Tweeters weigh in on casting of Mulan and Aladdin movies

THE SO-CALLED problems in casting the upcoming live-action movies of Mulan and Aladdin woke the Twitterverse and bloggers.

It is hard to believe that the directors of the movies couldn't find ethnically appropriate casts for the Aladdin and Mulan, which take place somewhere in the Middle-east or south Asia and China respectively.

Actor Kumail Nanjiani, still basking in the critical and box office success of The Big Sick weighed in:

Many expressed disbelief at the alleged casting difficulties inferring there is something else at work in the decision-making process:

Suggestions galore came in for Aladdin's two main characters of Aladdin and Jasmine:

 Former First Edition singer Zayn Malik as Aladdin seems like a natural choice.

Mulan will most definitely have a Chinese cast and it will definitely be a musical. There was no shortage of casting ideas:

Harry Shum Jr  received a lot of support for the male lead.

There was no shortage of actresses who could play the woman warrior Mulan:

Constance Wu is on a hot streak these days having nabbed the lead role in 'Crazy Rich Asians' and her ongoing series 'Fresh Off the Boat' is renewed for another season.

Jamie Chung played Mulan on the TV series 'Once Upon A Time.'

Fan Bing Bing got a lot of votes with her run in Hollywood action movies including 'The Great Wall.' and Marvel's X-Men and Iron Man.

What I hope won't happen is that Disney will say, "Well, tried and we did an extensive search," then resort to whitewashing. Can you imagine the uproar if that happened?

Sony's version of Mulan is also underway. While the production is committed to a Chinese cast, there is a whole wide world of actresses in Asia that we in the U.S. are not familiar with.

In the three movies in production, the two Mulans and Aladdin, there are no excuses for not casting Asians in those roles.

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