Yeah same, it's why I'm thankful stuff like this is discussed when it happens, it's very useful to become informed about certain topics one would otherwise ignore.
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Racist casting call against ‘monolid’ Asian actors enrages Twitter and Asian actors
- Thread starter SilentPanda
- Start date
It's uber common partly because it's not publicized and spoken against. A cultural tendency can be inherently bad even if it's ubiquitous.
I'm Asian, 37, and have double lideye lids. As a little kid in the 90's I remember other kids(mostly or all white I think) repeating this line to me "Chinese, Japanese, Look at these". When they said the "look at these" line they would pull their eye lids sideways. It didn't matter that I had double eyelids, all Asians have monolid and that's that.
Honestly I didn't understand why that was being said to me and just found it kind of funny back then, but that was a completely different time. Nowadays I get very annoyed when people still try to associate all Asians as having monolid eyes. It's common, but it's also extremely common that we don't have it either. It already plays a role in Asian self hating, casting calls asking for one or the other is only making things worse.
Honestly I didn't understand why that was being said to me and just found it kind of funny back then, but that was a completely different time. Nowadays I get very annoyed when people still try to associate all Asians as having monolid eyes. It's common, but it's also extremely common that we don't have it either. It already plays a role in Asian self hating, casting calls asking for one or the other is only making things worse.
Yeah, I can't even fathom the circumstances that led anyone to believe this specificity of casting was even necessary, like holy shit
i bet things like this are common practice, but people aren't dumb enough to spell it out like this and instead just choose whatever is closest to what they're looking for from the people who show up for casting calls.
Wow that's fucked up.
They would also get turned away as it's looking for women not men. Lol. But your point still standsThe following people would be rejected based on their eyelids...e-y-e-l-i-d-s. What a world.
Holy shit, that is something. "We want Asian actors, but only the right kind of Asian."
Also, what on Earth does anyone find unattractive about monolids? I've never been able to figure it out.
Also, what on Earth does anyone find unattractive about monolids? I've never been able to figure it out.
I am going to bet the casting director for this didn't really know what they were looking for... they likely got direction that they wanted a racially ambiguous asian actor - in the sense that if you couldn't specifically tell their origin, the spot could be used more widely. Then, this person was an idiot, and just started googling racial traits.
I've been on lots of projects where you are trying to hit a middle ground... find someone that you film, and then use the spot in as many locations as possible. Not saying this is right... just saying how a lot of these things work.
Need a spot that could run in parts of Europe, maybe South America as well? You get someone with a skin tone that could be mistaken for Italian and Brazilian. This gets done because budgets are tight and you are trying to make a commercial work WAY too hard.
It's a bad practice, and then this is like the weaponized form of that - shameful all around.
I've been on lots of projects where you are trying to hit a middle ground... find someone that you film, and then use the spot in as many locations as possible. Not saying this is right... just saying how a lot of these things work.
Need a spot that could run in parts of Europe, maybe South America as well? You get someone with a skin tone that could be mistaken for Italian and Brazilian. This gets done because budgets are tight and you are trying to make a commercial work WAY too hard.
It's a bad practice, and then this is like the weaponized form of that - shameful all around.
It's quite an old thing, people have been checking my eyes since I was a kid (I have a clear double lid). I just hope the younger generations don't categorize people in the same way the older generations did.
Man, a LOT of east asian people do.
I had monolids when I was a young kid; remember very clearly my mom on many nights taking a toothpick to score lines on my eyelids so that they'd possibly develop into double lids lmao (laugh about it now because I wasn't in pain or even uncomfortable, just annoyed at the process).
Yeah, there are surgeries and products (like eyelid tape) for "fixing" the monolid look. Double kids actually make you eyes look bigger.
You also don't necessarily have to have both eyelids the same. I actually have one monolid and one hooded, and I personally think it looks stupid because one of my eyes looks bigger than the other.
I never knew what double-eyelid actually meant until this thread -- thanks for the visual clarification.
I'd heard about monolids before, but never actually looked them up.
Holy shit, that is what some people find so undesirable? The omission of a little crease above the eyes? It blows my mind. It's so bizarre to me that people would have strong opinions about whether the actor they want has one or not.
Holy shit, that is what some people find so undesirable? The omission of a little crease above the eyes? It blows my mind. It's so bizarre to me that people would have strong opinions about whether the actor they want has one or not.
I am even more shocked. What do you think is behind this East Asian preference? Monolids are distinctive and no less attractive than any other type of eyelid. It seems kinda crazy to me.
This looks pretty legit:
Uncovering history of double eyelid surgery
In 2007, an eight-minute video clip of Tyra Banks “attacking” a young Korean-American woman who underwent double-eyelid surgery went viral. In the still-available clip, Banks, an African-American TV personality, claims that the surgery that the 25-year-old Korean-American named Liz received was...
www.koreaherald.com
Lol so aside from installing a right wing pseudo dictatorship government, the US also messed up beauty standards in SK. Lame.
Thanks for the link. I have just been reading a Vice article about blepharoplasty,This looks pretty legit:
Uncovering history of double eyelid surgery
In 2007, an eight-minute video clip of Tyra Banks “attacking” a young Korean-American woman who underwent double-eyelid surgery went viral. In the still-available clip, Banks, an African-American TV personality, claims that the surgery that the 25-year-old Korean-American named Liz received was...www.koreaherald.com
How Three Asian Women Dealt With Their Eyelid Insecurities
what the fuck is monolid? I've legit never heard that in my life. Also, this kinda shit is disgusting, its already hard enough for an Asian actor/model to get a gig because of how dismissive these sorts of casting calls are towards anyone thats Asian. this is just abhorrent.
Context matters. Racism is not just a black and white dictionary definition.
Yup this is a pretty big deal inregards to the far east. I remember my cousins would comment on my 'american eyes'
I never heard of it either until my parents told me how it's a thing in show business. Apparently some people have trouble getting roles in movies/tv/etc. if they don't have it. I still don't really get why it's so important.
To me, it sounds like one of those completely arbitrary beauty standards that got passed around by word of mouth so much that it got blown completely out of proportion. It's just a line that someone drew in the sand and said that one is more attractive than another, and therefore everyone on the "wrong" side of it is bad. It makes no sense.
Someone else posted it, but the standard is actually racist in origin.
US racism and exported parochialism caused all sorts of stupid shit to occur in Asian countries immediately following WW2. The whole Japanese whaling bullshit going on to this day was caused by the US occupation government not considering fish/seafood or soybeans to be 'real' protein (the US wanted the average Japanese, and children in particular, to eat more protein).