Alvin blogs on Hyphen Blog about the controversy surrounding the movie “21” in where a mainly white cast plays the roles of real life Asian Americans who won big in Las Vegas:
While there have not been too many complaints in mainstream media over these developments, one cannot help but wonder what the backlash would have been like if, for example, Hollywood had made the movie ‘Coach Carter’, with a Caucasian actor replacing Sam Jackon’s role, which was based on a real-life story. In terms of marketing or box office numbers, it is also puzzling why they would cast Sturgess (a relative unknown) as the lead student instead of Aaron Yoo (also in the film as a minor role), when the movie already had cast such big-name stars as Kevin Spacey and Laurence Fishburne.
