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[firecat]

"Scarlett Johansson’s Ghost in the Shell casting is even worse than it seems," by Kwame Opam

My take on this article: I agree with its argument that the story of Ghost in the Shell is inherently Japanese and it's racist to whitewash the live action remake.

But I think by the argument that the story is inherently Japanese, there should be no white European remake of the story at all. (The director is British, the writers are white, except that the writer for the original Ghost in the Shell is also credited.) Casting Japanese actors wouldn't solve the problem that white European movie-makers are pretty unlikely to do justice to an inherently Japanese story line.

I'm therefore inclined to assume that this is going to be a movie that doesn't have anything in common with the original anime, except the title and the names of some of the characters.

I would normally be interested in seeing an action movie with Scarlett Johannson in it, if it got good reviews, because there aren't enough action movies with female leads. And I'm undecided whether I should boycott this movie because it's named after a Japanese anime movie. I probably won't decide until I see reviews.

What do you think?

Comments

[tagryn]

I don't have high hopes for it, given Hollywood's tendency to sometimes mangle good stories when translated to the big screen. I'd have the same concerns if I heard a big studio was trying to create a live action version of one of Miyazaki's classics, but that has to do with execution, not whether the story is so closely identified with a particular culture that only people who look a certain way are allowed to embody it. To me, that's coming uncomfortably close to the folks who are uneasy with the idea of Idris Elba being 007, or those who had problems with Thor being a woman, etc.

If we're going to challenge stereotypes and mix things up, then lets embrace it, rather than saying this character or that storyline are culturally off-limits. As the article alludes to, its a little late in the game to bring that argument to the table, given the long history of Hollywood putting their own spin on ideas that first started out in Japanese media - a more recent example is All You Need Is Kill, aka Edge of Tomorrow, which morphed Keiji Kiriya's character into Tom Cruise's Cage character. Its not impossible to translate a story well across cultural boundaries to reach a different audience, just difficult.

[bibliogramma]

These are tge kinds of questions that torment me greatly. With the exceotion of sacred stories which are culturally designated as mysteries or narratives that shpuld be passed on unchanged and without reinterpretation, I'm generally in favour of new visionings - even across cultural lines - of al sorts of stories.

On the other hand, while we live in a racist world stil reeling from military, economic, cultural and religiois colonialism and imperialism, anyone from the colonisers' side had best be damned careful and respectful when interpreting a work from a colonised culture. I don't get the feeling the producers were being careful and respectful in this case.

[firecat]

I don't get the feeling the producers were being careful and respectful in this case.

I haven't read enough about this movie to have an opinion about that, but it's the way to bet.

[firecat]

I don't have high hopes for it, given Hollywood's tendency to sometimes mangle good stories when translated to the big screen.

Ditto.

given the long history of Hollywood putting their own spin on ideas that first started out in Japanese media

And the reverse, although in terms of cultural privilege, that's very much not the same.

[tagryn]

And the reverse, although in terms of cultural privilege, that's very much not the same.

I'm not sure that cultural privilege applies in this case, given that Japan is one of the leading economic, cultural, and increasingly also military/interventionist, powers on the planet, and has been for the past half-century. There was a undeniable power imbalance during the occupation after WWII, but now its more the relation of any strong culture/nation like China or the UK has to the U.S.

[firecat]

That's a fair point. My impression is that Japanese borrowing from US culture started happening during or shortly after the occupation, so that might complicate things to some degree.