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8 Reasons Ghost in the Shell Should Not Be Whitewashed


The popular sci-fi anime movie responsible for inspiring The Matrix and many other works, Ghost in the Shell, is receiving a live action adaptation.  And the Japanese lead, Major Motoko Kusanagi, is being played by Scarlett Johansson, a white woman. This has caused a lot of controversy and upset and many bystanders are left wondering why. Why is it bad that a Japanese character is being played by a white woman? Why is this different from other racebent roles? Well, there’s a lot of reasons that have been put forth by very educated criticism of the project and I will be collecting all that nuanced discussion and adding my own two cents to communicate one thing- Ghost in the Shell should not be whitewashed. Here are the reasons why. 

  1. The Story is Very Rooted in Japanese History and Culture

    Ghost in the Shell is one of those stories that cannot be separated from its cultural context. It loses something if the story is not set in Japan, about Japan. Jon Tsuei, co-creator of the comic RUNLOVEKILL broke down why this is in a very educated informed way. You really need to read his tweets about the issue, but to quickly summarize: he points out that the story has a very specific cultural context. It came out at a time when Japan was a leader in the global technology industry after coming off losing a major World War and having their army disbanded. As such, the themes in the story concerning war, the government and technology, come from Japan’s specific culture and position at the time. By removing that context from the story, the story loses a lot of its meaning. It’s not a universal story.

    It doesn’t end there either. It’s been rumored that the whitewashed movie might not just draw from the Ghost in the Shell movie, but from the related TV series. It’s been rumored that Micheal Pitt might end up playing Hideo Kuze, an antagonist from season two of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. But as has been pointed out, Kuze is a character that loses a lot if he’s not a Japanese character operating in Japan, as he is heavily entrenched in Japanese politics. His storyline heavily references the 1932 May 15 Incident in Japanese history where the Prime Minister of Japan was killed by 11 navy men at the behest of an imperialist, nationalist movement. The incident is credited as being a big contributor to the rise of fascism in Japan. The character himself is fighting against the discrimination foreign immigrants to Japan face, another distinctly Japanese political issue. There’s even a part of the storyline where Japan is threatened with nuclear threats from America, an obvious reference to past history.

    Basically, if you separate this character and his story from his Japanese context, it’s not even the same character at all, so what’s the point of him even being adapted? And the same could be said for ALL these characters, with Hideo just being an example.

    Ghost in the Shell is a story deeply entrenched in Japanese politics. Separate Japanese politics from the story, and you might as well make a new story.

     

  2. The Fact They Are Considering Literal Whitewashing Technology Shows How Offensive and Impractical It Is

    The fact is, the creators seem to know the story loses something without Japanese actors, because they actually tested technology to make the white actors look more Asian. Which sort of scuttles the arguments that the whole “hire whites” thing is a money-making tactic. You know what costs a lot of money? Ridiculous CGI. You know what’s a lot cheaper than that? JUST HIRING JAPANESE ACTORS. It’s not that hard.

    The worst thing about all of it is it’s an updated, modern version of a very racist tradition that persists in Hollywood- one activists have dubbed “yellowface”. It’s dubbed that because in early Hollywood, you see actors literally painting their faces yellow to represent themselves as East Asian, basically reducing a race to an offensive, inaccurate caricature. This was done while Asians were literally barred from playing roles in Hollywood.

    This ugly history persists in the modern day- white women are made to look like a caricature of Asians while actual Asians are barred from their roles. As Constance Wu, actress from Fresh Off the Boat,points out, ethnicity is much more than physical characteristics- it’s culture, upbringing and so on. Reducing it to a few features and slapping those features on a white person is ridiculous.

  3. There are many talented Japanese-American actresses

    There’s also the argument that there were no talented, A-List Japanese actress that could help the movie sell. But there are many Japanese-American actresses fans would love to see more of. Everyone’s top pick for Motoko was Rinko Kikuchi, recently known for playing Mako Mori in the sci-fi film Pacific Rim, which took a lot of inspiration from anime. Kikuchi is actually the first Japanese actress to get nominated for an Oscar in 50 years, so you can’t argue she doesn’t have decent star power.

    Other options include Karen Fukuhara, who is playing Tatsu Yamashiro, aka the superhero Katana, in the upcoming Suicide Squad movie- she’s clearly got the action star chops. Tao Okamoto was in The Wolverine, has a small part in Batman vs Superman and appeared on Hannibal. Then there’s Chiaki Kuriyama, who was in Kill Bill and is very successful in Japan. That’s only the beginning of the list.

  4. Asian-American Actresses Get Very Little Work

    From Anthem Magazine

    Many, including the writer of the movie himself, Max Landis, have protested that sure, these actresses are known by many and just as talented as ScarJo is, but none of them have gotten as many great starring roles as her, so they don’t have her mainstream appeal.

    But, wow, we have to think about cause and effect here. Why hasn’t Rinko Kukichi gotten the great roles white women like ScarJo have gotten? Why hasn’t she been propelled to A-list stardom? It’s pretty obviously because movies like Ghost in the Shell hire white women and not her. You don’t get to use the problem as an excuse if you’re part of the problem, Max Landis.

    Again, Rinko Kikuchi was nominated for an Oscar for her role in Babel, making history in the process. Normally, Oscar nominees are pretty sought after by the industry and get lots of work. But the highest profile role Kikuchi has gotten since then was Pacific Rim (where she wasn’t even really the lead) and a bunch of independent films. She’s obviously extremely talented (she was again nominated for an award for her performance in Kumiko the Treasure Hunter) but she’s not getting work. Here’s a role literally written for her, that could propel her to A-list status, but she’s not getting it.

    You can’t hide behind the “no Asian actresses” excuse and continue to hire white women. The obvious solution to that problem is to hire Asian women. All progress was started by someone taking a risk and making a change, not by throwing up their hands and saying “that’s how it is”. 

  5. Japanese-American Women do not often get representation like Motoko Kusanagi

    Japanese representation in Hollywood movies has always been very flawed.Many Asian women have pointed out how roles given to people who look like them tend to fall into "submissive sex kitten" or “super kung-fu dragon lady” territory. They are very rarely leads treated with respect. Motoko is a character who does not fall into these stereotypes. She’s a dynamic, competent lead not there to be some arm decoration for a white male. She can fight since that’s her job as a police officer, but has no stereotypical karate powers or mystical ninja backstory. She’s a nuanced, fully realized character.

    Taking one of the few non-stereotypical roles a Japanese-American woman could get in a Hollywood movie and giving it to a white woman is almost cruel. Not only does it deny Japanese-American women, who get very few opportunities in Hollywood, of a role that was literally written for them, it denies Asian American women the chance to see a representation of themselves that’s not a sex object or stereotype on the big screen in America. 

  6. Previous Adaptations of Asian-based Animated Works with White Leads Have Flopped

    I once did an article on white-washed movies that flopped and it’s notable that pretty much every whitewashed Hollywood adaptation of an anime has flopped horribly. This even extends to Avatar: The Last Airbender, which was merely anime inspired. There seems to be a correlation to whitewashing and lack of respect for the source material leading to a subpar movie, which is not surprising. After all, like Ghost in the Shell, the cultural context is important to a lot of these stories and the writers choosing to lose it shows a lack of understanding of the story. 

  7. Motoko Kusanagi is not typically a white woman's name

    It would require very specific circumstances for a white woman to have a name like “Motoko Kusanagi”. It is possible if a white woman was adopted by a Japanese family or something, but it sticks out like sore thumb unless you explain that. And explaining that takes up valuable time that should be focused on the plot. 

  8. American does not mean white

    From The Ghost in the Shell: Arise stage play

    Many people argue that it’s okay to cast Americans in Japanese stories because Japanese movies cast Japanese people when adapting stories where the main character is white. But here’s the thing: American does not mean white. It’s definitely okay to cast Americans, I’m not asking anyone to fly to Japan to make the movie.

    But there are a ton of Japanese Americans- there are at least 1,289,192 according to a 2011 estimate.  In contrast, there are about 200,000 non-Asian long-term residents in Japan as of 2014.  As far as naturalized citizens go, from 2000-2010 there were roughly 10,000 not-Chinese or not-Korean people who got citizenship. A rough estimate of naturalized citizens that includes the 50 years before that would put the total at a half-million and likely 95% would be Chinese or Korean. So yeah, stats looking very low for white people.  

    So, Japan has more ground to stand on with the “hard to find actors not of our dominant ethnicity” thing, while we have a lot less. It’s not quite equivalent.

    Reportedly from several sources, whiteness is also not treated in Japan the same way Asian-ness is treated in America. While they face plenty of problems, half-white actresses are often popular and sought after. Half-white people in Japanese media is actually noted as being probably disproportionate, rather than underrepresented. This is in stark contrast to the way other minorities are treated in Japan, especially Korean and Chinese people. Thanks to American culture pretty much seeping into every corner of the globe as well, it's likely Japanese people are pretty used to seeing white people in the media in general. We're not hurting for representation over there.

    Treatment of white people in Japan is a very complicated conversation to have- there's a lot of factors involved I could not do justice to (somegoodsources) but the basic conclusion is that “white people in Japan” and “Japanese people in America” is not a slick and easy comparison to make and a lot of different factors have to be considered.

    And even if the situations were equivalent and easily comparable, one country doing something potentially wrong doesn’t make it okay for another country to do that thing too. It ultimately doesn't matter what Japan's doing or thinking- it's the Japanese-American actresses over in America that are being hurt by this decision and their thoughts that should be listened to. 

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