Movie Fan Highlights US Movie Whitewashing With The Help Of John Cho

A US movie fan is appealing to Hollywood to embrace ‘an Asian-American leading man’ armed with a new viral hashtag and the likeness of 'Star Trek’ actor John Cho.

William Yu, a 25-year-old digital strategist, has created ’#StarringJohnCho’, both in reaction to recent instances of whitewashing in Hollywood and to offer studios who might be paying attention something of a visual aid.

- Paul Feig clarifies Ghostbusters ‘geek’ comments
- X-Men: Apocalypse is getting slated
- Russell Crowe confirms Dr Jekyll casting

Cho’s face has been photoshopped onto various movie posters, showing how suitable he’d be as an Asian-American lead.

“#StarringJohnCho is a social movement that literally shows you what it would look like if today’s Hollywood blockbusters cast an Asian-American actor - specifically, John Cho - as their leading man,” says Yu on the website.

“I’m tired of hearing from people that they can’t 'see’ an Asian American actor playing the romantic lead or the hero, so I created #StarringJohnCho to literally show you.

“So when Cho is cast in the next shocking thriller, hilarious rom-com, Oscar-bait drama, or box-office breaking action blockbuster, let’s get him what he’s always deserved: TOP BILLING.”

Others are now photoshopping Cho onto a myriad movie posters, and he looks pretty good on all of them.

Recent instances of so-called Hollywood whitewashing have seen movies like 'Gods of Egypt’, 'Pan’, 'Prince of Persia’, and 'Exodus: Gods and Kings’ criticised.

There’s also anger over Scarlett Johansson’s character in 'Ghost In The Shell’ and Tilda Swinton’s character in 'Doctor Strange’ both being played by western actresses, when they’re not in the source material (Swinton’s character is also a man in the comics, however).

And during the Sony email hack, a note from A-list screenwriter Aaron Sorkin to studio boss Amy Pascal was revealed to say of a movie version of the book 'Flash Boys’ that 'the protagonist is Asian-American (actually Asian-Canadian) and there aren’t any Asian movie stars’, and thus he was skeptical of its chances of success.

Cho is not (yet) formerly affiliated with the movement, but last night he tweeted what appeared to be his full and frank approval.

Come on folks, let’s make this happen.

Image credits: StarringJohnCho/Marvel