Twitter trashes 'The Great Wall' with sarcastic #ThankYouMattDamon

Hollywood has a very well-documented problem of whitewashing its films.

Despite awareness campaigns like last year's#StarringJohnCho, these casting decisions have continued to happen — Emma Stone cast inAlohaas a part Asian/part Hawaiian character, Scarlett Johansson was cast inGhost in the Shellas a character who has always been widely regarded as Japanese and so many more.

And then there was the casting of Matt Damon to play the protagonist/hero in a movie where China needs to be saved from invading demons,The Great Wall.

The latent message inThe Great Wallis that once again a country in trouble needs a white male to come and save it. Unsurprisingly, this has caused backlash to the film and that backlash has only grown stronger as the movie nears its release date.

It has taken the form of#ThankYouMattDamon, a trending hashtag on Twitter being used to ironically continue the white-savior message of the film. Writer and stand-up comedian Jenny Yang started the hashtag when she tweeted her experience of the movie during the premiere.

Remember, Twitterverse: Always take the time to fully understand a trending hashtag before you yourself partake. Otherwise, you just look foolish.

As forThe Great Wall, there is a very strong chance the movie will fail even without all this controversy. It currently stands at a 35 percent on

Rotten Tomatoes

.

(Mashable.com)