It’s no secret at this point that Hollywood is racist as f**k, and for decades if you weren’t white, there was an 80% chance you were gonna play a maid, a terrorist, or a criminal.
And Kal Penn has the literal receipts, which he put up on Twitter.
Found a bunch of old scripts from some of my first years trying to be an actor. pic.twitter.com/GydOwlUKGW
— Kal Penn (@kalpenn) March 14, 2017
And it gets even worse.
Jeez I remember this one! They were awful. "Can you make his accent a little more AUTHENTIC?" That usually meant they wanted Apu pic.twitter.com/3F5XRORO3n
— Kal Penn (@kalpenn) March 14, 2017
And they wouldn’t even let him not do that if he wanted to get paid, and eat that week.
This was a pilot called The Stones. Tried to convince them to let me speak without an accent & make it funny on the merits (was told no) 😂 pic.twitter.com/SuUVYT7rip
— Kal Penn (@kalpenn) March 14, 2017
How about the groundbreaking role of “Foreign student that lives in fear of sweat shops”, though?
Ha! In this audition for Smart Guy, they didn't even give the character a name! pic.twitter.com/z2D8E5rx8J
— Kal Penn (@kalpenn) March 14, 2017
Damn, like, if you are gonna make an offensive joke, at least make it good. This s**t racist, stupid, generic, and boring.
Friggin King of Queens man! I used to love that show until I got to audition for it lol pic.twitter.com/2BYu0nnd57
— Kal Penn (@kalpenn) March 14, 2017
Fuckin sandjob.
Release me.
This was for some project called The Marriage Clause I guess. pic.twitter.com/0yKjepAHqy
— Kal Penn (@kalpenn) March 14, 2017
Oh my god.
There are too many in this stack to tweet, I'll be here all day. That said, there were also some wonderful 1st audition & work experiences!
— Kal Penn (@kalpenn) March 14, 2017
Damn, white people, why we gotta be like this?