I felt the need to write something really quickly to sort of my thoughts on the topic. So, I spent a good part of Friday arguing about the casting of the new Ghost in the Shell film. I want to preface by saying I love Scarlett Johansson. People give her a lot of shit, but I think she is a wonderful actress. However, I can’t help but think of the opportunity missed to increase representation and visibility in Hollywood.
Here is where the water gets murky though. About a year ago, when Fantastic Four was getting a lot of backlash for casting a black Johnny Storm, I sided with the creative liberties of the film makers. Does that make me a hypocrite if I feel it is OK for a white character to be played by a non-white actor/actress, but not vice versa? Only if we lived in a perfect world.
I wrote this long explanation, but I’m going to simplify it. Hollywood has a serious history of whitewashing, in part due to the fact that it started as a business exclusively for whites. Even today, there are still issues of diversity within Hollywood.
If white actors and actresses get 80% of the roles in Hollywood, and I’m just making up figures here for the sake of making a point, and non-white actors and actresses get the other 20%, one role taken from 20% hurts a lot whereas one role from 80% is insignificant. I feel the same in regards to women taking lead roles originally meant for men because of the same reasoning.
I do feel if race plays an important part of the story and/or character, it should remain unchanged. For instance, American History X wouldn’t work as well if Edward Norton’s character were anything but white, as he is a Neo-Nazi.
From a business standpoint, I do understand it, more or less. Scarlett being attached to this film will draw in her sci-fi fans, regardless of whether they know the series or not. However, in doing so, the film has already alienated fans of the anime.
P.S. It was also disheartening to read the studio tested using CGI to make white actors, they specified they didn’t test on Scarlett, look more Asian, which adds insult to injury.
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