Despite my previous post - where I wrote a rant on the seemingly blatant display of the entertainment industry’s discrimination towards members of the foreign entertainment world - I can’t help but admit the growing numbers of foreign influences in today’s television shows, films, and music.

Within the last decade, the United States has seen a major increase in the number of immigrant artists and ethnic artists within the Hollywood limelight. More actors, singers, musicians, and even film directors in the United States have either immigrant parents or grandparents or have come from afar themselves, with the dream to succeed in the world’s biggest stage.

Today, we are able to find more ethnic actors on television and on the big screen, since, relatively speaking, our country’s ethnic population has risen in the last generation. In the past, many ethnic actors, like the Hispanics (Puerto Rican, Cuban, Mexican), struggled in Hollywood and Broadway, since many studios disliked the use of foreigners because of their accents - and other stereotypes. But after the success of Jerome Robbins’ and Robert Wise’s unforgettable classic, West Side Story, which featured Rita Moreno (one of Hollywood’s trailblazers for Hispanic actors and actresses), many fans have caught onto the belief that foreigners can too live the Hollywood dream.

Today, like the Hispanic’s thespain boom in the industry in the 60’s and 70’s, we are seeing more Asians and Asian Americans on both small and big screens; some members which include Kal Penn (House, the Harold and Kumar films), John Cho, Maggie Q (Mission: Impossible III, Balls of Fury), Michael Peña (Crash, Observe and Report), Mizuo Peck (Night at the Museum), America Ferrera (Ugly Betty, Real Women Have Curves), Tim Kang (The Mentalist), and Mindy Kaling (The Office, The 40 Year Old Virgin).

In today’s American music, many singers and musicians have incorporated foreign tastes or have come from a foreign country themselves. Santogold, an American-born singer, has a unique style which meshes the influences of 80’s pop, reggae, and Fela Kuti (Nigerian musician). The internationally-known Mathangi Arulpragasam - aka M.I.A. - is a British-born singer song writer of Sri Lanken descent, who is known for her eclectic music, which incorporates world music, jungle, electro influences and more. In this year’s Academy Awards, Slumdog Millionaire’s hit song, “Jai Ho!”, performed by Indian singers Sukhwinder Singh and Rahman, won the prestigious award for best song in a film. After the film’s success and international popularity, the song was made into a “reinterpreted” version by the Pussycat Dolls, who have Americanized the lyrics, yet, have kept the ideas and sounds of the original Indian pop mix. Interestingly, the original song contains some interspersed Spanish lyrics as well.

Other ethnic musicians who have notably taken stage and popularity in the Unites States are Mike Shinoda (Linken Park), Justin Nozuka, Amy Winehouse, Norah Jones, System of A Down, Rachael Yamagata and more.

Lastly, in film, there have been an increased number of foreign popularity and the demand for foreign filmmakers in Hollywood. Like its song, Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire became a success and highly popular amongst Hollywood’s mainstream audience. The film consists of an entirely Indian cast - some of which were UK-born and the rest, Indian-born - and yet, despite its cast of relatively unknown actors (for the exception of a handful of well known Indian actors), the film was able to prove a huge success while also opening doors to more ethnic acceptance in the film industry.

Guillermo Del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth), Alfonso Cuarón (Children of Men), and Alejandro González Iñárritu (Babel) came onto Hollywood’s biggest stage during the 2006 - 2007 Academy season with their respective highly-rated films in the same year. Their films, each consisting of foreign cast members - shot in foreign countries - were nominated for Golden Globes and Academy awards. Iñárritu’s film even brought a special light on one of his leading actresses - the Japanese-born Rinko Kikuchi - who has caught the eye of several of Hollywood’s big name producers (she will star alongside Mark Ruffalo and Adrien Brody in The Brothers Bloom, and also Shanghai with Jeffrey Dean Morgan and John Cusack, and the Spanish film, Map of the Sounds of Tokyo). This year’s Academy Awards also brought light to a a few other winners, including Yokjiro Takita for the foreign film Departures, Danny Boyle for directing Slumdog MIllionaire, Jochen Alexandr Freydank for his short film (not categorized as “foreign”), Spielzeugland, and Kunio Kato’s short animation, La Maison En Petits Cubes (also not categorized as “foreign”).

There is no doubt, in today’s entertainment industry and with the popular influence of foreign artists, we will finally see the racial barrier that has plagued Hollywood and the music industry for generations, come down for good. Hopefully, sooner than expected.

Takeru, Chameleon