"Josh Chan (20's) smoking hot. He's a 10 and he knows it. Think Tom Cruise, Taye Diggs, Hercules from the Disney animated movie and the painting 'Water Lilies' by Claude Monet."
This casting notice may sound absurd, but try subbing in a female character, and it'll sound familiar to a lot of actresses. That's what Crazy Ex-Girlfriend's Rachel Bloom aimed to convey when she created these excellent gender-reversed casting notices.
In addition to Chan, she describes Crazy Ex-Girlfriend's Greg Serrano, who's "hot but thinks he's not hot," and Darryl Whitefeature, who's "strikingly tall, handsome, and THIN."
Here's the casting breakdown for the male characters of #CrazyExGirlfriend written with a male gaze. pic.twitter.com/LaQMnnMaOy
— Rachel Bloom (@Racheldoesstuff) August 10, 2016
If you think this seems like an exaggeration, check out these actual casting notices Bloom received.
That's not an isolated case. A call for a Quentin Tarantino movie from earlier this year asks "whores" who are "caucasian" with "natural breasts" to email in their dress sizes. Try picturing a casting call for male characters with those criteria.
These double-standards in casting, of course, reflect a much larger problem: While men are afforded the status of complete human beings, women are often first and foremost considered objects, both on and off-screen.