Insensitivity at the movies

From blackface to whitewashing, Hollywood has frequently treated race with something less than sensitivity. Here are five notorious examples. “The Conqueror” (1956): John Wayne rarely appeared on screen without a cowboy hat, but this movie marked a departure — and how. The Duke plays Genghis Khan, the 12thcentury founder of the Mongol Empire. Even a handlebar mustache and furry hat couldn’t hide that famous drawl on such pickup lines as “You are beautiful in your wrath.” “Touch of Evil” (1958): Charlton Heston as a Mexican cop? With a mustache and his skin darkened, that’s exactly what he played in Orson Welles’ sordid noir. Critics weren’t terribly impressed, though the film has since become regarded as a classic and now sits in the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry. “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” (1961): Everyone loves this Audrey Hepburn romance — so much so that we tend to forget Mickey Rooney’s savagely unfunny portrayal of a bucktoothed Japanese bumbler named I.Y. Yunioshi. Though Rooney never issued a full mea culpa for the performance, director Blake Edwards later said, “Looking back, I wish I had never done it.” “Short Circuit” (1986): This sci-fi comedy about a robot who becomes sentient might be most remembered for casting Fisher Stevens, a selfdescribed “thin, white Jewish kid from Chicago,” as a scientist of Indian descent. Comedian Aziz Ansari, a self-described Indian kid from South Carolina, even used the Stevens bit as an element of racial awareness on his Netflix series “Master of None.” “The Last Airbender” (2010): The director M. Night Shyamalan, who is South Asian, made the surprising choice to cast white actors in the main roles of a fantasy film (based on a Nickelodeon series) about Asians and Inuits. The outcry was deafening and sparked the first-ever boycott from the Media Action Network for Asian-Americans. “The Lone Ranger” (2013): Johnny Depp played Tonto in this modern-day version of the classic Western series, which caused some concerns among American Indians. Tonto’s tribe had never been clearly defined, but Depp’s claims that he was “told” he had Creek, Chickasaw and Cherokee heritage as a child didn’t convince many folks. In the end, the movie bombed on its own merits.