Young Asian actors deserve to be exploited by Hollywood, too!

So there is this movie out about some smart ass MIT students who use math to win at the game of Blackjack. With everything going on in the world, this is what Hollywood came up with. Anywho, I have problem with this movie (of course) and it has to do with race (of course).

So I was a-browsin' through my BBC Online headlines and came across this story about one of the brainiacs who inspired the book that inspired the movie. I don't need to point out how far the movie has come from the actual people it is based on. If you visit the comment threads on IMDB, you will see some posters have pointed out the inherent racism in using white actors to portray what was largely a group of Asian students. This is about as annoying as the whole Angelina playing Daniel Pearl's widow last year.

White people are good actors so much so that they can even play people of color. One commenter on imdb goes as far as to say that maybe there aren't any good Asians to play actual Asians in the film. Or MAYBE Hollywood wasn't looking. To add further insult, the one actual Asian actor in the film plays a crappy role - one that could be construed as demeaning.

This (what I am sure is a godawful) movie is yet another example of how mainstream American marginalizes and erases the presence of people of color.

Pictured top: Jim Sturgess who plays lead in film, 21. Pictured below, is Yuchun Lee, one of the MIT students who developed and perfected the math techniques used in the game.