Are Asian actors less expressive than their white counterparts?

Asians are taking to Twitter in anger, after a Hollywood casting director allegedly said Asian actors were more difficult to cast because they were “not very expressive.”

An article by Paste Magazine quotes Nancy Wang Yuen, a sociologist, in which she recalls talking to an unnamed casting director regarding Asians.

“I work with a lot of different people and Asians are a challenge to cast because most casting directors feel as though they’re not very expressive,” the Hollywood casting director allegedly told Yuen.

“They’re very shut down in their emotions…were they really have to act and get some kind of performance out…it’s a challenge.”

The statement naturally caused outrage, causing some to take to Twitter with some very expressive opinions.

Started by author Maurene Goo, the hashtag #ExpressiveAsians quickly took off.

People had many, many, many expressions.

The original article in which Yuen was quoted takes from her book Reel Inequality: Hollywood Actors and Racism, in which she also states that 77 percent of casting calls specify a white actor.

The Paste report also cited several recent examples of whitewashing in Hollywood, notably the casting of Scarlett Johansson as a Japanese character in sci-fi film Ghost in the Shell and Ed Skrein as a mixed Asian character in Hellboy.

Skrein later announced that he was dropping the role after facing intense backlash.

Read more: http://mashable.com/2017/09/11/asians-not-expressive-twitter/