Jared Leto is facing serious criticism after starring in 'whitewashed' movie

Jared Leto has certainly seen some ups and downs during his acting career.

In the early days, it seemed he could do no wrong, as his role in the critically-acclaimed Requiem For A Dream certainly got him noticed as a reputable Hollywood star, and his part in Mr. Nobody proved that he had some real talent.

However, his later performance as The Joker in Suicide Squad left many people underwhelmed (especially after it transpired that he'd sent his co-stars all sorts of creepy "gifts" during production), and - despite winning several awards for it - his role as a transgender woman in Dallas Buyers Club was also harshly criticized, seeing as Leto himself is obviously a cisgender man.

In a similar vein, the 30 Seconds to Mars frontman has come under fire yet again for his decision to take on a movie role - though this time it was because of whitewashing.

The film in question is The Outsider, a new flick from Netflix. The plot of the movie follows Nick Lowell (Leto's character), an American who joins the notorious Japanese Yakuza in order to repay a gang member who helped him out.

Many people didn't see any issue with the film; however, some have called it out for having a predominantly white storyline in an obviously Asian setting, and have argued that using Jared Leto as the main character is yet another example of Hollywood using white actors to somehow make a film palatable to white audiences.

And, as you can imagine, many people took to Twitter to voice their rage.

"There is literal #Whitewashing (Dr Strange, Ghost in the Shell) and figurative #Whitewashing when shows set in Asia center around a white actor (The Last Samurai, The Great Wall). If you don’t understand the subtleties, do not accuse me of idiocy," author Nancy Wang Yuen tweeted.

Another user added: “It’s different because the film’s creators created a white role for a white actor that appropriates another culture rather than, say, cast a white actor for an asian character? The transgression is all the same.”

“Seriously, how hard is it to hire an Asian-American actor for this type of sh*t?" wrote another. "Still gets the outsider point across.”

The main issue here is obviously that Asian actors are being overlooked for central roles, and Asian culture is simply being used as a backdrop for white storytelling - even though Hollywood clearly has enough white-centric films as it is.

In fact, the film industry is so historically white that the release of Black Panther (arguably the first major motion picture to have a mostly black cast and not focus on real-life civil rights/racism issues) caused a stir amongst people who believed it didn't have enough white actors. And yet, nobody ever said a thing when films were being made with exclusively white casts.

Of course, many will argue that Leto being white is an important plot point in the film - and that's a perfectly valid thing to point out. But what people are annoyed about is that this sort of film has been made over and over again, and yet there are very few films with a white cast and an Asian lead - at least not many that don't draw attention to the race of the characters involved.

The key takeaway here is that Leto's decision to star in this film is not necessarily the problem - it's the underrepresentation of actors of color that is.