Ghost in the Shell Casting Shows We Need More Than White Feminism

[Scars Unseen]

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.

I don't... Oh wait, I've never seen the dub of steins;gate - the tv channel that was showing it here was showing a subbed version, not dubbed.
Sounds messed up. Especially considering some of the main plot points...

It's pretty bad. They replaced all of the otaku references with generic western geek humor. I get that they were trying to make the show more accessible to western audiences, but it just doesn't work very well.

Spoiler

 

[Erttheking]

What does being Scottish have to do with his skin color? They're a minority but black Scots DO exist.

http://files.gamebanana.com/img/ico/sprays/untitled-1_22.png

can you maybe stop trying to inform people about the demograhics of my nation based on knowledge you've gleened playing computer games ?

please.

i'll promise to not claim Bravehart is historically accurate if we can maybe do a tit for tat pinky swear

in the 2001 census the numbers of black Scots is given as 0.12%

that's a tenth of one percent -.-

which in nation of only 5 million is not so much "a minority" as a statistically recorded anomaly.

...or a big family on holiday...walking around...goin'..."there are no black people here "

Putting the demonman was a joke. Chill man.

I did check the official statistics for black men and I saw that they were low. They still exist though. So frankly if the only problem with with James Bond is that he's Scottish, and I don't see why him being black is a problem.

And no it's a minority. That's still tens of thousands of people.

Also can you please cut it out with the emoticons and sarcasm?

 

[Erttheking]

Also can you please cut it out with the emoticons and sarcasm?

not really.

Ok. So is that it for our conversation? Because I feel like it would be pretty unproductive if it just ended there.

Ah, there we go. Non-resisdants. Got a citation for that?

 

[Erttheking]

Also can you please cut it out with the emoticons and sarcasm?

not really.

Ok. So is that it for our conversation? Because I feel like nothing really came out of that.

Scotlands a big small place and like i said before i never saw a black person until i reached adulthood.

i don't like my life experience being denied -.-

but.

im always smiling...and i ain't gonna stop for anyone.

so i was answering your request honestly.

That's it? Your life experience? No offense man, but it doesn't matter how small Scotland is, unless you personally saw every last person of the 5 million that lived there, that isn't what I would call hard evidence to the majority of the black people living there being permanent non-residance. I need something a bit harder than that. I wouldn't just put up my personal experience for the race ratio in my town, I'd get hard evidence for it. Heck, Massachusetts is around the same size as Scotland, if a bit bigger. I've lived here all my life and I wouldn't assume myself to be knowledgeable enough on the status of the population without hard data.

Non my intention, my apologies.

 

[Souther Thorn]

This, it's a non issue and definitely not a feminist issue. It's a western American take on a Japanese property so it's not an issue if a white, extremely popular ScarJo is cast as the lead. If there is a big huge outcry from Japan or the nip community then we get to ponder if we're awful for "whitewashing".

All depends if it's an American adaption of another countries property which Ghost in the Shell is or if it's an American movie set in a place that is distinctly ethnic like Exodus, Last Airbender ect ect. I half bet that this American Adaption of Ghost in the Shell will be set in a big USA city.

Almost makes me think if people would be mad if there was an American Ace Attorney movie, have a think.

Dude....did you just make reference to 'The nip community'?? I'm....this might not be what I'd consider a race or feminist issue with ScarJo, but 'Nip' is kinda a blatantly racist term.

 

[Souther Thorn]

Because anime girls overwhelmingly look like white women by design.

Sorry, but somebody had to say it.

Where the white women with blue hair at?

(seriously, how come girls rarely dye their hair a bright shade of blue? pinks, reds, purplishes, yellows, all over the place. but a nice Sailor Mercury shade of blue? argh!)

Come up to Seattle, we've got em all over the place in a racial rainbow of multicolored hair goodness.

 

[Erttheking]

Also can you please cut it out with the emoticons and sarcasm?

not really.

Ok. So is that it for our conversation? Because I feel like nothing really came out of that.

Scotlands a big small place and like i said before i never saw a black person until i reached adulthood.

i don't like my life experience being denied -.-

but.

im always smiling...and i ain't gonna stop for anyone.

so i was answering your request honestly.

That's it? Your life experience? No offense man, but it doesn't matter how small Scotland is, unless you personally saw every last person of the 5 million that lived there, that isn't what I would call hard evidence to the majority of the black people living there being permanent non-residance. I need something a bit harder than that. I wouldn't just put up my personal experience for the race ratio in my town, I'd get hard evidence for it. Heck, Massachusetts is around the same size as Scotland, if a bit bigger. I've lived here all my life and I wouldn't assume myself to be knowledgeable enough on the status of the population without hard data.

Non my intention, my apologies.

maybe you should pause ask yourself why you think there should be a noticeable native black population here.

anyway

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/People/Equality/Equalities/DataGrid/Ethnicity/EthPopMig

black ? (as opposed to African) 7k.

I didn't. I looked up some statstics that lead me to beleive so. I didn't say there "should" be.

Ok fair enough.

 

[jhoroz]

I mean considering the themes of the orignal work that the Major's body is nothing more than a tool or a comsetic choice that she likes to change from time to time, there's nothing to stop Hollywood from hiring both ScarJo AND Kikuchi. As someone else said, there are episodes where the Major has missions in foreign countries (e.g. Germany and the UK) so it would make sense for her to have a Caucasian body. Granted, having to convince some suit to have your protaganist in a blockbuster movie played by two different actresses would be twice as difficult than trying to convince them for her to be played by an Asian woman.

Also, while Kikuchi does resemble the Major more than ScarJo, I wasn't impressed at all with her performance in Pacific Rim. ScarJo's portrayal of Black Widow in the Winter Soldier shows lot more potential for her as the Major (e.g. cunning, ruthless, resourceful, witty etc.) Granted, I'm comparing this more with the Major from SaC rather than the movie adaptation, but since SaC is closer to the actual manga, I'd rather they went with that portrayal.

 

[Erttheking]

Ok fair enough.

im sorry erttheking. maybe i came across as too abrasive in that little exchange.

but if you could see my face hopefully you'd see it was all meant in jocularity and good humour.

hence the comment at the very start about Bravehearts historical accuracy and pinky swears.

Scots humorous is abrasive...even aggressive...and sometimes i forget others aren't used that.

Heh, it's cool.

To be honest I let myself get a little too worked up on forums.

Plus Poe's Law and all that.

 

[Grumman]

And that he's the nicest famous person since Dave Grohl/Mother Teresa (I couldn't decide which, I'm not suggesting they're the same person).

Mother Teresa was a monster who fetishised the suffering of the innocent. Please stop using her as a positive example.

 

[Bat Vader]

I think it would be cool if the movie was just about an American team set in the Ghost In The Shell Universe and that at the end of the film they team up with Section 9 who is all played by Japanese actors with Rinko Kikuchi as the major.

 

[Super Cyborg]

While there are most likely somewhat racist/sexist/bigot intents at times with Hollywood, I want to offer a different point that could be a bigger problem overall, and that is just the need to use big named people in a movie in order for it to sell.

These days it seems that when a big blockbuster comes out, whenever a preview is shown, there seems to be an emphasis on who the actors are. When seeing previews for Lucy, it really seemed to home in on the idea of "Hey, this is the person who played Black Widow in the Avengers. You all loved that, so you will love this movie." The problem can extend then extend to movies with minority leads as well. If you are going to have an action movie with a person of a color other than white, they will most likely choose from an even smaller pool of well known people. Heck, look at something like Dolphin Tale, which could've had any actor, but chose Morgan Freeman for some reason.

People seem to like to go to movies with actors they know and like, and with Hollywood knowing that, instead of trying to find people to fit the role, they take a famous person, have them in it, and use their name to sell the movie. This makes a select number of people always appearing, while others only take small side roles, or only star in lesser known movies. Thus we get Johanneson playing the character, because she can get people in, unlike if you got any other person, because that wouldn't sell tickets. This also probably shows they aren't confident in their project, so need big names to really sell.

In the end, something needs to happen where the idea of only well known people staring in the big movies has to go away. This has to go with people not caring about acting choices, as well as previews selling the actual product, not the people selling the movie because they are famous.

 

[madwarper]

Snips

It's probably been pointed out several times in this thread, but it's worthwhile to just repeat; The title is Ghost in the Shell. Motoko is the "Ghost", and her completely prosthetic body is "the Shell". Her Ghost could be in ANY Shell, and she'd STILL be Motoko. Hell, Batou kept suggesting that she "upgrade" to a male prosthetic. So, is there an easily explainable, canonical reason for why an actress such as Johansson is playing Motoko? Yes.

As for movies like Avatar and Dragonball having white casts... That was the least of their problems. How about we aim for movies that aren't shit, before we worry about casting ethnically appropriate characters? Last thing I want to see is a minority actor kill their career by being attached to a flaming pile of shit.