On Thursday, the trailer for Jared Leto’s new Netflix offering The Outsider tumbled out into the world. The promo was a touch moody and decidedly violent, but it was the concept that had a lot of folks feeling queasy. In particular, the seemingly unshakeable trend of making a white guy the star of a film set in Asia with non-white actors playing support.
The Outsider (which was once lined up as a potential Tom Hardy and Takashi Miike joint) features Leto playing a World War II soldier that is indebted to the Yakuza following the war and joins the ranks of the crime syndicate to carry out their bidding and occasionally shoot a handful of his enemies. The film’s emergence has turned off a lot of people on Twitter for a number of reasons, although the main issue is with the film is making an American the focus of a crime film set in Japan. Leto’s Oscar-winning and heavily criticized Dallas Buyers Club performance hasn’t earned him much goodwill in the representation department either.
Jared Leto as a Yakuza Killing Machine? No thank you to this #WhiteWashing mess. h/t @jesthevu https://t.co/TSrUc0ZasO
— Nancy Wang Yuen (@nancywyuen) February 23, 2018
There is literal #Whitewashing (Dr. Strange, Ghost in the Shell) and figurative #Whitewashing when shows set in Asia center around a white actor (The Last Samurai, The Great Wall). If you don’t understand the subtleties, do not accuse me of idiocy.
— Nancy Wang Yuen (@nancywyuen) February 23, 2018
WHO ASKED FOR THIS 😡😡😡 https://t.co/YC78LLvtnY
— Rebecca Sun 孫洪美 (@therebeccasun) February 23, 2018
Seriously!?! Another one of those movies where the Asian actors are props and the story–set in JAPAN–revolves around the ONE Hollywood actor?!?
— Dr. Abdul R. Siddiqui (@PakistaniPepper) February 23, 2018
STOP. WRITING. AROUND. US. @netflix https://t.co/tTZHLGukVE
— William Yu 유규호 (@its_willyu) February 23, 2018
white guy goes through an emo phase then decides to join a gang in this trailer for Netflix’s The Outsider.
there I fixed it. https://t.co/tTZHLGukVE
— William Yu 유규호 (@its_willyu) February 23, 2018
https://twitter.com/tkingdot/status/967182211358380033
Jared Leto got plaudits for his terrible performance in Dallas Buyers Club, and you ignired how problematic it was, and now he’s playing an American Yakuza. You need to nip this stuff in the bud.
— Bethany Black (@BeffernieBlack) February 24, 2018
THE LAST YAKUZA STARRING JARED LETO
(Seriously, how hard is it to hire an Asian-American actor for this type of shit? Still gets the outsider point across.) https://t.co/DFPavvzewd
— ShakGPT (@ShakExcellence) February 23, 2018
Exactly. Same thing with Iron Fist. If you have an Asian-American actor/character, out of touch with their roots, it would be just as effective – if not more so.
— Sam Stands with the WGA (@SamShotFirst) February 23, 2018
If you want to watch something on the Yakuza in post-war Japan, check out the five amazing films in the 'Yakuza Papers' series by Kinji Fukasaku which covers the Yakuza's rebirth and rise from the early '50s to the early '70s. Leave this embarrassing mess unloved and ignored. https://t.co/rQFAxgAM57
— Chris Eng (@hoodieripper) February 23, 2018
Yeah, I know there are a bunch of #yakuza films out there that I could watch, but who doesn't want another chance to see Jared Leto self-actualize laboriously? https://t.co/Khje7cE5vS
— Luke Tipton (@stipton82) February 22, 2018
Dwight Schrute with the sticky on his head that says "Asian" dot jay pee gee https://t.co/708ybb4hSI
— Vincent Van Gosh (@CanadiEnby) February 23, 2018
— Vincent Van Gosh (@CanadiEnby) February 23, 2018
Writer-director Aaron Stewart-Ahn shared on Twitter that he had previously received the script for the film and the second page pretty much summed up the problem with these sorts of films.
“California Roll with Imitation Crab the Movie…” wrote Stewart-Ahn. “A white producer sent me this script years ago said it was genius, it made Blacklist. Page 2 actually mentions Caucasians having bigger penises, I swear.”
https://twitter.com/somebadideas/status/966820884890685442
The Outsider will arrive on Netflix on March 9. Expect Twitter to be ready for analysis when the film drops.