But perhaps - and this is just a guess - the Ghost in the Shell adaptation shouldn't have been an American production in the first place.Īfter World War II - after two nuclear bombs and the forced demilitarization, an impoverished and war-torn Japan desperately needed to rebuild its economy, and it turned to toys. It's a dense, depressing history, and by the end of it I probably will still come to the conclusion that casting Johansson was the wrong move. The issue of representation feels cozily easy to understand here in the US - you either are or aren't represented - compared to the long history of self-erasure in post-war Japanese narratives. But in the case of Kusanagi, an anime character, it's not as simple as Japanese or white. Whitewashing is very real, and the deficit of starring roles for Asians is one lane in the representation race that is stubbornly slow to advance. Representation is not as cut-and-dry in Japan Strange and there was enough fuel for a fresh round of writers, filmmakers, and actors taking Hollywood to task for its refusal to cast Asian actors. (Both films were bombs so much for the "white actors are more bankable" argument.) Add the more recent controversy of Tilda Swinton's casting as a Tibetan character in Marvel's Dr. Night Shyamalan's Avatar adaptation and Emma Stone playing a half-Chinese character in Aloha were still fresh in our collective memory. The image of a famous white actress in Kusanagi's signature black bob seemed like another depressing example of Asian actors being removed from Asian narratives - the insult of M.
This month, over a year after the casting announcement, Paramount Pictures released a still of Johansson in costume as Kusanagi, and the internet did not take it well. As usual, it took a picture for the outcry to start.
0 kommentar(er)
