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WHITEGHOST
May 1, 2016
There's been a recent
burst of outrage: Or rather "internet outrage", which is a
little different: it often seems forced
Scarlett Johansson is to and inauthentic like a group version of
play Major Motoko "trolling".
Kusanagi in The Ghost in
the Shell film! That's
whitewashing! Why not
an Asian actor to play
an Asian character?
PAN_HOLLYWOOD
I would not want to claim that
Hollywood has no problems with
racism or pandering to racism,
but this is perhaps the weakest
possible ground to argue the case.
STANDALONE_COMPLEX
(1) It's actually somewhat rare for anime
characters to "look Japanese"-- a The characters in
typical look is more like blond hair "the Ghost in the Shell"
with gigantic radioactive green eyes. series that really
Look Japanese are the
(2) The Major has an entirely artificial villains in "Standalone
body-- it looks like whatever she Complex" who look like
wanted it to look like-- and nebbishy businessmen
evidently she wanted to look wearing glasses.
something like Scarlett Johansson.
(A recurrent theme in
(3) The Japanese, along with a number of Japanese popular
other Asian cultures, aren't terribly culture: power is held
interested in looking "Asian"-- cosmetic by an old-boy network of
surgery to look a little more Caucasian sleazy businessmen.)
is pretty common. It's entirely
plausible that a Japanese woman given DOCTOR_X
complete control over her appearance
would choose a "non-Japanese" look.
WHITEFACE
I gather that to many Japanese,
white people both have the
appeal of seeming exotic and Myself, I sometimes wonder if
(historically) being successful there's a touch of racial
(and that's economic, military self-contempt underlying a lot
and culturally...). For of anime tropes. The obsession
generations of Asians, being with mecha (gigantic powered
modern has meant being Western-- armor) looks a lot like people
or sorta, kinda Western: they trying to compensate for being
always put their own stamp on a "small race".
things.
(The Japanese used to seem
There's a really interesting really small even to other
video where a Japanese fellow Asian people... that's been
tried to interview other random changing really fast with a
Japanese people about how they Westernized diet... or their
felt about Scarlett Johansson as version of a Westernized diet.)
Major Motoko. It was difficult
for him to get across why this
was an issue...
JAPANESE_SHELL
(4) There's a question no one is bothering to
raise here: what does it mean to "look
Japanese"? It makes a little more sense
to talk about a "Japanese look" than,
say, an "American look", but only a
little bit. The cliche is that Japan is
an "ethnically homogeneous country", but
that's an exaggeration.
MULTIETHNIC_JAPAN
I don't particularly want to defend
casting Scarlet Johansson in this WOODEN_CORE
(or any other) movie-- but then,
myself, I couldn't care less about
this film, or any other of
Hollywood's standard products...
But then, it actually
What I am saying though is that the outrage in seems to me that doing an
this case is misplaced... it is, for example, no identity politics shuffle
where near as stupid as casting Keanu Reeves as in casting decisions is
John Constantine. close to standard practice
these days, to the point
In addition to the question "why not have where it almost seems like
more Asians play Asians", I would also ask a cheap trick to generate
"why not have more 'white' roles played by buzz-- what if Thor were
Asians?" There's a Japanese actor named a woman, etc.
Eita who would make a fine Hamlet (in fact,
it's hard to think of a role he wouldn't do The upcoming Doctor Strange
a good job with...). has a black Baron Mordo
and a female "Anicent One".
(I bet they drop the
"Ancient" business
along with the title
"Baron".)
The burst of outrage is itself
an interesting phenomena-- this
is the kind of thing we called It's the internet pile-on phenomena:
a knee-jerk "politically a mob attacking from inside a bubble,
correct" response, back before refusing to accept any hint that they
that became the favorite flag might be wrong.
waved by right-wing racists.
The thing is, you really can have
I see people jumping up and an anti-racist lynch mob... we may
down saying things like get to see one yet.
"You've got to listen to the
fans!", but fans of what? MILLENNIAL_FIRE
They don't seem to have
actually seen "The Ghost in
the Shell". GHOST_QUEEN
The entire premise of the story is that
your physical body is just a "shell",
and your "spirit" (your "ghost") is portable.
Argue with that idea if you like-- it's the
old mind-body split, dressed up with sci-fi--
ignoring it because it complicates your political
agenda is a bit hypocritical if the idea is
to create an adaption faithful to the original.
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