I’m sorry, but the argument that Darren Criss is a “white-passing” actor somehow justifying that race is irrelevant to the character of Oliver is a gross point to make and implies that aapi rep only counts if it looks a certain way. And it doesn’t consider the fact that as the silent minority, we’ve always had to face the fact that audiences other than us never really notice if we’re there or not, causing us to struggle for limited job opportunities because we’ve been shoehorned into small-minded roles that are there to fulfill a quota rather than actually offer a diverse narrative. This defense is honestly giving “All Lives Matter” considering it’s basically saying that casting a white actor is suppose to show that the story is meant to he diverse. MHE is a universal story in the sense that it gave audiences a chance to see the world through an Asian American lens and broadening our horizons of what kind of stories can be told by whom, when so many narratives have already been told through a caucasian standard. Seeing Asian faces onstage for a universal story like MHE was important because it showed that these sort of faces deserved to be telling all kinds of stories that can connect us all, and not just narratives that focus in the fact that we’re asian. The MHE production team was more than happy to accept the support of the aapi community and let themselves be carried all the way to the tonys under the guise of spreading aapi rep but are suddenly backing out, insisting it was never intended to be a solely Asian American story, despite the entire cast with the exception of Gil, including the backups, being Asian. That’s not color-blind casting— that’s intentional in the same way Hamilton would never cast a white actor to play a Alexander Hamilton. It’s about setting a precedent for all future casting and sending a message that roles and stories deserved to be told by any and all races, given the equal opportunity, of which the white population already has plenty of.
