‘Crown Heights’ explores flaws in US justice system
‘Hellboy’ casting prompts backlash over ‘whitewashing’
NEW YORK, Aug 24, (Agencies): A new film based on the true story of a man wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for murder seeks the silver lining in human perseverance while exploring the flaws in the US justice system.
“Crown Heights”, in theaters on Friday, follows the story of Brooklyn native Colin Warner, who served two decades in prison after he was wrongfully convicted of the 1980 murder of a young man, and Warner’s friend Carl ‘KC’ King, who took up the long fight for Warner’s freedom.
Lakeith Stanfield, who plays Warner, told Reuters he believed the film explored the “silver lining in tragedy” in showing the friendship of the two men.
“I tend to focus on the aspects of it that highlight perseverance and the human will and the human spirit and how unbreakable that can be. How one must stick to their guns, for lack of a better term, in order to see that there’s justice and change brought about”, Stanfield said.
At the age of 18, Warner was charged with murdering a teenager outside a high school in Brooklyn, based on the account of a 14-yearold boy who said he saw what happened and pointed to a mug shot of Warner when asked by police to identify the suspect. Warner was imprisoned and denied parole, refusing to confess to a crime he said he did not commit.
King spent years learning the intricacies of the legal system and eventually helped convince the actual perpetrator to come forward and confess to the murder. Warner was exonerated and released after serving 21 years in prison.
Nnamdi Asomugha, who plays King, said he hopes the film sparks a broader conversation around the injustices in the judicial system that failed Warner’s case. Issues “I think as we continue to find our ways to sort of highlight these sort of issues, whether it’s through art or it’s through any other means that you can, I think it can lead to action ... and that’s how you fix it”.
A Hollywood film yet again finds itself responding to a social-media outcry over the casting of a white actor in a role that was originally Asian-American.
British actor Ed Skrein earlier this week joined the cast of the “Hellboy” reboot “Rise of the Blood Queen”, which is to be the third film in the comic adaptation franchise previously helmed by Guillermo del Toro. The character, Ben Daimio, is Japanese-American in Mike Mignola’s “Hellboy” comics and his heritage is central to his backstory. Daimio’s grandmother was a Japanese Imperial assassin in World War II.
Many objected to the role not going to an Asian-American actor and called it another example of Hollywood “whitewashing” Asian characters. “I guess they want this to fail”, said actress Cindy Chu on Twitter.
The film’s distributor, Lionsgate, declined comment. A representative for Skrein didn’t respond to queries Wednesday.
The backlash follows previous controversies including the castings of Emma Stone as a half-Hawaiian, half-Chinese Air Force pilot in Cameron Crowe’s “Aloha” and Scarlett Johansson as the cyborg protagonist in the Japanese anime remake “Ghost in the Shell”. This week’s Netflix release, the Japanese manga adaptation “Death Note” also drew criticism for transferring a Japanese story to Seattle without any Asian actors.
Though Masamune Shirow, director of the original “Ghost in the Shell”, defended Johansson’s casting, many lambasted the choice. When the $110 million film flopped in April, Paramount Pictures said the casting conversation impacted reviews, and thus its disappointing box-office debut.
Studies have shown that diverse casts often lead to better box office. And yet the top 100 films of 2015, a USC study found, contained not one leading role for an Asian-American.
That has led to increasing frustration for many prominent AsianAmerican actors and produced some clever parodies. A New York digital strategist named William Yu, inspired by the “OscarsSoWhite” backlash, created the website and hashtag “StarringJohnCho”. In photo-shopped movie posters, he imagines Cho single-handedly filling the Asian-American leading-man void in everything from “The Martian” to “Me Before You”.
“With every instance of whitewashing”, Yu posted in response to the Skrein casting, “an (Asian-American) is subliminally told that they are not worth attention, not worth a place in this society”.