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WHITE_CHILD_SPEAKS

                                                      October 5, 2016

As I was finishing up these notes on the
Scarlett Johansson as Major Motoko business,
I was wondering if there was any point in
discussing an issue that was months old, and
is probably dying down... But now a columnist
in the Guardian UK decides to keep the flame        [ref]
burning: the occasion is news of "Birth of a
Dragon", a movie about Bruce Lee which has
apparently got a white viewpoint character,
and about which I have no opinion.  Ben Child         He also makes the
decides this is *just like* what's going on           point that it's not
with the "Ghost in the Shell"...                      at all like Mickey
                                                      Rooney playing a
    " ... Scarlett Johansson, star                    dorky comic Japanese
    of the forthcoming Ghost in the                   in "Breakfast at
    Shell remake ...                                  Tiffany's", but he
    ... Asian Americans have quite                    spends a long time
    reasonably reacted to both                        talking about that
    films with fury."                                 anyway.

Yes: Asian-American actors who would
rather they had the role rather than
Scarlett Johansson, are outraged.
There may be reasons to doubt this                    (Myself, I might even
decision, but one more time: androids                 raise the question: how
don't have any inherent ethnic look,                  do we know that Japanese
certainly this one doesn't.  Ben Child                people have an inherent
has written about this issue several                  ethnic look?)
times without even addressing this
point once.                                               MULTIETHNIC_JAPAN

         WHITEGHOST

  In general, he seems to feel like he's on
  the Hollywood beat (and the "twitterverse"
  are his people).  Perhaps unsurprisingly,
  he knows remarkably little about the subject:

       "Hollywood’s history of casting white actors in east
       Asian roles runs all the way back to 1956 epic The
       Conqueror, in which John Wayne starred as a
       suspiciously midwestern-accented Genghis Khan ..."

       https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/apr/10/petition-against-mulan-whitewashing-gathers-20000-signatures
                                                
  Dude: the Charlie Chan movies.  They were the      
  most popular mystery movies of their time, and      CHANG_APANA
  while they used some good Asian actors, they       
  only did this for the secondary roles.  Both       
  of the actors to take the lead character were      
  (more-or-less) white: Walter Oland and Sydney      
  Toller.                                            
                                                     
     I can think of          By the way, Ben Child's two examples of the
     earlier examples,       history of Hollywood whitewashing happen to
     of course, like         have been cited here, back in April:
     Myrna Loy playing
     Fu Manchu's daughter.          [ref]

     This used to be a                  (It couldn't be he's a lazy
     common, standard                   fuck who doesn't credit his
     practice-- actor's                 sources, could it?)
     would "show their
     range" by playing
     other kinds of people.     (Benedict Cumberbatch is
                                going to be putting on
     If you want a later        an American accent to play
     example, "Kung Fu"         Doctor Strange.  Isn't that
     with David Carradine.      terrible?  Couldn't they
                                find a real American?
                                And how dare they change
                                Mordo to a black guy.
                                They've just got no respect.)


  "But what if we don’t actually want a Hollywood live
  action Ghost in the Shell movie in the first place?
  What if the idea of a live action Ghost in the Shell
  movie starring Johansson and overseen by the British
  commercials guy who directed Snow White and the
  Huntsman, Rupert Sanders, leaves us pretty cold?"

                                 [ref]


       Well, if so, if it really does leave you
       cold, why don't you just leave it?  If
       you really don't care, then why are you
       talking about it?  Repeatedly?

       I have a suggestion: skip the movie.
       (Certainly I will be.)  Really, you
       could just skip all of the movies.

             Hollywood has no power over you
             if you don't give it to them.

                 WOODEN_CORE


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