I saw the movie “21” when it came out back in 2008. It was a fun movie and had a re-watchable quality. However, when I found out that it was based on a true story, and the character that Jim Sturgess played was based on an Asian-American, I grew disdain for it. Sturgess plays Ben, but in the book “Bringing Down the House,” the protagonist is an Asian-American named Kevin. I am not the most “woke” person, and I didn’t jump on board to the whole “Oscars so white” controversy. I don’t think a person of color should get a role just so the studio can mark their diversity box. However, casting a white actor irked me when the character was based on an actual Asian-American person.

After reading “Bringing Down the House,” it turns out that the race of the characters actually plays a significant role, which makes the casting choices more insulting. It was important for the characters to be Asian because they fit a certain profile. The casino would assume they were the offspring of older rich executives from Asian countries, who have a reputation in casino circles to gamble enormous sums of money. The book also explained that a young white kid would only draw suspicion.

The characters NEEDED to be of Asian descent, and the movie disregarded this. They try to make it up by having two Asian side characters. However, if they wanted diversity while still making it realistic, they would have the leads be Asian (instead of Sturgess, Kate Bosworth, and Kevin Spacey), and have the spotters be white (played by Liza Lapira and Aaron Yoo).

Another difference is that in the movie, Ben and his mother are short on money and he can’t go to medical school without a scholarship. In the book, Kevin grew up in a two-parent household with two older successful sisters. This dynamic is essential, as this sibling rivalry drives him to make as much money as possible. I would have liked to see this relationship on the movie screen rather than the former.

There is also another scene where Ben goes to an underground gambling ring in Chinatown. Kevin in the book also experiences this. But as I already mentioned, how would a white kid go into these gambling rings and not draw suspicion? Kevin easily pulls this off while Ben, who towers over everyone, just casually slips in unnoticed?

Whenever someone complains about a POC playing a main character in a movie, I always bring up “21.” Most recently, Mindy Kaling was getting flack for accepting a role as Velma in Scooby Doo. Velma’s character never brings up her race, which makes the controversy odd. It’s just closeted racists who want to have the character be white. They will even bring up strawman arguments and say, “well what if a white actor played Black Panther?” This makes little sense because his race is critical to the role, as opposed to Velma.

I like to bring up the “21” example because the people I argue with will still attempt to defend the casting of white actors, even though they are against POC playing leads in remakes. Again, I’m not one to think that a POC should take every lead in a movie, because that is just an overcorrection of the lack of diversity in Hollywood. But they should be the leads when the source material relies on the characters being a POC as part of their character.