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Ghost in the Shell, Live Action Film

Marla said:
I mean, the next few months/years there are going to be several new live-action adaptations incoming: Gintama, JoJo, Bleach, Fullmetal Alchemist are the few I'm aware of.
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Well, part 1 and 2 of Jojo would be largely English/American characters and it's all set in Europe/America. Even Jotaro and Josuke can be handwaved because they're only half Japanese.

(Well, other than the Pillar Men and the Tibetan monks)

Hire a cast of bodybuilders to pose FABULOUSLY and you're all set.

EDIT: That is, if it was Hollywood doing the adaptation, which they aren't.
 
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If the character is named Kusanagi chances are they're Japanese and should be Japanese. If the character is Jonathan Joestar chances are they're English and should be English.

Like I really don't mind if the cast of Attack on Titan was primarily white considering they're German and it's a plot point that Misaka stands out because she's Japanese. Same goes for FMA or whatever.
 
You mean it'd be great if the entire plot wasn't
Hykal94 said:
If the character is named Kusanagi chances are they're Japanese and should be Japanese. If the character is Jonathan Joestar chances are they're English and should be English.

Like I really don't mind if the cast of Attack on Titan was primarily white considering they're German and it's a plot point that Misaka stands out because she's Japanese. Same goes for FMA or whatever.
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What about all the shows with characters that have Japanese names while clearly not being ethnically Japanese? What are we considering 'Japanese'? I think this might be a pretty complicated question; even Japan isn't ethnically homogenous, many don't think anime or manga characters look 'Japanese', and heaps of anime/manga present diverse casts of people with Japanese names. In the far future of 2199, everyone's is fine with the idea of 'Japanese' including all kinds of people.
 
Hykal94 said:
If the character is named Kusanagi chances are they're Japanese and should be Japanese. If the character is Jonathan Joestar chances are they're English and should be English.
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You could cast Dave Bautista as Jotaro Kujo the 17-year-old half-Japanese high school student and he would probably look more manga-accurate than the vast majority of actual Japanese actors.

It's amazing how both the classic Kenshiro physique and the new-model twink physique both came from the same set of balls.

(something something four balls)
 
Sublink said:
What about all the shows with characters that have Japanese names while clearly not being ethnically Japanese? What are we considering 'Japanese'? I think this might be a pretty complicated question; even Japan isn't ethnically homogenous, many don't think anime or manga characters look 'Japanese', and heaps of anime/manga present diverse casts of people with Japanese names. In the far future of 2199, everyone's is fine with the idea of 'Japanese' including all kinds of people.
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ZerbanDaGreat said:
You could cast Dave Bautista as Jotaro Kujo the 17-year-old half-Japanese high school student and he would probably look more manga-accurate than the vast majority of actual Japanese actors.
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If a setting is set in Japan and everyone has pink hair, blue eyes, have cat ears, but are clearly Japanese culturally, then just cast Japanese actors in them. Doesn't matter if they're half white or whatever, there's probably an actor out there who can look the part.

Japan doesn't particularly care because Japan IS homogeneous. But plenty do. It's why people did bring up the whitewashing (also the ACTUAL freaking whitewashing in the movie). It's why it's dumb to not cast Egyptians as Egyptian gods and yes Egyptians are Egyptians doesn't matter if they're Arab or Copt they're freaking Egyptians.

In an industry particular dominated by white people, a little bit more diversity goes a long way. Representation is important.
 
Hykal94 said:
It's why it's dumb to not cast Egyptians as Egyptian gods and yes Egyptians are Egyptians doesn't matter if they're Arab or Copt they're freaking Egyptians.
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Hykal94 said:
In an industry particular dominated by white people, a little bit more diversity goes a long way. Representation is important.
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Why?

I really, really cannot understand the argument for 'representation', and I say this as a three-quarter Straits Chinese and one-quarter Malay. Roles should be given based on merit and acting ability, not to fill some checklist - and given the amount of tech we have now, we can make any actor look like any role. The only thing I can support is the removal of producers delibrately barring non-white actors from getting roles, but its clear that actors are picked for, again, their acting ability and star power.

And 'star power' is really limited - there have been a growing list ot massive flops that have involved big time stars, and more and more people care about the characters than the actors (eg, the MCU). So I don't see the point.
 
MagicianX26 said:
Why?

I really, really cannot understand the argument for 'representation', and I say this as a three-quarter Straits Chinese and one-quarter Malay. Roles should be given based on merit and acting ability, not to fill some checklist - and given the amount of tech we have now, we can make any actor look like any role. The only thing I can support is the removal of producers delibrately barring non-white actors from getting roles, but its clear that actors are picked for, again, their acting ability and star power.

And 'star power' is really limited - there have been a growing list ot massive flops that have involved big time stars, and more and more people care about the characters than the actors (eg, the MCU). So I don't see the point.
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The reason why white people are most represented is because the powers that be (executives) are old white men who don't really care to see non-white people. The majority of directors, writers, producers are also white.

You don't see an issue with this because you live in a country where the majority is your ethnicity. It's the reason why the Japanese have no issue with it. But if you lived in America, you'd notice you weren't.

How many mediocre white actors are there? You could probably name a few. How many mediocre Hispanic actors are there? You probably can't name very many. But the mediocre white actors get the role and the talented colored actors get none.

And even when Hollywood writes a non-white actor, guess what? White people still get those roles.

Because when I think of Atila the Hun, I think Gerard Butler. Totally.

It's not Hollywood goes out of its way to NOT cast white actors, but racism is ingrained deep in the system. And that's why representation matters.
 
Hykal94 said:
If a setting is set in Japan and everyone has pink hair, blue eyes, have cat ears, but are clearly Japanese culturally, then just cast Japanese actors in them. Doesn't matter if they're half white or whatever, there's probably an actor out there who can look the part.
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American wrestlers are the only species on this planet that has ingested enough pure creatine and whole hams from birth to play a Parts 1-3 Jojo character. Until the Japanese perfect the Captain America super serum, it's the closest you can hope to get in live-action.
 
Hykal94 said:
If a setting is set in Japan and everyone has pink hair, blue eyes, have cat ears, but are clearly Japanese culturally, then just cast Japanese actors in them. Doesn't matter if they're half white or whatever, there's probably an actor out there who can look the part.

Japan doesn't particularly care because Japan IS homogeneous. But plenty do. It's why people did bring up the whitewashing (also the ACTUAL freaking whitewashing in the movie). It's why it's dumb to not cast Egyptians as Egyptian gods and yes Egyptians are Egyptians doesn't matter if they're Arab or Copt they're freaking Egyptians.

In an industry particular dominated by white people, a little bit more diversity goes a long way. Representation is important.
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But the internet says that if you care about the fact that asian actors can't even seem to get leading roles in movies based off of Japanese works that makes you an whiny virtue signaling SJW cuck!

Also, some Egyptians apparently looked white, so apparently it's totally okay to portray most Egyptians as white.

More seriously, I would have been okay with them changing the races of the supporting cast (albeit preferably to a more diverse cast than just white people) as long as they casted an asian actress, preferably Rinko Kikuchi. (Which probably would have ironically caused more controversy in Japan, because I hear that some people there seem to have it out for her for making it without taking part in the Idol system, and anyone who messes with that has my seal of approval.)

Hykal94 said:
The reason why white people are most represented is because the powers that be (executives) are old white men who don't really care to see non-white people. The majority of directors, writers, producers are also white.

You don't see an issue with this because you live in a country where the majority is your ethnicity. It's the reason why the Japanese have no issue with it. But if you lived in America, you'd notice you weren't.

How many mediocre white actors are there? You could probably name a few. How many mediocre Hispanic actors are there? You probably can't name very many. But the mediocre white actors get the role and the talented colored actors get none.

And even when Hollywood writes a non-white actor, guess what? White people still get those roles.

Because when I think of Atila the Hun, I think Gerard Butler. Totally.

It's not Hollywood goes out of its way to NOT cast white actors, but racism is ingrained deep in the system. And that's why representation matters.
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I also think the visibility of minorities in media is important for society as a whole. Showing them reminds people that yes, they exist, and do in fact matter as people. I also think it's unfair to deny young people growing up heroes they can identify with. I know, it's easy as someone who's in the majority to say that we should all be colorblind, but kids aren't that simple. Hell, we're still having problems with casting white female roles.

In any case, the box office success of films with diverse casts like the recent Star Wars and Fast and Furious movies prove that, far from being a detriment, more diverse films are just as capable if not more so of earning profits as films cast based solely on 'talent'.

ZerbanDaGreat said:
American wrestlers are the only species on this planet that has ingested enough pure creatine and whole hams from birth to play a Parts 1-3 Jojo character. Until the Japanese perfect the Captain America super serum, it's the closest you can hope to get in live-action.
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Yeah, but then how are you going to handle the art shift? You'll need some tiny Steve Rogers CGI for that, no human on Earth is capable of losing mass that much in nature.
 
ZerbanDaGreat said:
American wrestlers are the only species on this planet that has ingested enough pure creatine and whole hams from birth to play a Parts 1-3 Jojo character. Until the Japanese perfect the Captain America super serum, it's the closest you can hope to get in live-action.
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Bullshit. If Jotaro can look fit instead of Arnold in part 4 then they can do the same thing for part 1 to 3.

Like I will never fucking see myself represented. Ever. Not my ethnicity, my culture, my religion. Despite the fact the last one is like, the second largest in the world. Other than you know,as the fucking bad guys.

You are Australian. You are represented all the time. But not me though. Never me. So the best I can do is promote more diversity so I can hopefully, one day, see myself represented.

Like I get joking's your thing Zerban, but representation is extremely important to me, and I'd like to see more of it. So maybe take it more seriously yeah?
 
Hykal94 said:
If a setting is set in Japan and everyone has pink hair, blue eyes, have cat ears, but are clearly Japanese culturally, then just cast Japanese actors in them. Doesn't matter if they're half white or whatever, there's probably an actor out there who can look the part.

Japan doesn't particularly care because Japan IS homogeneous. But plenty do. It's why people did bring up the whitewashing (also the ACTUAL freaking whitewashing in the movie). It's why it's dumb to not cast Egyptians as Egyptian gods and yes Egyptians are Egyptians doesn't matter if they're Arab or Copt they're freaking Egyptians.

In an industry particular dominated by white people, a little bit more diversity goes a long way. Representation is important.
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Japan is so not homogenous they have ethnic discrimination. That's like saying China is homogenous, when it certainly isn't and there's significant social distinction.

But that aside, is it your position that in a Japanese work the baseline should default to 'Japanese' regardless of what the people actually look like? In Yamato they have a Japanese dude who is black and wears his hair in dreads, and certainly he's presented as a person from Japan, but I'd expect him to be portrayed by a black person in any crazy live action reinterpretation. Well, I guess I'd expect the plot not to be 'and this is why he isn't black', haha. :V

You've noted stories like Attack on Titan and Legend of Galactic Hereos where the characters have strong characteristics we might consider 'non-Japanese', like blonde hair and European names. This stuff is interesting because the Japanese audience clearly doesn't care about this stuff as much as westerners, but that doesn't make it less valid a concern. The Japanese positing a Japan-centric future in a story for Japanese people doesn't bother me nearly as much as white people whiting up the sterile white future of whiteness just because of weight and power. I'm not going to be upset by something like GATE when that's basically every action movie ever, for instance, except those are from countries that actually do it. :)

I think there's a big difference between a community being fine with diversity and another, larger, community deciding to change that diversity. I mean I'm sure you've seen non-western cultures being so used to movies being mostly white people they don't find it offensive, but I think that's irrelevant to whether it's good or bad or whether I should find it offensive. In my experience, places like China would be much more offended by a role of a Chinese character going to a Korean or (ancestors forfend) a Taiwanese actor, simply because they could conceivably do something about that, but they can't really stop Hollywood being racist.

Well, beyond waiting a decade for the market to tilt in their favour and to buy all the studios. :)
 
I feel like there is this misunderstanding about this whole discussion. The discussion about representation is as much introspective as anything else. Like a lot of people I was concerned with the casting of this film, but I also knew that people in Japan wouldn't actually give a shit. Of course they wouldn't give a shit: they have a very successful film, television and music industry full of Japanese talent. Ultimately the whitewashing discussion wasn't about Japan, it was about looking at the decisions that Americans studios make when it comes to casting.

It's right to have this discussion because the United States is home to all kinds of people, many of whom get muscled out of films basically because they aren't white. And like, that happens: the chances made available to Asian actors in the US are pretty limited. That's why people get up in arms about it.

Further up the page it was suggested that roles should be filled on merit, but the issue is that being white is a silent advantage at auditions. Like you really think there isn't a Japanese-American actress out there that couldn't turn in a better performance than Johanssen does in this film? I mean, I actually think Johansson can turn in a good performance when called for it, but like the main character of this film doesn't emote. It's not taxing. Executives didn't pick Johansson because she auditioned well, they picked her because she was the most attractive - most marketable - woman they could think of. Part of that marketability comes from her being white.

Part of it it also comes from her being very attractive, but the pressure on women in film to be stunning is an important topic for another time.

We ask these questions of Hollywood in particular because a) Hollywood is most relevant to an English-speaking audience and b) Hollywood distributes its films extremely widely and is still the de facto world leader in film.
 
I'm curious, how are the demographics in Japan divided?
Are different major ethnicity or other grouping factors identifiable at a glance?

98% of Japan is listed as Japanese in census, but Japan demographics also count those with mixed blood and born in Japan as simply Japanese as well. Usually.
 
I'm not 100% but the people of Okinawa etc - the Ryukyu people - aren't separated in census but have faced specific challenges in the past and are recognisably distinct from other parts of the population. This is similar to China not actually being homogenous - despite what both white people and the communist party would like - and having a range of ethnic groups that are either ignored or persecuted. Even a tiny place like Taiwan has a distinction between their indigenous people, their older population, and those who escaped the mainland after the civil war. And Taiwan is like a third the size of Tasmania.

This stuff is why, while many of these countries might appear to not care about ethnic issues, this is often a simplification. As @Ford Prefect indicated above, what Hollywood does is important to me because of the how and why decisions are made. I find heaps of reporting on these kind of issues - 'xyz country likes abc whitewashed movie' for instance - to be profoundly missing the point. The world isn't divided between racist white people and noble, organic, saintly non-white countries. It's sort of retroactively terrible anyway, when you talk to people from other cultures about how accepted it is that white people will just get all the roles regardless.
 
There are three recognised native minority groups in Japan, the Ryukyuans, the Ainu and the hisabetsu buraku, which you might have heard referred to as burakumin. This last one are part of hereditary occupational classes that were considered ritually unclean for one reason or the other. They still face significant challenges due to their heritage, despite being basically indistinguishable from anyone else.
 
After 5 minutes I don't really wanna sit here until he gets to a point.

Having had the movie spoiled recently, I've decided it's failure is less to do with Whitewashing, and more to do with it being a piece of crap film. :p
 
So I just saw this movie a few days ago and frankly I'm disappointment in a way I really wasn't prepared for. The movie isn't irremediable garbage or anything. Mostly it was just really boring. The plot was predictable and generic, there really isn't a strong thematic element tying the film together at all, the action felt limp and the drama was nonexistent. The worst part were all the fanservice call backs to the 95 film as the scenes were totally without context more often or not and clearly only existed as fanservice. This was bad because it was clear that someone involved in the production saw the film but totally failed to grasp any major elements of it. The whole thing was just a bland and empty experience that I'm honestly struggling to remember clearly.

Also Scarlett Johansson was terrible in this. I think she was trying to copy Mimi Woods' emotionless affectation as the Major but she just doesn't have the voice for it. So rather than coming off as emotionally distant and somewhat artificial she just came off as bored and uninvested. Which I guess means she watched the movie.
 
I might be alone on this, but as a I Chinese American, I am not too bothered by white washing of main roles since Hollywood is targeted to main population of America aka white people. What does bother is me when Asian characters are included in movies for diversity, but don't contribute anything meaningful and are simply killed off. While the two problems related, I find one more irritating than the other. I'd rather watch a white washed movie than watch a movie claiming to be diverse(usually through marketing), but having them as pointless characters to die off or whatever.
 
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One reason the movie was better recieved in Japan, according to a friend of mine, is that the 're-dub' changed a lot of dialog and may have done some story fixing from the US version. It'd be interesting if that's so....
 
Shanejayell said:
One reason the movie was better recieved in Japan, according to a friend of mine, is that the 're-dub' changed a lot of dialog and may have done some story fixing from the US version. It'd be interesting if that's so....
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I can't wait to get my hands on the English-subbed version of the Japanese-dubbed version of the English live-action version of a Japanese cartoon.
 
demoylition said:
I might be alone on this, but as a I Chinese American, I am not too bothered by white washing of main roles since Hollywood is targeted to main population of America aka white people. What does bother is me when Asian characters are included in movies for diversity, but don't contribute anything meaningful and are simply killed off. While the two problems related, I find one more irritating than the other. I'd rather watch a white washed movie than watch a movie claiming to be diverse(usually through marketing), but having them as pointless characters to die off or whatever.
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It's interesting how much this may be driven by local edits these days: I've heard of movies where the Indian/Chinese/etc character is minor in the western release, but in their home markets gets more importance or presence.

I saw Skull Island, and it features a popular Chinese actor who gets seven lines - two of which are 'watch out' - and contributes almost nothing narratively. It seemed a bit strange (Jing Tian isn't just some c-list token actor) until it was suggested to me that maybe she had a larger role in the version shown in China. If this sort of thing 'works' - in terms of increasing how much money a film spins in different parts of the world - I imagine we'll see more of it.
 
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