Controversy over Casting in Blackjack Movie '21'

A storm of controversy has been building over the casting choices for the new blackjack card-counting movie '21', with some critics labeling the casting "discriminatory" and calling for a boycott of the film.

If you've been on a long-distance flight to Saturn in the previous few weeks, you may not have been exposed to the hype surrounding Hollywood's latest gambling movie, 21.

The movie is about the world-famous MIT mathematics team which developed not only a method which allowed them to count cards in Blackjack with positive expectation, but an additional system of strategies and signals to avoid detection.

The movie stars Kevin Spacey, Laurence Fishburne, Kate Bosworth and Jim Sturgess (who plays the lead). It's this casting which has offended elements of the Asian American community, and drawn criticism from several prominent newspapers and blogs. One writer said the movie casting was "moving Asian Americans to the back of the bus."

To understand what the fuss is about, some background information is important. The real-life MIT team, which the non-fiction book Bringing Down the House and the movie 21 were based on, was mostly comprised of Asian American men such as Jeffrey Ma, Michael Aponte and John Chang.

Furthermore, the team's Asian ethnicities were invaluable in that casino operators were used to seeing young Asian kids gamble huge amounts of money on the blackjack tables. It was not only that the main characters in real life were Asian; it was important that they were Asian.

The Hollywood casting process decided (likely for reasons more sinister than you or I care to believe) to replace the central Asian American characters with Caucasian leads, allowing only one token Asian supporting role (a kleptomaniac) to be played by the talented Aaron Yoo.

Alvin Yin, writing in MIT Tech Online, explained that not only should Asian Americans feel offended by the discriminatory casting of 21, but that fair-minded non-Asian Americans should be offended also:
"I think when entertainment is supposed to be based on real life, that there is an obligation to stay true to the situation's demographics and the real life protagonists. For example, a movie about the NBA with no Black actors, or a hospital show with no Asian American male doctors in it, would seem unrealistic. There is also precedent to this argument. For example, decades ago Broadway initially used White actresses to play the Asian female protagonist in 'Miss Saigon,' until they were eventually forced by the Actor's Equity Union to use Asian actresses."

Hollywood has traditionally treated the Asian American community with contempt, often featuring Asian actors in less-than-flattering roles, and occasionally directly offensive ones – who can forget the yellowfaced, buck-toothed character in Breakfast at Tiffany's?

Hollywood had the perfect opportunity with this movie to atone for historical casting embarrassment. They had to opportunity to cast talented Asian American actors to play the roles of talented Asian American MIT students.

"Exclusion or lack of presence can be just as offensive as overt negative stereotypes, and it marginalizes and alienates Asian Americans from the American melting pot," added Alvin Lin.

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