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INTEREST: Live-Action Ghost in the Shell Producer Speaks About Casting Controversy

Out of curiosity, how many of you "it's not a big deal" people are white? How many are cis-male? No need to answer me, but you should consider that if you are part of the white, especially male, demographic, your opinion is biased by the fact that you're on the opposite pole of the social-experience spectrum from that of any marginalized identity.

I'm a tan-skinned, Caribbean/Asian Pacific-Islander mix, and the issue doesn't bother me. Personally I don't think "Asian American" is the same as "Japanese" (and I think most Japanese people feel the same way, because they have a very insular "uchi" "soto" culture --- and tbh, in my experience at least, I think they identify more closely with White Americans than they do with most of their Asian neighbors), so if you really a wanted a movie that was authentic to its Japanese characters, then it would have to be made in Japan. But this movie isn't being made in Japan, it's being made by Hollywood, so they're understandably going to draw on the pool of talent that's most readily available to them and makes financial sense for the film they're making.

That said, Ghost in the Shell (what with all its technological futurism) probably needs a large budget to properly realize its world, and I can understand any investor who would hesitate from funding a project without a recognizable name like Scarlett Johannson attached, particularly when she has a solid and well-known background in action films and the comic-film action community.

And like I mentioned before, Asians make up less than 6% of the US population. In that sense, there's a much smaller pool of Asian acting talent to tap into, so it begs the question which Asian actress you could reasonably cast in the role. Actual Japanese actresses like Rinko Kikuchi oftentimes have very poor English, which I don't think would reflect The Major's disposition very well in an ultimately English-language film. Maybe they could've taken a risk like they did with Star Wars and cast an unknown actress, but unlike Star Wars they don't have a huge built-in audience to watch this movie (I imagine there are much more people out there familiar with Scarlett Johansson than are familiar with Ghost in the Shell), so financially it would be a bigger risk.

In any case, like the new Ghostbusters movie, I don't think it's fair to point to the original version and say "they were men in the originals, so they have to be men in the new movie". I feel the same way about Ghost in the Shell -- it's an adaptation and a different take from the original, and given the country it's being made in, and the financial reasonableness behind the decision, I think it just makes sense. Scarlett Johannson is a reasonable choice regardless of her race/ethnicity.

What a lulzy excuse. Hollywood should not take any movie project that requires actors of a certain race that aren't White, Black, or Latino.

Asian-American is not the same as Japanese, no personal opinion necessary. The point I was making is that neither explanation nor rationalization are equivalent to legitimate justification. If profit is being made in a way that contributes to the social invisibility of marginalized identities, that sucks; when it is trivialized by treating it as a non-issue, it sucks even more.

Same thing as the last paragraph; you're arguing financial pragmatics while I'm arguing social responsibility.

And you don't see differences in the social dynamics of replacing males with females in an oppressive patriarchal society versus replacing a minority character with a white one?

If you want to see a movie with a Japanese person playing the Major, how about YOU PUT DOWN YOUR MONEY and YOU PRODUCE THE MOVIE. The producer is right in that this can be much more with being international, and they have a wider market to go with the way they are making the movie so far.

It's when a production is expected to skyrocket like cost $100M or more, that's when investors become nervous and want extra reassurances that they'd get their big investments back and won't lose their shirts over this. That's when the production has to use renowned actors in order for the investors to even give them the funding money to begin production with -- no big names, no big funding, movie has to be produced on the cheap (relatively).

Anyways, there's really not much too Japanese in GitS. It helps that it happens in the future where Japan has changed, so it's not the Japan of today. Ministry politics happen in any Parliamentary system, which most Western governments are (not the US-style Presidential system that N. Americans like to believe). Their body appearances are just mere shells - adaptable to different situations. And there's already foreigners in the cast.

Maybe I would feel differently if the Major was originally an Asian-American in the manga or 90's film, but she wasn't. It would be like reasoning that you could cast a White American as James Bond --- I don't think British people would feel keen to that, the same way Japanese people wouldn't feel keen to an Asian American taking the role.

And as I stated before, statistics seem to suggest that Asians make up less than 6% of the US population. Hollywood can't will them to be more visible when the numbers aren't there.

But it's not just financial pragmatics. The social reality is that there aren't many Asian Americans to begin with. And much as you might dislike to hear this, in my experience at least, Japanese people would probably be more interested in seeing a famous white female American take on the role of The Major than for an unknown Asian American. Maybe it's the cultural fallout following WWII, or a long-storied admiration for Western cultural advancement, but during my time in Japan I always felt that people were much more comfortable relating to White Westerners than any other race/ethnicity/nationality (not to mention some unspoken racism that many Japanese people seem to carry). So in that sense, at least from my experience, there's something a bit awkward about trying to rally for Asian Americans (who aren't really Japanese) into an ethnicity that generally would be more comfortable seeing White Westerners take on the role. Honestly, the controversy seems less about how Japanese people actually feel, or how Scarlett Johansson feels about having her talent undermined by factors she can't control, and more about what the Asian American community want to get out of the role, and I'm not sure I agree with that.

I don't view the Ghostbusters movie as trying to fight the social dynamics of replacing males with females in an oppressive patriarchal society. I instead prefer to view the Ghostbusters movie as a potentially entertaining creation that has female leads in it. I kind of wish more people looked at it that way, so that the creativity and skills of the actors can be evaluated fairly, instead of being held to perceptions of social action, because I want to like the movie on its own merits as a piece of entertainment, not for pushing an agenda. Maybe it's because of my extremely mixed blood, but I don't side with any particular race or ethnicity, and so in this situation I feel more inclined to accept a choice that makes practical sense and casts a talented actress in the role, regardless of race.