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As I see it | Hong Kong must move on from using brownface – just look at Bridgerton

  • Why do casting directors in ‘Asia’s World City’ insist on darkening a light-skinned actor to portray a person of different race rather than embrace diverse casting?
  • Societal norms are changing, and institutions, officials, and industries – especially the entertainment sector – must move with the times instead of seeking to maintain an outdated status quo

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Franchesca Wong plays a Filipino domestic worker named Louisa in TVB’s “Barrack O’Karma 1968”. Photo: TVB

As far as being brown-skinned goes, I think my bona fides are pretty well-established.

Like the Bridgerton star Simone Ashley, I am proud of my Jaffna Tamil roots and the generous endowment of melanin that comes along with it.

Amid the ongoing hand-wringing in Hong Kong about the “brownface” saga involving a Canadian-born Chinese actress who darkened her skin to play a Filipino domestic worker, I too, have been doing some self-reflection.
From left: Charithra Chandran, Simone Ashley and Shelley Conn in Bridgerton. Photo: Netflix/TNS
From left: Charithra Chandran, Simone Ashley and Shelley Conn in Bridgerton. Photo: Netflix/TNS

How offended should I be that it’s 2022 and this is still happening?

Why do casting directors in a metropolitan city like Hong Kong – which prides itself as Asia’s World City – insist on darkening a light-skinned actor to portray a person of different race rather than embrace diverse casting?

Having contemplated these questions, I find that, more than being offended, I feel an acute sense of second-hand embarrassment for those who have sought to suggest there is nothing wrong with the practice of brownface or blackface.

I remember having similar thoughts when in 2019, a similar incident took place in Singapore.

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