Whitewashing

[Levin]

One of the trailers at the cinema this afternoon (where I saw Your Name which is going on my top ten list for 2016 when I get around to it) was for Ghost in the Shell. It looked amazing. Absolutely beautiful and pretty much frame for frame to the original film. (As another aside why is Michael Fassbinder doing an Assassins Creed film?.)

However, I'm not sure I can bring myself to see it as it appears to be completely whitewashed. It's set in a future Tokyo but the majority of the main characters aren't played by Japanese actors Scarlet Johansson is playing Motoko Kusanagi (or at least that was the name in the original). Anyway the cast list can be seen here.

Is anyone willing to argue that it's worth casting big (white) names to get films made? I'm really annoyed as it's a film I'd otherwise really want to see.

[WOM]

Whitewashing

Having just finished reading two massive tomes on 'getting films made', you'll do whatever it takes. Casting a white lead with face recognition to a North American audience would be waaaaaay low on the list of crimes you'd be committing.

[WOM]

Whitewashing

In the sense that 'worth' means you'll get funding for production and advertising support. You can certainly make a film with whoever you want...if you have lots of your own money.

[Hot Pepsi]

Whitewashing

It's a catch-22. There are no Asian stars in Hollywood "big" enough to carry a movie like that, but there never will be unless Hollywood takes a chance on some and let's them lead movies like that.

[Ginger Yellow]

Whitewashing

Scarlet Johansson is playing Motoko Kusanagi (or at least that was the name in the original). Anyway the cast list can be seen here .

My understanding is she's just called the Major in the film. So they even whitewashed the name.

Frankly I have no desire to see a live action GitS, so the whitewashing is just another reason not to watch something I wasn't going to watch, but yeah, it's disheartening nonetheless.

It's a catch-22. There are no Asian stars in Hollywood "big" enough to carry a movie like that, but there never will be unless Hollywood takes a chance on some and let's them lead movies like that.

There are plenty of big Asian stars. They're just not big in Hollywood. They could carry a movie like that, and are, just fine in Japan and China and Korea.

To be honest, I have more of an issue with things like The Great Wall, which are cynical multi-market moneygrabs from the bottom up, and then combine that with downplaying Asian stars like Andy Lau.

[Toby Gymshorts]

Whitewashing

Ginger Yellow wrote: live action GitS

Or, as it's otherwise known, Question Time.

[Hot Pepsi]

Whitewashing

I definitely want to see it.

My understanding is she's just called the Major in the film. So they even whitewashed the name.

She's mostly just called The Major in the anime, although she does have a name.

There are plenty of big Asian stars. They're just not big in Hollywood. They could carry a movie like that, and are, just fine in Japan and China and Korea.

That's my point. They're not trying to sell this movie primarily in Asia. They're hoping for a big opening weekend in the US and then Europe. Then again, the casting they've chosen seems hell bent on making sure that Asian audiences actively avoid it, which seems like bad business.

There's nothing inherently Asian about the characters in Ghost in the Shell - at least not in the anime. (The manga is a bit "more Japanese" for lack of a better term.) The ideas are as much William Gibson and Philip K Dick as anything born from manga. It never really specifies the ethnicity of the characters other than their names and Batou in particular doesn't look at all Asian (although it's a drawing so who knows) and there are anglo-named characters too.

It's in a post-nuclear New Tokyo, but really the megacity it happens in could be lots of places.

Where as The Great Wall, as the name implies is pretty place-specific. Not sure how Matt Damon could be shoe-horned into that in a sympathetic way.

[Ginger Yellow]

Whitewashing

There are certainly more overtly Japanese anime, but Section 9 is very explicitly part of the Japanese government (indeed it is part of a real-life government department). And things like the Tachikomas place it squarely in the Japanese idiom.

[Hot Pepsi]

Whitewashing

I don't think Japan has a particular claim on clever robots, although they are a very important part of anime.

[Levin]

Whitewashing

Since starting this (and reading your comments) I've been wondering if there is a degree of orientalism in my desire to see it with more Japanese characters.

I'll happily admit that it's a future, a more globalised future, and that Hollywood (and english language cyberpunk) has used a lot of Japanese imagery in creating it's US (mostly) based near futures but then, when the very first images in the trailer are of a robot geisha with a Japanese flag painted on her face, they're is a rather obvious positioning of the setting.

[That Night In Barcelona]

Whitewashing

Hot Pepsi wrote: It's a catch-22. There are no Asian stars in Hollywood "big" enough to carry a movie like that, but there never will be unless Hollywood takes a chance on some and let's them lead movies like that.

That's a little simplistic I think. Scarlett Johansson didn't just emerge one day as an actress 'big' enough to lead a blockbuster, she's featured in lots of different films of varying budgets throughout her earlier career. This being a Hollywood production the casting is much more likely to draw upon actors from the US/The West while Asian productions similarly draw upon regional actors.

Perhaps instead we should ask why the big budget productions from Asia get much less press or visibility here in Britain? Is it just that mainstream cinemas don't want to take a chance on films with subtitles or has past experience shown they don't fill seats as well as a Hollywood film? Maybe that's the real catch-22.

[WOM]

Whitewashing

My son was watching the execrable, star-free Home Alone 3 the other day, and a quite young Scarlett Johansson turned up as one of the sisters.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Whitewashing

Sorry, which unwavering moral principle is being invoked here?

When Kurosawa made Ran (which was based on Macbeth), was he guilty of yellow-washing? Shouldn't he have cast Sean Connery, Ronnie Corbett and Fulton McKay?

[Stumpy Pepys]

Whitewashing

WOM wrote: My son was watching the execrable, star-free Home Alone 3 the other day, and a quite young Scarlett Johansson turned up as one of the sisters.

She pops up in The Horse Whisperer as well, albeit with a different nose than the one she sports today.

[Satchmo Distel]

Whitewashing

Ran applied the plot of Macbeth to a Samurai society but it was not actually set in Scotland.

But the overall point is correct, namely that Hollywood has been doing this ever since it started and although it has markets in Asia, its audience is predominantly non-Asians in US+Europe, and these films would not get made if that audience wouldn't show up.

[Hot Pepsi]

Whitewashing

That's a little simplistic I think. Scarlett Johansson didn't just emerge one day as an actress 'big' enough to lead a blockbuster, she's featured in lots of different films of varying budgets throughout her earlier career. This being a Hollywood production the casting is much more likely to draw upon actors from the US/The West while Asian productions similarly draw upon regional actors.

Perhaps instead we should ask why the big budget productions from Asia get much less press or visibility here in Britain? Is it just that mainstream cinemas don't want to take a chance on films with subtitles or has past experience shown they don't fill seats as well as a Hollywood film? Maybe that's the real catch-22.

You're agreeing with my point, although I didn't specify the language part, which is the most important part.

The occasional martial arts cult-hero aside, Asian actors can't get traction among western audiences appearing in films with subtitles. Subtitles do not do well here. Occasionally a subtitled movie will make it as Oscar-bait and a few action-heavy Chinese films have done OK based on their visuals, but it's a tough sell.

Even Bruce Lee didn't get a chance to do Enter the Dragon until after he was Kato on the Green Hornet. There was that brief interest in "Wire Fu" after Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but it didn't suddenly mean Chow Yun-fat was being offered the same roles as George Clooney and Brad Pitt.

The Hayao Miyazaki anime movies never make much impact here until they redub them with famous anglophone actors. And its not like those are breaking records. They get good reviews and do OK on DVD, but are still pretty niche, especially compared to Pixar or Disney productions, for example.

Scarlett Johannsen has gradually built up a movie-star resume by appearing in lots of different types of films in English, plus she's already carried or help to carry some massive CGI-heavy blockbusters like The Avengers and Lucy.

Ghost in the Shell is probably the most famous Japanese anime/manga series - "property," I guess you'd call it - in the US, but it's mostly only known by comic book, sci-fi fans and otakus. It's not like Harry Potter or Star Wars where the property itself would draw such a big crowd that they could cast an unknown in the lead. For this, they want somebody who will go on the late-night talk shows and draw eyeballs as she pitches the movie. And, probably, they figured that by putting an American actor in a very Japanese-looking movie, potential audiences will be reassured that the film is in English.