Sometimes the internet can be a horrid place.
So any reminder of the positives that the world wide web and its viral campaigns actually muster up is well worth celebrating.
The Starring John Cho viral social movement from 2016 is one such viral trend that seemed to change minds and perspectives.
The project questioned why more traditional Hollywood leading roles hadn’t gone to Asian actors, doing so by adding the face of Korean-American actor John to the posters of “The Martian,” “Spectre” and “London Has Fallen” to show how good he would look in the films.
It worked, too, because not only did it highlight the need for more diversity in cinema, but the movie seems to have responded to. This month alone, “To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before,” “Crazy Rich Asians” and “Searching,” which stars Cho, are led and are predominantly made up of Asian casts.
I recently had the chance to speak to Cho about “Searching” and the Starring John Cho viral campaign, during which time he admitted that he was a little “weirded out” when he first saw it.
“At the time, at first, I was weirded out. Because it was my face but somebody was using it to say something.”
“But where I landed with that was that it was such a cool thing. Because it was something that could only happen in the internet age. It couldn’t happen through a newspaper article or a symposium. It was just this instant thing that was sent.”
“People were saying that we needed more Asian Americans in film. But this guy just put a picture of my face on a poster and said, ‘What do you think?’ And people go, ‘OK that’s not so weird. I don’t know what all of the talk is about that looks normal to me.’”
“And that was a super-effective way of having that discussion in a brief way on the internet that couldn’t have happened in any other time. So it was super effective, interesting and fascinating.”
But does John Cho believe that the Starring John Cho viral campaign actually had an impact on the movie industry?
“It was a great opener. As far connecting that to today, that’s just a giant, philosophical question of how the internet connects to real life.”
“When people want something on the internet, does it affect real-life. And if we have that answer, and can quantify it, then some people would be super rich.”
“Maybe other people do. I am just an actor and do not know the connection from that and what is happening today. It does feel like something promising is afoot.”
“But my other thought is that I don’t want to put the movement in the hands of the public or mainstream, whoever they are. There may be a shift in the mainstream talk about Asian Americans.”
“But really the movement, if there is one, it is in the hands of the storytellers. As long as we can keep going I think we can keep the whatever that movement is going.”
“I don’t want to overthink it and say that once the public opinion changes, I don’t want to guess what the public opinion is. Because to me it is more about the artists going forward and continuing to tell stories and keeping vigilant on this angle.”
John Cho also discussed how the desire for more Asian representation impacted “Searching,” too.
To me Searching is an example of the end game for cinema. It is an Asian American family, they’re specifically Korean, and yet it doesn’t matter, and yet that is who they are. That balance of being specific and not justifying their race is where we have to get to. This is an example of the kind of film and kind of character I want to do going forward.”
“Searching” is released on August 24.
