Racial Miscasting

[ by Jack Szwergold and Jason Torchinsky ]

If Hollywood is a window on the world, the world must be filled with a lot of white people pretending they're Mexican. And Swedes pretending they're Chinese. And WASPs pretending they're Jewish.

Acting, like fiction, is really about lying. Orson Wells isn't really Charles Foster Kane just as there isn't really a Death Star. They're lies. The better you are at lying about who you are, the better an actor you are. (Unless you're not an actor, in which case you're a freak who would make a scary roommate.) Still, lies can only go so far, as anybody who has ever been grounded can tell you. Witness ...

Robby Benson
Multiple offenses. Hispanic gang member in Walk Proud. Native American who won the Olympic 10,000 meter run in Running Brave. But we all know and love him as the a blue-eyed, black-haired WASP who's a stereotypical teenage wimp of after-school specials and Teen Beat pictorials.

Marlon Brando
The rugged star of the Godfather and On the Waterfront plays an Asian in The Teahouse of August Moon. (This was before he lost his mind and sat naked in a tent mumbling Jim Morrisonesque poetry in Francis Ford Coppolla's Apocalypse Now.) The only thing about him remotely Asian is the smell of duck sauce.
(see Al Pacino)

Robert DeNiro
Scorsese's obsession with Italian culture and the mafia makes everyone in his films come-off as Italian New Yorker's. Even when the character is a Jewish casino owner like DeNiro's Sam Rothstein in Casino.
(see Harvey Keitel)

Neil Diamond
One of the few well-known Jewish singers to have more than a few Christmas albums under his belt.
(see Lawrence Olivier)

Marlene Dietrich
The thick-accented German femme-fatale plays a Mexican madame in Orson Welles' Touch of Evil. Difficult to find someone less Mexican outside of a Hitler-youth recruitment poster.
(see Charlton Heston, Orson Welles)

Brendan Frasier
The encino man in Pauly Shore's Encino Man plays a jewish football player David Greene who is the target of anti-semitism in School Ties. The antisemitism part is right, but when Jews play football it's called soccer and nobody really pays attention.

Charlton Heston
Plays Uber-jew Moses in The Ten Commandments and a Hispanic in Touch of Evil. In reality, he's not Jewish or Hispanic; he is a very vocal Republican who hates violence in entertainment and yet is a booster for the NRA. You couldn't make a whiter, scarier, Christian man if you mated Ronald Reagan and Ed Begely, Jr.
(see Marlene Dietrich, Orson Welles)

Harvey Keitel
The Fantasy: Judas in Martin Scorsese's Last Temptation of Christ. The reality: Judas was not from Brooklyn. Martin Scorsese must have been smoking some strong frankincense. Keitel did invoke some scary Christ-like imagery when he pranced around naked and stoned in The Bad Lieutenant, though.
(see Robert DeNiro)

John Leguizamo
The "wacky" Hispanic comedian-who thought he was being a funny Chinese guy on House of Bugging when he wore buck-teeth and pronounced "rice" as "lice"-attempts to tackle the role of Mario's brother Luigi in Mario Bros: The Movie.
(see Chico Marx)

Chico Marx
Born Leonard Marx, Chico was the straightman to the other Marx brother's crazy antics. Little did that Jewish boy from Manhattan know the impact his Italian caricature would have on future generations. Without Chico's foundation to build on, John Leguizamo would never have found the inspiration for his characterization of Luigi in Mario Bros: The Movie.
(see John Leguizamo)

Lawrence Olivier
While it's hard to believe that the knighted and British-born actor played Neil Diamond's father in Diamond's remake of The Jazz Singer, nobody really cares since more people bought the soundtrack than saw the film. (see Neil Diamond)

Warner Oland
Born in Nyby, Sweden, Oland played the Chinese lead in the "Charlie Chan" film series. Considering the billions of people in China, somebody wasn't trying very hard.

Al Pacino
The man who helped Francis Ford Coppolla make Italian mobsters famous in The Godfather plays a revolutionary pilgrim revolting against the British in Revolution. If Italians landed on Plymouth Rock, we would be eating more pasta on Thanksgiving and WASPs would have no problem with garlic.

Jack Palance
Best known for playing the heavy in films such as Shane & City Slickers, Vladimir Palanuik stuck some hair on his face, rode a horse and played a Mongolian in 1960 film The Mongols. He has also released a book of poetry with a cover that he painted himself.

Anthony Quinn
The most famous greek actor around-thanks to his lead role in Zorba the Greek-a mexican.

Peter Sellers
The British actor was known as the bumbling French Inspector Clouseau in Pink Panther films. (We'll say we can't tell the difference, because it's fun to irritate the French.) But Sellers donned brown-face and played a "fishout-of-water" Pakistani in Blake Edward's The Party. Recent biographies reveal that not only was he British, but an asshole as well.

Orson Welles
Midwestern-born, self-obsessed director plays the black moor in his version of Othello. Many caucasians have played Othello, but not too many also had a heavy-duty crush on Marlene Dietrich.
(see Marlene Dietrich)

Marisa Tomei
The Brooklyn-born actress who won an Oscar for playing an Italian in My Cousin Vinnie plays the Cuban Dottie Perez in The Perez Family. Apparently being from Brooklyn makes you ethnic enough to play anything.
(see Marisa Tomei)