There’s a bunch of news about Scarlett Johansson and I believe it’s all interconnected, especially after I read LaineyGossip’s piece about it. As we discussed earlier this week, Ghost in the Shell flopped HARD at the box office. It flopped so hard and the international box office projections are so bad that now Deadline reports that the film will probably end up losing $60 million or more. Like, when all is said and done, the film might be able to scrape together about $200 million domestically and internationally. But the film cost $250 million-plus to make and promote. So, yeah. That’s the bad story. That’s the story which Scarlett doesn’t want us to talk about: Ghost in the Shell is possibly Scarlett’s worst career move, not only financially, but image-wise too. Because now we know Scarlett has no problem playing Japanese characters in whitewashed movies.

So what is ScarJo doing to change the subject? Well, first of all, she wants you to know that she and Romain Dauriac are talking and getting along. She filed for divorce last month and Romain basically declared war on Scarlett. Romain wants full custody of their daughter and his lawyer was going crazy on Scarlett in the press. So Scarlett and Romain stepped out together two nights ago at the Singular Object Art Opening Cocktail Reception in NYC. They posed for photos and everything. So, talk about that, not whitewashing!

And finally, Scarlett decided to really talk about politics. Throughout the promotion of Ghost in the Shell, she was trying to keep everything pretty apolitical, but now? Now she needs to change the headline. Scarlett attended the Women in the World Summit and she did a discussion with Arianna Huffington. They ended up talking about Ivanka Trump. Here’s a partial transcript of what Scarlett said about Ivanka:

“I’ve been thinking a lot about Ivanka Trump actually, very recently. I’m sure you saw the interview she did with Gayle King yesterday. It was kind of baffling, I have to say, really baffling. You can’t have it both ways, right? If you take a job as a public advocate, then you must advocate publicly, right? And yesterday, she said something that I found particularly disappointing, which is that the greatest change she was going to make … would be behind closed doors, and nobody would actually know she made this change. I thought to myself, ‘Well, that’s empowering!’ How old-fashioned, this idea that behind a great man is a great woman. What about being in front of that person, or next to that person?”

“It is such an old-fashioned concept that to be this powerful woman, you know, you can’t appear to be concerned, that someone is going to think that you are bitchy, or a powerful woman, you know, they get concerned with this idea that they are going to be seen in this unforgiving light and, you know, screw that, it is so old fashioned and it is so uninspired and actually really cowardly.

“I can’t imagine how complicated it must be to see your parent in this sudden position that he is in, and know deep down, that it is a position that he never really wanted, and now he is in this position, and he finds himself there and I think it must be — I think as a daughter, someone who looks up to a parental figure like that, it’s a unique and strange thing. But she has the opportunity to really make a big impact, just by being vocal. And I have met her several times in the past, we both grew up in New York and have some friends in common, and she’s a very well-spoken, smart and intelligent woman. … It baffles me, the whole situation baffles me.”

[From NY Magazine & USA Today]

So that’s why we’re getting headlines like “Scarlett called Ivanka Trump a coward!” That being said, Scarlett’s not wrong here. She’s possibly/probably trying to change the subject. But she’s not wrong. Ivanka’s message and position is cowardly, ornamental and old-fashioned.

Photos courtesy of Getty.