racist casting decisions. Scott's previous movie, Exodus: Gods and Kings, received criticism for casting white actors in Egyptian roles.
But, Ridley Scott is not alone for be called out as a racist Hollywood filmmaker, Recently, Cameron Crowe's film Aloha received criticism for the casting of white actress Emma Stone as a character who is described as a quarter Asian and a quarter Hawaiian.
It is important to note that Cameron Crowe apologized while Ridley Scott did not.
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