A new campaign protesting Hollywood’s Whitewashing of Asian-American characters and performers reimagines several Hollywood blockbusters with Asian-American leads—or rather, one particular Asian-American lead.
#StarringJohnCho describes itself as "a social movement that literally shows you what it would look like if today’s Hollywood blockbusters cast an Asian-American actor—specifically, John Cho—as their leading man," on its website, which launched yesterday (May 5). To that end, the site and its Twitter account and hashtag feature movie posters with the Korean-American star of "Better Luck Tomorrow" and "Star Trek" as a top-billed actor.
The results, as the following tweets attest, are incredible:
What if Sarah and Joseph Rogers had adopted an Asian child and named him Steve? See the result. #StarringJohnCho pic.twitter.com/WywOaZP60D
— #StarringJohnCho (@starringjohncho) May 5, 2016
Love knows no boundaries #StarringJohnCho pic.twitter.com/ZWBcKs7mGA
— #StarringJohnCho (@starringjohncho) May 5, 2016
Watch your six! Raptors got a new alpha! #StarringJohnCho #JurassicWorld pic.twitter.com/cixtNpvoCj
— #StarringJohnCho (@starringjohncho) May 5, 2016
Hail the Cho-sen one. #starringjohncho @JohnTheCho pic.twitter.com/i5ucrxusYm
— Chris Weitz (@chrisweitz) May 6, 2016
While Cho isn’t officially involved with the campaign, he did follow its Twitter page.
Cho has previously spoke about being excluded from several film genres because of his ethnicity.