Sony's problems are far larger than a bad string of movies. And there's no roll of the dice involved, cast Tom Cruise, Leonardo DiCaprio, whatever big name star you want as the supporting man and your big budget SciFi can print as much money as you expect.Sleekit said:
Ghost in the Shell Casting Shows We Need More Than White Feminism
- Thread starter roseofbattle
- Start date
Yeah, while I can understand why they went with ScarJo, and have no doubt she could do a good job, it would've been nice for Hollywood to maybe use this as a chance to promote an Asian actress as a lead.
I believe one large problem with your argument is, you believe Hollywood has control over where star power goes.
Hollywood follows market forces, not the other way around. Hollywood's market, i.e. America, currently wants certain star in their films. Your counter in the article was that Hollywood could 'make' non-white/non-male stars, but Hollywood isn't in the habit of betting 100 million dollar productions to 'make' a star.
Has/does Hollywood had a problem with whitewashing? Absolutely (I do think it is getting incrementally better, though Exodus was defiantly a step backward).
But from a strictly economic standpoint, Scarlett Johansson makes perfect sense. With Ghost in the Shell being, lets be honest, very far from the mainstream and niche, you need a big name actress to sell it.
Would someone like Rinko Kikuchi from Pacific Rim make as much, if not more, artistic sense, probably. But for better or worse this is the movie BUISNESS after all. So the bottom line wins.
But from a strictly economic standpoint, Scarlett Johansson makes perfect sense. With Ghost in the Shell being, lets be honest, very far from the mainstream and niche, you need a big name actress to sell it.
Would someone like Rinko Kikuchi from Pacific Rim make as much, if not more, artistic sense, probably. But for better or worse this is the movie BUISNESS after all. So the bottom line wins.
Legit question, why not cast Sigourney in an Expendables movie? That sounds bad ass.Sleekit said:
Comparing the film industry of an almost entirely monoethnic nation to that of one of the most polyethnic ones isn't a very useful perspective IMO. Even were it something they wanted to do, Japanese studios would have a really difficult time finding a large cast of talented European or American actors that speak fluent Japanese. The reverse is not true.Soviet Heavy said:
Now, this movie in general doesn't bother me as much on this issue because the themes that the show cover are pretty much completely divorced from Japanese history or culture. By and large, GotS is an anime take on the cyberpunk genre, and since that started in the west anyway(Canada, specifically), I'm not too worried about the show being re-re-adapted using a white cast. A much greater travesty is the dub for the anime Steins;Gate, where they completely erased all traces of Japanese otaku culture from the show, which was half of what the show was actually about.
Eh, maybe so. Maybe Stallone is just too scared to ask a girl taller than him to join in the movieSleekit said:actually i thought that too while writing itcrimson5pheonix said:but given its a Stallone controlled "testosterone fueled" franchise i doubt it would turn out well in the end.
That wasn't much to go on but I like what I saw, it kind of looks like more SAC might be on the way.Liam Steel said:
I see that we're all glossing over the more important issue here. There is less than a .01% chance of this movie being good no matter who is cast in any role. This movie shouldn't be happening period but since it is just remember this: There is still tons of other good to absolutely excellent Ghost in the Shell material out there and this movie as shit as it inevitably will be isn't going to affect the pre-existing material.
EDIT: I take that back, SAC Major has brown eyes.
This is a ramble done on my smart phone, apologies for the incoherency:
Okay, I know I'm going to get flack for pointing this out...but the character she's playing is a brain living in a mechanical husk. She could literally be played by any ethnicity or gender for that matter and it would make sense for the rules of this universe.
In the original animated movie, she's very detached and calculating. She doesn't really see her body as a sacred vessel that represents all that she is and believes in. She sees her body as a tool to be used for her job. She doesn't really have a concept of modesty or shame for her form because she doesn't really care what she looks like so long as she can do her job.
I feel like this movie is going to be very Westernized much in the same way that Dragon Ball Evolution was. I get the feeling like this is going to be a bad sci-fi script repurposed and using only names and locations of the source material.
Now is whitewashing a character wrong? I don't think so necessarily, not with this character or this setting where she could literally look like anyone if she wanted to. Would it be more authentic to the source material if she was Asian? Again, maybe, maybe not. This movie is being made by Hollywood for Americans with American sensibilities. Dragon Ball E deviated heavily from the source material because some suit in a board meeting convinced other suits that no one was going to want to watch a proven best-selling story the world over, and instead, they had a better story in mind. One that tested really positive in all of the right demographics they were trying to hit.
Scarlett Johannsson got the role because she's off of the success of the Marvel movies. She's easily identifiable to the American audience this movie is being made for and most likely Dreamworks was nervous that their return on investment would be minimal if they couldn't get a highly recognizable actress to play the starring role.
TL;DR: Casting choice is a product of the Hollywood system. Whitewashing doesn't necessarily apply to the character of Kusuragi as she's a brain in a machine and can look however she wants. This movie will most likely pull a DBE and be completely unfaithful to the source material anyways so who cares if an Asian actress doesn't get her name dragged down with this production? Most would call me pessimistic, I prefer to call myself realistic.
Okay, I know I'm going to get flack for pointing this out...but the character she's playing is a brain living in a mechanical husk. She could literally be played by any ethnicity or gender for that matter and it would make sense for the rules of this universe.
In the original animated movie, she's very detached and calculating. She doesn't really see her body as a sacred vessel that represents all that she is and believes in. She sees her body as a tool to be used for her job. She doesn't really have a concept of modesty or shame for her form because she doesn't really care what she looks like so long as she can do her job.
I feel like this movie is going to be very Westernized much in the same way that Dragon Ball Evolution was. I get the feeling like this is going to be a bad sci-fi script repurposed and using only names and locations of the source material.
Now is whitewashing a character wrong? I don't think so necessarily, not with this character or this setting where she could literally look like anyone if she wanted to. Would it be more authentic to the source material if she was Asian? Again, maybe, maybe not. This movie is being made by Hollywood for Americans with American sensibilities. Dragon Ball E deviated heavily from the source material because some suit in a board meeting convinced other suits that no one was going to want to watch a proven best-selling story the world over, and instead, they had a better story in mind. One that tested really positive in all of the right demographics they were trying to hit.
Scarlett Johannsson got the role because she's off of the success of the Marvel movies. She's easily identifiable to the American audience this movie is being made for and most likely Dreamworks was nervous that their return on investment would be minimal if they couldn't get a highly recognizable actress to play the starring role.
TL;DR: Casting choice is a product of the Hollywood system. Whitewashing doesn't necessarily apply to the character of Kusuragi as she's a brain in a machine and can look however she wants. This movie will most likely pull a DBE and be completely unfaithful to the source material anyways so who cares if an Asian actress doesn't get her name dragged down with this production? Most would call me pessimistic, I prefer to call myself realistic.
Yeah, just came here to say this exactly. We already have a kickass asian actress.Trishbot said:You know who I think would be awesome in the role, but Hollywood won't go with her for "reasons"?
Pacific Rim's Rinko Kikuchi.
(No! Don't! It makes TOO much sense!)
But nope, Hollywood sure likes to whitewash anything foreign they get their hands on.
Trishbot said:You know who I think would be awesome in the role, but Hollywood won't go with her for "reasons"?
Pacific Rim's Rinko Kikuchi.
(No! Don't! It makes TOO much sense!)
Except Scarlett Johansson is fine with nudity and Rinko Kikuchi isn't and the major does not have a nudity taboo.
I'm of two minds on this. On one hand, it's awesome that female-centric movies are getting the green light more and more. That is unquestionably a good thing.
But yeah, I do wish Hollywood felt financially comfortable with casting a non-white person in a non-white role. I understand why Johansson was cast, she's a box office behemoth, but it doesn't make the loss of a role tailor-made for an Asian actress any less annoying.
It's a complicated issue that probably won't matter much in this case, anyway. The odds of this not only getting off the ground but being any good are pretty slim, if other American live-action animes are any indication (except for you, Speed Racer. You'll be my guilty pleasure forever).
But yeah, I do wish Hollywood felt financially comfortable with casting a non-white person in a non-white role. I understand why Johansson was cast, she's a box office behemoth, but it doesn't make the loss of a role tailor-made for an Asian actress any less annoying.
It's a complicated issue that probably won't matter much in this case, anyway. The odds of this not only getting off the ground but being any good are pretty slim, if other American live-action animes are any indication (except for you, Speed Racer. You'll be my guilty pleasure forever).
Agreed, lately this site has been getting overloaded with more and more clickbait opinion-pieces.Abomination said:
Indeed, Hollywood (and America in general) is still thinking thirty years in the past. Despite the fact that Asia is increasingly becoming more important in terms of movie sales, they still don't seem to get this. This is why diversifying is something they're going to be forced to do in the future, which is why they should just get it over with now. Instead of casting someone white as chalk like Scarlet, they could have cast Kikuchi who became quite the star after Pacific Rim. And that's before we get into how the white male demographic is being usurped in America itself due to how racial mixing is occurring and diversifying the population. Might as well stop gimping your market potential.
I have no problem with the casting. We don't know to what extent the movie is going to follow the 1995 anime. But even if we did, I still don't have a problem. It's just an anime movie. It's not like it's about a historic figure and the race of the characters matters like if someone had cast Denzel Washington to play George Washington.
There's a double standard here. Most people on The Escapist (I remember this) claimed that they wouldn't have a problem with a black James Bond, despite him being an iconic character with a long history. The dude is Scottish. But you have a problem with this all of a sudden? With an anime character being played by a non-Asian? Really? Do you really?
There's a double standard here. Most people on The Escapist (I remember this) claimed that they wouldn't have a problem with a black James Bond, despite him being an iconic character with a long history. The dude is Scottish. But you have a problem with this all of a sudden? With an anime character being played by a non-Asian? Really? Do you really?
"But you guys! Motoko Kusanagi uses an android body! That means that she can be whatever ethnicity that she wants to be!"
This is total tripe.
This reasoning does nothing more than excuse the problem; it makes up a reason for Hollywood to continue casting white actors and actresses in roles where not only could a minority have just as easily have filled, but would have been more appropriate to the source material.
Completely ignoring the facts that:
1. Motoko Kusanagi's body was built in Japan as a standard model, intentionally to be as inconspicuous as possible.
2. The entire setting is located in Japan. With Japanese characters. With Japanese themes, philosophies, politics, etc.
So can we please stop excusing this bullshit? Can we just have the strong, female, Asian main character this story is supposed to feature and stop trying to make excuses to have yet another Caucasian actress instead?
This is total tripe.
This reasoning does nothing more than excuse the problem; it makes up a reason for Hollywood to continue casting white actors and actresses in roles where not only could a minority have just as easily have filled, but would have been more appropriate to the source material.
Completely ignoring the facts that:
1. Motoko Kusanagi's body was built in Japan as a standard model, intentionally to be as inconspicuous as possible.
2. The entire setting is located in Japan. With Japanese characters. With Japanese themes, philosophies, politics, etc.
So can we please stop excusing this bullshit? Can we just have the strong, female, Asian main character this story is supposed to feature and stop trying to make excuses to have yet another Caucasian actress instead?
The thing is excluding Aris, The Major was born Japanese but then became more and more Machine till however as time went on depending on the lore her nationa Identity became less of a defining characteristic.Aggieknight said:
The first movie put it more bluntly but till the end of the movie when she combined with the entity born of the internet and fused with it, she was searching for her own Identity or at the very most never saw her self defined by what she was.
As we've see she can swap bodies (before she still kept her original cyberbrain to do it but again - depending - can now move her consciousness between vacant bodies without a source) so having her white isn't to far-fetched, especially when you think about the lores migration history and globalization of Japan around the time the war happened, though she was cybernetically enhanced before that from what I understand.
Saying all this If it was possible I'd prefer a mostly Japanese cast set in Japan, themes and politics of the series is from that perspective.