Where did the Asian characters go?

Mainstream movies continue to minimize or exclude Asian characters, even when depicting historical events about Asia itself.imgres-1

Is this authorial racism, a market-driven response, or part of a broader ethnocentrism in audiences?

These issues are taken up in a recent essay by David Cox appearing The Guardian entitled “Attempting the Impossible: Why Does Western Cinema Whitewash Asian Stories?” Opening paragraphs of the story are below:

“The Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 killed at least 227,898 people. Around a third of these were children. The economy of coastal south-east Asia was devastated, with the loss in some places of two thirds of the boats on which fisherfolk depended. The environment was irreversibly defiled. Since many of the bodies were never found, psychological trauma was compounded by the tradition in many of the areas affected that the dead must always be buried by a family member. Continue reading “Where did the Asian characters go?”