The internet is abuzz with whitewashing accusations over a white chick is being cast as Motoko Kusanagi. This makes no sense to me, because Motoko Kusanagi is white.
Let me throw out my “I’m not a racist” qualifications before I start being racist. I’ve actually seen Ghost in the Shell. I live in Japan. White features being omnipresent in anime character designs often annoys me. Whitewashing in movies often annoys me. (A white guy isn’t the Prince of Persia. A black guy isn’t that Indian guy from The Martian.) I’m even “Asian-American” by some standards of the bullshit term. There, that should cover me.
As a moviegoer, the biggest problem with whitewashing isn’t political incorrectness. It’s breaking the fourth wall. The whole time you’re watching the movie, you’re thinking, “Why is this character white?” It takes you out of the movie.
Yes, there are other problems with whitewashing too, but the bottom line is that Motoko Kusanagi looks white. You’d have to put a lot more makeup and padding on a Japanese woman than a white woman to make her look like The Major. We’ve already suspended our disbelief about her race when watching the anime. A white actress won’t break the fourth wall at this point. On the contrary, an Asian actress would. Remember when the FF7: Advent Children character designs came out? Everyone was thrown off by how awkwardly Asian they looked compared to the original game and character art.
Now let’s take a look at the story itself, which I’d love to accuse the social justice warriors of neglecting, though it’s far more likely that they don’t know shit about it in the first place. The whole premise of Ghost in the Shell is that everyone in this futuristic society swaps out their original flesh body parts for enhanced high-tech parts—a “shell” so to speak. Thus, their bodies don’t have to look anything like their race. There’s nothing inconsistent about Motoko Kusanagi looking white, nor do I have problem with her lesbian friend also looking white (though I wouldn’t have a problem with her looking Asian either).
The “Asian-Americans” complaining about the casting are also white—they’re white knights. Why is there “Asian”-American outrage instead of “Japanese”-American outrage? Casting a Chinese actress would result is a ton of bitching too. (Remember Memoirs of a Geisha?) These are Asian-Americans being offended on behalf of Japanese-Americans being offended on behalf of Japanese people, who don’t care. It’s like that time a museum exhibition featuring kimonos was shut down by “Asian-American” white knights. Guess what? Japanese people WANT foreigners to wear kimonos. You know why? Because Japanese people are proud of their culture. It’s these dipshit white knights who see Japanese culture as inferior and thus in need of defending.
In conclusion, giving a white chick a Japanese name is preferable to slapping whiteface on a Japanese chick. Also, this movie will probably suck.
I think nobody cares anymore. A week has passed, it’s not a topic anymore.
If a week is too late, you’ll definitely hate my next post.
The movie is going to suck so who cares. They could cast a black person if that meant that the movie would be good. I just want a good live-action movie.
Did people complain about the live-action Attack on Titan movie? Most of the characters in the original manga and anime are foreigners. Yet the movie has all japanese cast. I don’t care even though I really like Attack on Titan. And that movie probably sucks too, so whatever.
It’s just too easy to complain on the internet. You can make anonymous comments and complain about everything. I remember when there was a huge earthquake in Japan few years ago and many americans online said that Japan deserved it. Try to say that on facebook or on tv. I hate people sometimes, me included.
I saw the second Attack on Titan movie on a flight. It was horrendous. I’m never flying that airline again.
The movie is going to blow anyway. Honestly, we shouldn’t even bother. Let it die a box-office death.
More importantly, are you watching the new season? If so, have you seen any of the following; Boku no Hero Academia, Kabaneri no Koutetsujou, or Ushio to Tora? I would love to know your opinions on these series.
So far this season the only non-sequel I’ve watched is Phoenix Wright. I probably won’t start anything else from this season a while. I still haven’t watched that Rakugo show from last season that everyone’s raving about.
I still can’t believe people care about this… Fans should get their priorities straight, I mean this shit gets attention but Genocidal Organ getting pushed back because Manglobe went bankrupt and Legend of the Galactic Heroes remake getting probably canceled because of voice actors drama gets no attention whatsoever?!
Genocidal…Organ? You have my attention.
I can’t say I’m hyped about the new Legend of the Galactic Heroes. I’m sure it’ll be excellent, but I don’t see what value it’ll add on top of the original.
As far as I can tell, this whole conversation is about Asian Americans being ignored by their film industry. That they should at least play the Asian characters that are available. For most part, the entire offence thing seems to be a misdirection.
Generally speaking, I agree. For this particular character however, a white casting isn’t a hate crime.
It’s the 18th century concept of “Caucasian race vs asian race” that doesn’t make any sense at all and confuses geography with race and biology. There isn’t any “asian race” at all, there are various races living in asia who are in fact very different to each other. Are the majority of the chinese and japanese “coloured people ” and are they racially the same as the people in Taiwan, Malaysia and the Phillipines ? No, i don’t think so. Maybe the light-skinned “asians” actually need to be count as whites, of course not of the europid type of white, but still.
The problem is not that a caucasian actress is playing her, but that she looks nothing like her. It is correct that her bone structure is primarily caucasian, though SJW and Japanese would loudly protest this and say the way characters are drawn with caucasian bone structure, eyes and hair is to represent an idea visually, which must be that all Japanese want to be caucasian.
The main point, if you insist on having that actress play her, at least apply make-up or a Mrs. Doubtfire type mask so she resembles her.
Not that it matters anyway, live action adaptions of Japanese series are a joke. Including those by Japanese.