Some speculate that 007 might get an ethnic makeover.
Kimberly Yam of Huffington Post reported on Nov. 15 that Henry Golding, the British-Malaysian dude who played Rachel Chu’s fiance in the 2018 blockbuster Crazy Rich Asians, is watching Twitter explode into tweets suggesting that he should portray the first Asian James Bond. Golding’s “super-suave” photoshoot for GQ’s 2018 “Men of the Year” issue indicated that he would “certainly...fit the part” according to Yam.
So where are the desperate cries of “cultural appropriation?” There were no shortage of them on HuffPo when Scarlett Johansson was set to depict Motoko in Ghost in the Shell. Bond has, after all, been ethnically white since his first appearances in the 1950s Ian Fleming novels.
Yam, in fact, thinks that having an Asian James Bond would not only be justified but “refreshing.” Why? Because “Hollywood’s longstanding habit of relegating Asian men to sexless stereotypical roles such as the old karate master or graceless math nerd” is an unrepresentative insult to social justice -- every race ought to have sexy, uber-masculine womanizers on screen, obviously.
The public probably had no gripes with watching Jackie Chan incapacitate hundreds of bad guys within minutes, Ms. Yam.
