Burt Lancaster, Apache, 1954
Lancaster plays an Apache soldier captured by Americans. Jenni Monet writes, “The reality is, Native Americans have long suffered a public relations problem in a society that would rather regard today’s Indians as relics of the past.”
Laurence Olivier, Othello, 1965
Olivier played the Shakespearean character, who is labeled a “Moor” in the play. A contemporary review of the film said he looked like the “end man in an American minstrel show.”
Angelina Jolie, A Mighty Heart, 2007
Angelina Jolie plays the real-life person Mariane Pearl, a French woman with a Cuban mother and a Dutch father. Pearl “is clearly a person of African ancestry, and putting dark make up and a curly wig on Angelina Jolie doesn’t change that fact or fool anyone,” writes Margaret Kimberly.
James D’Arcy, Cloud Atlas, 2012
James D’Arcy plays “The Archivist,” a Korean man who interrogates Sonmi-451 in Neo Seoul. Andrew Ti writes on Grantland that “rather than address something like facial structure, or, god forbid, getting an Asian actor to play this role, they elect to concentrate on the most obvious and craven characteristics that they perceive in Asian people, their slanty eyes and their not-quite-white skin.”
Johnny Depp, The Lone Ranger, 2013
Johnny Depp plays Tonto, a Native American companion to a masked former Texas Ranger.
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