Hollywood has once again proven its affinity for totally disrespecting the source material and estranging over half of their audience. Recently, Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Pictures released their first image for the sci-fi action thriller, Ghost in the Shell. The film, which is an adaptation of the extremely popular manga and anime of the same name, takes place in Japan and stars Japanese characters in a story that is uniquely Japanese. Naturally, then, playing the role of Major Motoko Kusanagi is none other than…….Scarlett Johansson!
Wait, what?
Yes, it is every bit as confusing as it sounds.
On the one hand, it isn’t surprising that Johansson landed the role. She’s become a powerhouse in Hollywood lately, with Lucy making over $400 million in the box office and her role as Black Widow in the Avengers and Captain America series making her a very sought after actress. Most recently, she was cast in Disney’s live-action adaptation of The Jungle Book as Kaa, that giant snake that tries to eat Mowgli. She’s frequently being cast as the strong, independent, no-nonsense female badass that, admittedly, is a welcome addition to Hollywood. However, while she may be a great actress, it doesn’t make her the right choice for Ghost in the Shell.
Jon Tsuei, a comic book writer, took to Twitter to point out just how badly Hollywood messed up: “I’ve been seeing a lot of defenses for the ScarJo casting that seem to lack a nuanced understanding of Ghost in the Shell as a story.” As he goes on to point out, the manga released in 1989, a time during which Japan was coming to be considered the world leader in technology. “This is a country that went from poised to conquer the Pacific to forcibly disarmed. They poured their resources into the economy.” Although they couldn’t defend themselves, Japan compensated by becoming powerful players in the world of technology. Ghost in the Shell plays largely off of these themes, making the story first and foremost a Japanese one. The story is simply not one that can be “Westernized” to suit a different audience, and by casting a white actress to play the leading role, it erases both the Asian influence and key aspects of the story itself.
Unfortunately, the offense doesn’t end at erasing the nationalities of the cast members. Hollywood is well aware of the backlash they are receiving, and their way of responding is by employing the ol’ tried and true quick fix method: CGI! Apparently, Paramount and DreamWorks are running visual tests to “shift” Scarlett Johansson’s ethnicity in order to make her appear more Asian. Truly, nothing says “we care about diversity” like overlooking hundreds of talented Asian actresses and making a white woman look more Asian instead. Yikes.
Of course, none of this is at all surprising. Hollywood has been whitewashing (casting white actors in non-white roles) for years. This happened last year in Aloha, when Emma Stone played a character that was half Hawaiian/Chinese, and it is happening again in Dr. Strange by casting Tilda Swinton as “The Ancient One” who is supposed to be Tibetan. The fact of the matter is simply that Hollywood wants to make money, and in an industry in which it is becoming increasingly difficult to do so, their resolution is to cast popular white actors/actresses in the hope that it will bring more attention to the film. It’s a frustrating and seemingly never-ending cycle, one that shuts down the voices of millions of POC and denies them representation even in places where it is demanded.
What Hollywood doesn’t seem to realize is that today’s audience has come to expect a multi-racial cast in the media they consume because it accurately reflects the real world (an absolute shock, truly.) Movies starring diverse casts actually do exceptionally well --- a prime example is Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim. Hopefully, the outrage surrounding Ghost in the Shell will teach Hollywood an important lesson: to respect a work for what it is instead of warping it into what they want it to be.
