Looking for the Dawn of the Planet of the Asians

My sister or mother once brought home a science fiction novel in which the white civilization was taken over by China. I don't remember much about the novel, but it undoubtedly played upon the same yellow perilism fear that brought about the anti-Asian immigration laws in California and the United States. What does that have to do with "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes?"

Check out the main characters and then ask yourself: Where are the Asian-looking people? Where are the strong women? When people go to San Francisco, what do they see? San Francisco is the city of diversity. Chinatown should be more than just a scenic backdrop for action (as it was on "Godzilla" 2014).

Although according to the 2010 census, the San Francisco population was 48 percent white (non-Hispanic white is 42 percent), 33.3 percent is Asian and only 6 percent African American, and the Latino population of any race is 15 percent, the representation in this movie is skewed. Chinese are the single largest ethnic minority with 21 percent. 

In terms of leadership, San Francisco had an openly gay mayor, George Moscone, who served from 1976 until his assassination in 1978. He was followed by the city's first female mayor, Dianne Feinstein, who served the rest of his term and then was elected in her own right in 1979 and re-elected in 1983.  The city has also had an African American mayor (Willie Brown, 1996-2004) and currently has a Chinese American mayor (Ed Lee). 

Yet in casting, the human characters for this movie, we had white people as our main characters. Jason Clarke, who plays the main human character Malcolm is an Australian. Keri Russell (an American) is white. She plays Malcolm's second wife. Gary Oldman, who plays the leader of the human survivors in San Francisco, is a white British actor. Australian Kodi Smit-McPhee plays Malcolm's and is very white. Joco Sims, who is black, plays Werner, the radio tech. Two actors are Latino, Kirk Acevedo and Enrique Murciano.  Acevedo is Puerto Rican and Chinese, so he represents the Asian population. Murciano is of Cuban descent. 

With a location that is 33 percent Asian (of that 21 percent being Chinese), it would seem a perfect opportunity to to cast an Asian, particularly a Chinese American as a lead or secondary character. Instead we, get a two-fer in Acevedo who is one of the first to die. 

In a city that has had a woman mayor, it would also seem like a good opportunity to write in strong female characters instead of relegating them to supportive, traditional roles and occupations--that goes for both the human and the ape cultures portrayed in this film . The female characters do not speak up, they are not a part of the policy-making. 

In the 1968 "Planet of the Apes" movie, the society was set up in a caste system. The gorillas are the law enforcement (police and military) as well as the hunters and manual labor. The orangutans are the bureaucracy--administrators, politicians, lawyers and priests. The chimpanzees are the intelligensia--intellectuals and researchers. Humans are the slaves, experimental subjects and hunted animals. They are not known to speak.  Roddy McDowall played Cornelius and he would return to play Caesar in "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes."

Cornelius was a scientist as was his wife, Zira (Kim Hunter). It was Zira who took a special interest in the astronaut George Taylor (Charlton Heston).  

In "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes," Caesar's mate, Nornelia (Judy Greer),  is sick and attended by what looks like a harem of female chimps. None are individualized. We don't distinguish the mates of the other male primate characters such as Koba (Toby Kebbell), the bonobo who is Caesar's adviser, or Rocket (Terry Notary), the common chimp who is Caesar's second in command or Maurie (Karin Konoval) a Bornean orangutan. We have two teenaged male chimps--Caesar's son Blue Eyes (Nick Thurston) and Rocket's son Ash (Doc Shaw), but no teenaged girls. 

In "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" the few female characters--both chimp and human--are help mates as if the Feminist Movement was fought in a different dimension, an alternative world. And apparently, the simian flu killed off a significant number of the Asian population of San Francisco, or multiculturalism has become a cast-by-numbers one-demographics-fits-all proposition. 

This casting isn't as egregious as the whitewashing in "21" or the Hawaiian segments of "Cloud Atlas," but still it is worth nothing.

Filmmakers and casting directors, when you think of a certain local, think of the demographics and not just ethnic backdrops. When will Asians including ethnic Asians become a part of the action. I'm waiting for a films to see Asians as anyone--earthlings, heroes and essential to the realism of a story, or a locale. I'm waiting for it to dawn on filmmakers that this is a planet that is 60 percent Asian and ethnic Han Chinese are about 20 percent of the world population (largest single ethnic population).