#StarringJohnCho Hashtag Goes Viral, Calls For More Diversity In Film

John Cho, the Korean-American actor who stars in Star Trek, is replacing the likes of Sam Clafin, Matt Damon, Chris Pratt and Daniel Craig in movie posters thanks to a new Internet movement called #StarringJohnCho.

#StarringJohnCho

William Yu, a 25-year-old New York City-based digital strategist, realized that the conversation about diversity in film often failed to mention the lack of mainstream movies with an Asian lead. “#STARRINGJOHNCHO is a social movement that shows you what it would look like if today’s Hollywood blockbusters cast an Asian-American actor as their leading man,” Yu explains in the Twitter bio for the movement.

Yu revealed in a recent interview that he was inspired to start the project following the #OscarsSoWhite campaign.

“It was very much a two-side argument,” Yu told The New York Times. “You had a white issue, and you had an African-American issue.”

Yu was further encouraged to highlight the plight of Asian men and women in leading roles when he read a study by researchers at the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles that found that the more diverse the cast, the more money a film is likely to make.

“That was kind of the linchpin of me thinking, ‘If that’s true, then why aren’t we seeing leads reflecting this fact?’” Yu told the Times. “If they’re not casting these leads, let’s show what Hollywood would look like if they did.”