updated: 01/11/2006
Hollywood has a fairly abysmal record on the portrayal of trans-ethnic roles: both the characters and the makeups have more than tended to the stereotypical. I don’t see anything wrong in and of itself in an actress playing a character whose ethnic origin is other than her own (anymore than I objected to Rock Hudson playing all those straight roles): but the whole issue is entangled (possibly inseparably) with the issues of how non-whites have been portrayed in films and, for decades, the practical exclusion of non-white actors and actresses from the Hollywood system.
Not all the actresses here are ‘white’ but they generally portraying an ethnicity which has a darker skin tone than their own, as in Partition where Kristin Kreuk, who is part Indonesian Chinese, plays an Indian girl: some of her previous roles have been explicitly ‘white’ (eg Snow White). Similarly, Jessica Alba, of Mexican-French-Danish descent, qualifies by my definition when she plays a Dayak girl in The Sleeping Dictionary. In the event so would Thandie Newton or Halle Berry if either were to be cast as a Zulu or Masai woman.
For more information on and background to of the ignoble history of yellowface and blackface in the movies see the Robert Ito’s A Certain Slant from Bright Lights Film Journal and Bambizzoozled.
Anyway for better or worse here you can find examples of actresses in blackface and yellowface: sometimes playing a black character (eg Black Narcissus) sometimes playing a blacked-up white character (eg Lady Caroline Lamb). If I find any I’ll also include black or Asian actresses playing white roles: if anyone knows of any examples of whiteface, please email me.
If anyone has decent images of actresses in blackface from 1920s and 1930s movies not available on DVD (particularly Irenne Dunne in Show Boat, Loretta Young in The Hatchet Man or Myrna Loy in Ham and Eggs at the Front), please email me.