As we discussed last week, people were worried about Ghost in the Shell. Some box-office predictors claimed that the film could open big, and that it could potentially dethrone Beauty and the Beast. It did not dethrone anything. Ghost in the Shell opened with $19 million, and it’s being called a “disappointing” debut by The Hollywood Reporter. You know it’s a lot more than “disappointing” because THR actually devoted a huge analysis piece to figuring out just what went wrong. You know what went wrong? They hired Scarlett Johansson to play a Japanese character. Bam! Analysis done. I would also say that once the critics went to screenings and the reviews started coming out, people figured out that Scarlett had been lying about the whitewashing of her character for months. Here are some other highlights from THR’s analysis:
Bad reviews: “Ghost in the Shell suffered from tough reviews, an unfamiliarity of North American audiences with the source material, a so-called ‘whitewashing’ controversy that may have had an effect — though it’s almost impossible to quantify that effect empirically — and a very crowded and competitive marketplace that has taken down almost as many films as it has boosted to unprecedented heights,” says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for ComScore.
The film did better internationally. The movie made $40.1 million overseas, and it hasn’t even opened in Japan and China. So… they’re looking to break even in the foreign markets.
People in Japan never objected to the whitewashing: Sam Yoshiba, director of the international business division of Kodansha, the manga’s publisher, told The Hollywood Reporter, “Looking at her career so far, I think Scarlett Johansson is well cast. She has the cyberpunk feel. And we never imagined it would be a Japanese actress in the first place.” He added, “This is a chance for a Japanese property to be seen around the world.” Mamoru Oshii, director of the original 1995 Japanese animated film, also endorsed the choice. But Guy Aoki, MANAA founding president, responded, “Many in Japan have been so brainwashed by Western culture that they’ve developed an inferiority complex about their own. They assume that in order for an American film to be successful, it has to star a white actor. Tell that to Zhang Yimou, who spent $150 million directing The Great Wall starring Matt Damon only to see it flop worldwide and receive terrible reviews. He’s not going to make his money back.”
Guy Aoki says more: “What Hollywood needs to understand,” Aoki tells THR, “this is not like when Hollywood announces Michael Keaton is the new Batman or Daniel Craig is the new Bond. There was a big uproar, but the actors were able to turn them around with their approaches to the roles. But you can’t change the ethnicity of an actor, and when a white actor is cast in a role that should have gone to an Asian or Asian-American, it’s not just Asian-Americans who have a vested interest who are upset, but other fair-minded people as well as fans of the original anime. You can’t get away with casting a white actor and think people will eventually warm up. There was a lot of social media talk, after the Super Bowl ad, for example, and a lot of it was negative. People whose first impression was, ‘I love Scarlett Johansson, she kicks ass,’ may have started looking at it and thinking, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t support this.’”
I agree with Guy Aoki 100% – I think studios are stuck in this strange universe where they honestly don’t believe that anyone will see a movie if there’s not a white lead, despite all of this f–king evidence to the contrary. Later in this article, a Paramount person says that Ghost in the Shell was “very Rotten Tomatoes-sensitive. Lots of people were seeking out information about the film. And we got hit pretty hard by the print journalists.” Again, Rotten Tomatoes is not the problem and why are you blaming people for doing a few minutes of research before they spend $30-50 on movie tickets, popcorn, etc?
Photos courtesy of ‘Ghost in the Shell’, WENN.
Good. It was a lousy, cowardly decision on the part of the studio and Scarlett Johannsson and the only thing that sucks is how many more interviews we’re all going to be subjected to from her and the director trying to justify it.
yes the whitewashing made it tank hard.. I am glad it did
+1 the millennials don’t tolerate this outdated thinking and bullshit, if studios want to make money they need to re-think the way they cast movies for the new generation who is, thankfully, more awake and aware of the world than the previous generation was
I’m not surprised this film bombed (though I’m glad it did). I may be in the minority when I say i think it had little to do with the white washing and everything to do with Scarlet Johannsen having the personality and flavor of chilled oatmeal. Seriously, her charisma level is -50.
The whole highest paying actress of the moment thing is ridiculous. She is not a box office draw. Yes, she had Lucy, an original film that she can notch her belt with. But everything else is/was a marvel comic that had zero to do with her drawing power.
Much like people pay for tix to see Jlaw in Hunger games franchises while ignoring her in almost everything else, including the recent dud, “Passengers.”
These actresses are not box office gold by any stretch. Not in the way Angelina Jolie and Sandra Bullock are in the right project. People pay money to see them for them. They’re curious, they want to see them triumph, be evil, kick azz or something.
These other actresses? Yawn. There’s no there there.
I wholeheartedly agree, testmilk. I won’t see a movie with JLaw or Johannson in it unless there are other actors in there who I actually want to see. (Thor is one of those because I can’t stand whatshername that was replaced in the latest one.)
The movie tanked due to the horrible lead actress and the whitewashing, imo.
“You know what went wrong? They hired Scarlett Johansson to play a Japanese character. Bam! Analysis done” /mic drop
But but but I thought Scarlett was a box office draw and that’s why she was cast. That’s why she was given $17.5 million to do this film. I thought she was supposed to turn Ghost In The Shell into a household name because of her star power.
Karma is a real B isn’t it. Other than Lucy there is zero evidence that Scarlett has any box office clout. So their excuse for casting her in this film was a joke from the start. But the sad thing is studios still won’t learn crap. Heck even Scarlett already gave them another excuse. People aren’t going to watch her film because she speaks out for what’s right….spoken like a true white feminist.
Anyways star power is dead. There are probably 6 or 7 actors that can put butts in seats and even they have failures but even then Scarlett isn’t one of them. She’s just like all the other actors in the Marvel universe. Big names but zero box office power outside of their respective franchises. So I don’t want to hear another excuse of “but so and so has the star power” and that’s why they got the role over a minority. The Great Wall starring Matt Damon and The Ghost In The Shell starring Scarlett Johansson say hi! Cast the right folks, make a decent movie (it doesnt even have to be great!) and there’s a good chance people will watch your film.
well said
This. Take Power Rangers for example. They featured a diverse cast on many fronts, produced an okay movie, and performed alright for a box office debut.
Power Rangers is set to lose money, actually.
A week and a half in and Power Rangers hasn’t even earned back it’s 100 million production budget. Given it’s not doing great in foreign markets, it’s very unlikely to break even given it’s huge marketing campaign.
Diverse blockbusters have generally been doing very well, but definitely don’t use Power Rangers as your example. Ghost on the Shell actually looks like it might do better, as it’s actually doing ok in foreign markets.
Well I for one went to see it partly because Scarlett Johannson was in it. I enjoyed the movie and felt that the main character could have been played by anyone. It may have been better with an Asian, but I doubt it. The idea of this is that she becomes a ghost in a shell, literally. The brain is Asian, the body is a shell it holds no importance for her. I thought that the fact that the body was Caucasian added another element to the movie.
I am also a little over this business. I wonder if anyone criticising this has actually read the original Manga? I have. The brain was most definitely Asian when she woke but the body was racially ambiguous. She had blue to light brown and only slightly Asian, but very large eyes. As a matter of fact if you squint just a bit she looks like Scarlett Johannson.
Oh please. Ghost in the Shell is a series rooted into Japanese culture. It’s entire premise and the moral story that unfolds is based off the transition Japan was facing into the modern age and deals heavily with Japanese history — from that of the feudal era to that of WWII. So the fact that they caee Scarlett Johanssob into this role that — even if the characters ARE ambiguous as you say — is insulting on every level.
Also. “Very large eyes”. You can honestly piss right the f off.
If we lived in a world where there was an abundance of roles for Asian Americans and they were properly represented I might have agreed with you. But the fact of the matter is they took one of the few roles that probably would have been open to Japanese American actors and gave it to a white woman. If the role of the ‘shell’ could have been played by anyone, why default to white?
I haven’t read the manga it’s based on, but based on the pictures I’ve seen-the art style just seem like what I would expect from manga/anime. For example, Death Note is a (relatively) more realistic manga/anime and the arts style seems similar to Ghost in the Shell. The main character has light brown hair and what you would describe as ‘big eyes’ and is clearly Japanese and the setting is Japan-art style in manga is not indicative ‘race’
In the anime, just look at Batou to look at a caucasian face and then back at the major, and they clearly do not come from the same racial background.
For some series that reasoning you give of ambiguity might hold up, but within the GITS world the difference is made pretty obvious.
@ Selena Castle
Oh please, don’t act like replacing non-white roles with white actors and actresses isn’t a long practiced role in Hollywood. They’ve used white people to portray every race/ethnicity since the dawn of Hollywood and they’re still doing it. Geronimo was played by a white man, Micky Rooney played a Japanese characters, Angelina Jolie has played an Afro-Latina woman, Spanish (meaning European, yes white) actors/actresses like Antonio Banderas, Paz Vega and Penelope Cruz often play Latin American characters rather than casting non-white mixed Latin American people who are the majority. Emma Stone played a triracial Chinese/Hawaiian woman. Katherine Hepburn played an Asian character. If you watch the documentary Reel Injun on Netflix they show the many times that Native Americans have been portrayed by white actors, sometimes in body paint and including instances where the characters are literally just racist caricatures. List goes on and on. This isn’t an isolated incident, have a seat.
@Selena,
I agree. It says as much in the title. I checked out the artwork for the character and she looks surprisingly like Scarlett. The problem as I see it is that Japanese animators don’t draw Japanese characters. They have Japanese names but caucasian features. So why knock just the studio that puts in a white lead? Why not insist that the animators give us Asian characters in the first place?
@littlestar
Because i think it’s important to respect how someone self-identifies, i think it’s imperative that you know that Marianne Pearl does not ID as an ‘Afro-Latina.’ She’s described herself as French, Cuban, Dutch and Jewish. She also asked her friend Angelina to play her in the bio-pic, which she did to great acclaim.
You might see her background as akin to someone like Celia Cruz or Rosie Perez who ID as Afro Latina, but that’s not her predominant cultural identity.
Lucy might have performed well but the movie itself wasn’t good either…
Truth. Limitless did it better.
That’s a moot point. You could make the argument that all manga features a “racially ambiguous” character cast. It’s a drawing style. Just like most white Americans don’t have circle eyes (a la Family Guy) and most women don’t have DDD cups (a la DC comics). The defacto assumption that cartoon = white lends more to the notion of white supremacy than anything else.
This is true. Manga draws most characters’s eyes as large, but when they draw a *white* character, that character also has a long nose.
The Japanese see those characters as Japanese. The fact that white people see those characters as white only means they aren’t familiar with the drawing style.
With films like Hidden Figures and Get Out raking in money, it’s time Hollywood realized that yes, you can have a hit movie without a white lead.
I predict that Hollywood is just going to use this flop to say a woman can’t carry a movie to great success. They will just revert to another hurtful and untrue bias, misogyny, rather than admit that whitewashing is unappealing to modern audiences.
whitewashing yes, plus it also looked total balls.
Yes. Most reviews weren’t good, and not just because of the moral issues. I read a handful of them. They largely agreed the movie looked good, but felt shallow and lacked mystery. One critic, in The Guardian, believed the director had failed to understand the basic, unnerving premise of the source material. ( “Matter over mind”. Our bodies, organic or manifactured, shape our minds and thoughts.)
I decided not to go, as did many others, it would seem.
What Gary Aoki says about the attitudes in Japan is true…look at Vogue Japan. It is lead by a white woman, often features white models on covers and in editorials. Even ads in Japan are mostly with white models.
Even in India, they shrugged off the Ashton Kutcher pop-chips ad. They don’t quite understand the issue of white-washing.
I mostly agree with you, but I wanted to correct this: most adds in Japan do not feature white women. I’m living there at the moment and this was one of the first things I’ve noticed. Except if it’s a worldwide luxury brand that’s been endorced by an actress or an internationally known clothing retailer ( H&M), casual clothing/adds always feature Japanese men and women.
It has a very good concept AND the lead should have gone to an Asian actress. It was Asian-centric and Scarlett as the lead was jarring. The whole “it’s an android” so it doesn’t matter argument just didn’t sit well. It was a Japanese woman’s brain, for crying out loud. And her mother, who was still grieving, was Japanese. I don’t know how they thought they could get away with it, other than by doing what they did, which was to try to make her “look” a little more Asia through makeup and hair (which is offensive).
I read am article yesterday that made me laugh. I can’t remember where it was but it was a blogger talking about a review he read about the film. The reviewer was basically like, “not sure why it bombed? It was probably because Johansson doesn’t have any social media. Maybe it wasn’t just the whitewashing” The writer was like lol, wow. It was CLEARLY the whitewashing. Are you blind?!
Audiences will not see films where you do that. Why don’t these hollywood exes stop being so stubborn and just stop?! They think they are always right. Well, your movies will just continue to bomb so…..
White privilege is why they won’t stop. What do you mean that people don’t want to see white people as the leads in everything? Surely you jest …
Well it was mostly hurt by the fact that apparently the movie sucked and Scarlett is not really much of a draw (she’s had some luck being in the right material but in the wrong material? Nope. No one cares). But yes, the rest was a contribution.
Let’s play devil’s advocate and say they needed her in the lead to get it made. OK. Then why so many the white supporting characters? I mean respect to Juliette Binoche, but she doesn’t open a film. And no one cares about Michael Pitt (playing a character named Kuze??). I mean, come on.
Good! As a fan of the series I was disappointed, but not surprised at Johannson’s casting. The series is so tied up in its Japanese identity that part of it is based on an actual historical event. There was no way this was going to work, and it shows how ignorant Hollywood is for even trying in the first place.
I don’t understand why people bring up audiences in Japan when they talk about the whitewashing controversy. I’ve seen arguments online that a film made in America would cast an American-as if there aren’t Americans of Japanese descent? Why dismiss the feelings of Asian Americans who feel they aren’t represented in their media?
Unfortunately, I’m not sure studios are gonna learn from this. If nothing else, they might just double down on their opinion that female led films don’t sell instead of recognising the issue with the whitewashing
And they would be stupid to think such a thing. Some of the most profitable movies from last year were female led. Whether it was big budget like Rogue One or smaller budget like Bad Moms or heck even The Shallows. And then you’ve got films like Hidden Figures that not only made money but was critically acclaimed. So nothing to do with female led films but everything to do with not wanting to see Scarlett Johansson take on the mind of a Japanese woman.
agree with everything you said.
We saw the trailer and without seeing the movie or knowing anything about it you could tell that Scarlett Johansson was made up to resemble a Japanese character. Plus it looked like a dumb, predictable movie. What were they thinking?!
I feel bad for ScarJo ( it was Rupert Sanders fault) but yeah, I read the reviews and it was more racist that we thought. It was set in futuristic Japan yet the Japanese people were the minorities. Good thing they got Beat Takeshi. He is one of my fave actors. It’s really bad that GitS took a beating from the much maligned Dreamworks animated feature about Donald Trump, “BOSS BABY”.
I know it’s the producers faults and all, but I still don’t get why actors accept these roles. This has been controversial for years and years now, it’s not like this whitewashing controversy should come as a surprise.
I really liked Scarlett in Lucy and I think the movie premise sounds interesting. I may Redbox it later, but I would have seen it in theaters if they had just gone the American remake route (a la Godzilla, The Ring, etc…), rather than making her a Japanese woman in a white woman’s body.
It’s as if scarlett (and mat damon) thought that them being defensive and all “I’m not racist. The character was always white!” Will make us all “OK! No worries then!” Bahahaha! Yeah right.
Because they genuinely don’t understand what the problem is. It came up with Tilda Swinton, as well. They only think of whitewashing as a white actor pretending to be another race (a la Mickey Rooney in Breakfast At Tiffany’s). They don’t understand that re-writing a character so that it’s white is the same issue. Or in Damon’s case, the white savior trope.
I will never not be happy that a Rupert Sanders project crashes and burns. His interviews on this topic are so tone deaf. And I also agree with the assessment that this was a largely unknown property in the US bef the casting was announced, and then all
the press was bad. Contrast that with Dr Strange, which also has the same whitewashing issues- but didn’t seem to impact it’s box office too much. Admittedly Tilda’s character was not the lead, but still a major character in that film. Sadly, think the takeaway will be “woman in lead=bad”.
I really don’t think the “woman as lead” thing will be blamed here. Thankfully they’d look absurd thinking that with Rogue One just a few months ago making over a billion world wide and getting strong reviews. Not to mention Beauty and the Beast printing money. Hollywood cares about money and films with female leads are making money. If the studio honestly blames that for this movie’s failure then they deserve this bomb and all the ones to come.
I think a lot of Hollywood idiot producers assumed that the white-washing scandal was all just a few angry, uptight people making lots of noise. That only Asians would care. They generally consider audiences to be stupid and bigoted. They were wrong.
Scarlett will get exposed at some point. She was in the middle of a string of bombs pre avengers. She only got the role because Emily Blunt had to pull out, otherwise she might be just above someone like Olivia Wilde right now.
Rupert Sanders and the producers deserve most of the blame though. Cast Rinko Kikuchi or some other japanese or asian actress instead. Hollywood should stop white washing, for once.
+1 for Rinko Kikuchi. Doona Bae is Korean but still would’ve been much better than Scarlett. Love Doona in Sense8.
Not trying to jump on you specifically, but it really bothers me when people suggest casting Korean people as Japanese people, Chinese people as Japanese people and so on. In many ways it’s actually more culturally insensitive than just casting a white person. These are very different cultures, who look, speak and act very differently, even if Westerners can’t see that. These are also cultures that have some fairly major historical beefs. It’s not as simple as just casting someone Asian.
I’m just not a Scarlett fan. I really don’t think she’s a good actress. She’s got a great figure and the black wig looks good on her. But acting? Just bland no.
Oh, and since this IS CeleBITCHY – she’s looks AWFUL without hair!
I never got this person’s mass appeal. . I mean, she’s beautiful and sexy, but so is Olivia Wilde, Mila Kunis, Amber Heard… This face in the thread is the same she does at every movie. Maybe it’s because she’s good at action scenes?
Was it really the whitewashing? I mean, I’d love to think people are that awake but I think the movie just doesn’t look that good.
Yeah as much as I’d like to think differently It probably at best was an indirect factor-it got bad reviews because of whitewashing which gave it a bad RT score. Middle America by in large doesn’t know a thing .
Most anime movies don’t do very well in America, by all accounts. This film will ride or die on the Japanese and Chinese markets, where (ironically??) the audiences don’t care about this controversy.
Eh, I think the whitewashing wasn’t the only reason.
It was always clear that at least one movie would bomb this month. Kong did surprisingly well, BATB was always going to be the winner and Power Rangers had a good first weekend (that’s about it though). With such a strong competition, GITS needed an effective marketing campaign, plus good word of mouth, interest in it etc pp. And it had none of that.
With that being said, the whitewashing absolutely affected the marketing and public reaction to it and it might have been one of the more important reasons why the film bombed. But I simply don’t think the film would have been a huge success with an Asian lead either.
I would absolutely love for that to be the reason, but I think they mostly botched the promotion. Especially with such strong competition this month.
Her makeup in that rainbow dress is a disaster. She looks like she needs to wash her face and scrub it good.
Yeah, the dress is odd-yet-cool and pretty flattering on her, but her makeup makes her look washed out and tired, and the starkness of her hair accentuates that effect. Whoever styled her above the neck dropped the ball.
What I want to know is whether that Blake Lively movie did better…that one with her and the shark.
boxofficemojo dot com will give you information about the financial performance of movies or actors
You can’t really compare the two because one is a low budget film and the other is a tent pole film that was meant to be a blockbuster. Domestically The Shallows will make more money than Ghost In The Shell but internationally Ghost In The Shell will beat it but that’s expected because of the amount of screens it got, promotion and there were several premieres for it. However after everything, The Shallows will end being the more profitable film and it’s not even close.
Good question? No idea.
Never seen the shallows, nor does it interest me, and don’t intend to see GITS either, but still prefer to watch SJ (she’s a better actress imo) over BL movies.
Lol. You can’t really compare but The Shallows will definitely end up being a lot more profitable for sure – $17m budget and made about $120m with little p&a costs and it was barely promoted internationally. Just a good old fashioned low budget hit film.
Then there’s Ghost – we all know these type of blockbuster films is just a sink hole for money and unless it opens big then there’s not much profit – they will be counting on the foreign grosses to atleast break even when it’s all said and done.
Back to the issue at hand – sadly I doubt the average person cared enough about the white washing for that to be the reason why it flopped. It was just your usual mediocre tentpole which flopped – there’s a dozen of these every year – the white washing just meant that it was on everyones radar more than it would have otherwise.
I can see how a Japanese person living in Japan would be unphased by the white washing aspect of this film, after all they live in a country where they are the majority. Here in the US in means something completely different because non-white people are ethnic minorities and not only that but historically oppressed by the white majority. Hollywood has ALWAYS erased non-white people with white washing and in 2017 is still doing it.
I know it’s not the statement that’s on everyone’s mind, but “…an unfamiliarity of North American audiences with the source material…”? Does anyone remember a time when movies were original creations and lack of familiarity wasn’t seen as a handicap?
That stuck out to me too. It’s like saying Americans will only see reboots or sequels.
Well if you look at the top movies of the past 10 years, it’s pretty true–Harry Potters, Twilights, Marvel, DC.
Good. Rupert and Scarlett are both overrated, insensitive **sholes.
Can confirm. GitS is the one anime I actually like and I put my foot down this weekend and told my husband we couldn’t see it in theaters.
I’m sick of my fellow asians/asian Americans having their opportunities white washed away. This instance was especially insulting. I’m done supporting any project that casts Asian roles with non Asian actors. Period.
You’re spot on with your 2nd paragraph. This repeated whitewashing is disgusting and tiresome. I’m glad that more people are aware and refusing to throw money at it. It’s about time. I still get annoyed when I remember Starship Troopers. The male protagonist in the source novel is FILIPINO. Who did they cast in the film adaptation? Casper Van Dien, FFS!
I went to see it this past weekend; I rated it a 6/10.
It was pretty, but the story was shallow and rushed. I didn’t connect with any of the characters.
I also admit that I wouldn’t have gone to see it if it hadn’t been for my cineworld membership card which means I effectively saw it for free. I had been put off by all the negative publicity about whitewashing. That’s all I had known it for. I don’t recall seeing even an advert, or positive article, beforehand.
It doesn’t surprise me that it’s not doing too well. It either needed positive publicity before it released, or good reviews and word of mouth, and it has neither.
???
I think studios have forgotten the art of the trailer. A good trailer will make people want to see your movie and get them into the theater. Every trailer I saw for this movie looked terrible. No clues as to the plot, just a lot of chaotic movement and stylistic camera flashes from one person to the next.
May HW stay away from Cowboy BeeBop and Samurai Champloo… Some Anime is too rich in storytelling and serialized for a reason, to have it boiled down to a two hour floating turd. ScarJo should have never been the Major in the first place. Anyone familiar with GitS knows she was Japanese and it cuts her character off at the knees to not have her be as intended: a Japanese woman/cyborg.
I watched the film last week because of an infortunate circumstance and fell asleep several times. It’s a ripoff of all the films that ripped Blade Runner off and the story’s basic. Moreover, the last sentences – a sort of solemn voice off – contradicts the whole premise of the film.
That’s probably why it tanked. The only thing in it for those who are built that way is a light “robotica erotica” (Johansson is stunning in the film).
Ugh! Then Japan should have made the movie if they wanted Japanese casts in it.
Next thing people will start saying kids at school should stop doing plays that portray other cultures/ countries…. because whitewashing
Btw I love Japan, Japanese culture (I’m not even sure if i’m allowed to admit this anymore), anime, manga, manwha, webtoon, and i grew up watching Gits, Naruto (T_T it ended last month), Ergo Proxy, Death Note, One piece and all these absolutely fantastic shows. And i get so excited when it reaches a wider audience like this in form of a live action movie, cos guess what, it means people that would never watch anime or read manga would get to see the cool stuff that actually goes on there and might be curious enough to join we otaku gang and see the cool stuff that comes out of Japan/ korean animation. Like i’ve been telling people proudly that hey that Ghost in the shell movie is actually based on a Japanese anime, like you see what you been missing now by not watching anime? (Cos people generally have the idea that anime is for kids and whatever). Ugh this whole whitewashing controversy thing is just annoying!
Ya’ll dont have to agree with me. Amma just celebrate the fact that Japanese anime material is going to be seen by alot of people who are non anime fans and would hopefully (hopefully!) become anime fans from there ^_^
Umm are you white?
Black bro. Thank you judge judy
@Faust I agree with you. I wonder too if it were a male role given to a white American male if it would have cause as much controversy. I feel for the female actors out there trying to get the best parts, they will get scrutinized more than anyone else for just being female.
Stupid Asians should just be grateful this abomination got made right? If it weren’t for Scar Jo, no one would know about Japanese anime, manga, or culture.
What are you talking about?
There is no “Asians”. People are people, full of everything, including their ethnicity. Taking billions of individuals and mushing them up into one word is offensive, insensitive and just plain wrong.
Sarcasm much? Anyone can be Asian now?
You might wanna calm down. What’s my business with “Asians being grateful” or Scar Jo.
You obviously most likely deliberately missed the point of what i said and that’s your problem lol. And why you calling the Asians stupid bro? Seriously calm down. Ice tea helps.
Your point was, “Ugh! Then Japan should have made the movie if they wanted Japanese casts in it … it means people that would never watch anime or read manga would get to see the cool stuff that actually goes on there.” You “appreciate” the culture, but when it comes to advocating for fellow minorities to be shown on the big screen, you think that Scar Jo is a good enough substitute, bro.
Honestly why would anyone cast her after Lucy? Poor girl couldnt convey anything with her face.
Don’t pull all the blame to SJ. True. Her acting was a bit disjointing at times but for me, the culprit is the script and Rupert Sanders. Why did Spielberg even think of Sanders to direct GITS? His Snow White and the Huntsman flopped big-time. He doesn’t have anything under his belt that would prove he could handle directing GITS. The movie is a visual treat but it is just that. Nothing more.
I watched the tv series and the character never struck me as especially Japanese in appearance. Maybe part Japanese at best. As a matter of fact, some dialog suggested she wasn’t always a woman (her body was full prosthetic so she could choose anything she liked) although she was born female. Her body was replaced by prosthetics when she was a young child, after a bad accident. Others on her team were clearly not Japanese or maybe only partially. This is very common with anime, they often depict a very international society. (It’s not just about assorted hair colors). So I’m not surprised that people in Japan were not at all bothered with the casting. They didn’t see her as Japanese either. The important thing would be how well the actress matched the personality of the character. Which would be a tough job….
I got a lot of promo stuff at the anime conventions I go to (MetroCon in Tampa, Holiday Matsuri in Orlando, Anime Fan Days in Tampa) and I looked at my husband and said, “Watch this movie bomb hard because it’s bad, not because ScarJo isn’t Japanese but everyone will say that it will be because of the latter, not the former.” For reference I am black, female, 31–not as an excuse but perspective.
Our anime meet up group went to go watch the original animated film in theaters (it’s been years since I’ve seen it) and it was not as fun as I remember it–seemed rushed but the visuals were beautiful and I loved the ideas of the singularity, blah blah cyberpunk themes no one here really cares about.
Movies fail because they’re bad. Full stop. Look, white-washing is bad. Euro-colonization has made it so that the collective thought process puts white people as heroes. “American Gods” by Neil Gaiman is my favorite book of all time. I was absolutely rocked when they described Shadow as not white. Not even black, just “not white”. It was the first time (college) I realized that when I read things, I automatically put the main character as white. I just did. I can’t tell you how many arguments I got into with people on how there are probably darker Hobbits or Dwarves (Lord of the Rings) or that obviously Billie De Williams had to come from *somewhere* so there’s gotta be more black people in the Star Wars Universe and so on.
Probably didn’t hurt it as much as it informed public self determination. What pushed me away from it, besides thorough reviews by solid critics, is that it was in part a calculated move to have a ‘star’ actress in the role, so maybe not the ‘right’ or ethnically closer actress.
Working through the ranks must be difficult if you don’t get that break role. Some said the actress from Pacific Rim could have filled the role, maybe then make a household name for herself . . who knows. The film could have flopped on just the story premise, direction, or marketing. Or too much Scar Joe? Maybe not, she’s got a bachorette movie right around the corner, probably do more domestic business than Ghost.