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Whitewashing, Sexism, and "PC Culture" vs Hollywood: A Zack Snyder Flim

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  • GONG-00GONG-00 Registered User regular
    What does it say about us that we expect a mostly homogeneous population to stay that way in a sci-fi setting?

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  • Kipling217Kipling217 Registered User regular
    Note on manga: Its almost always in black and white. Meaning that there is nothing in the original drawings of GitS that says the Major is white beyond her not having the visible dark skin of a black person.

    Therefore you can't point to the original skin color because there is no original skin color to point at. The first anime movie isn't the original source material.

    Pale white skin isn't out of character for Japanese people. We tend to forget that pale skin has been a status symbol around the world way before the White man showed up. The Geisha with the white make up face you see in movies? A real thing.

    So when the Major has albino white skin, its a callback to classic Japanese makeup for Geisha and higher class women.

    In real life most white people don't have skin that pale.

    The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
  • Nova_CNova_C I have the need The need for speedRegistered User regular
    It's not like GitS is far flung sci fi like Star Wars or something.

    It's near future cyberpunk in a Japan only slightly removed from modern day Japan.

    Do you think the demographics of Japan are going to greatly change within the next 20 years? Probably safe bet no.

  • DracomicronDracomicron Registered User regular
    My main problem with Jennifer Lawrence in Hunger Games was that they cast one of the very few leading actresses in Hollywood that looks like she had a full lunch without throwing up afterwards to play a character who is practically defined by her waifishness. On top of that, they never sold Katniss as being, you know, hungry... in the book she hoovers up everything that's put in front of her, because she never knows when she's going to eat again, but in the movie she looks disgusted whenever somebody spreads out a meal. This isn't exactly whitewashing, but it is ignoring the intent of a character to serve some sort of outside vision for the role (which remains in the same category, somewhat).

    Regarding Ghost in the Shell, the only way I could get behind ScarJo as the Major is if they also cast a Japanese actress as her ghost and "main" body. You get the cold open, Motoko's main shell is damaged, and she needs to go under-cover to infiltrate an American corp, so they put her into Scarlett Johanssen Mk. 2 ninja-bot body while her normal body is being repaired. When she hacks something in cyberspace, we see her Japanese self. Maybe make some tasteless jokes about Japanese businessmen preferring blondes. She finishes the mission, shifts her cyberbrain back into the Japanese shell, BOOM, done.

    Of course, there's approximately zero chance that the American filmmakers would respect the audience to understand that the ghost is Japanese even if the shell is white, so better that we just call the whole thing off.

  • HounHoun Registered User regular
    GONG-00 wrote: »
    What does it say about us that we expect a mostly homogeneous population to stay that way in a sci-fi setting?

    That the setting in question theorized a potential future state with <reasons> for still being homogeneous?

    I'm not sure what your question has to do with anything. "We" are not assuming anything. There's the setting as presented in previous media, and a long-standing tradition of minorities being underrepresented in Hollywood. Who cares if you can "justify" it by re-writing the setting?

  • a nu starta nu start Registered User regular
    By casting ScarJo in GitS, I'm fairly confident the movie will actually make MORE money in Japan than if they had cast a Japanese actress. Hollywood-style Japanese actors/actresses (for lack of a better term) just aren't that popular here. Hell, in Pacific Rim the girl that played little Mako Mori is more popular in Japan than adult Mako Mori. They just don't have that much interest in people that don't play the "Japanese media game".

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  • DracomicronDracomicron Registered User regular
    a nu start wrote: »
    By casting ScarJo in GitS, I'm fairly confident the movie will actually make MORE money in Japan than if they had cast a Japanese actress. Hollywood-style Japanese actors/actresses (for lack of a better term) just aren't that popular here. Hell, in Pacific Rim the girl that played little Mako Mori is more popular in Japan than adult Mako Mori. They just don't have that much interest in people that don't play the "Japanese media game".

    Maybe you guys have seen this, I don't know. I can't keep up with everything that goes on here.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DhoBuU1Dtc

    But we really aren't talking about what Japanese people in Japan like or dislike. The remake is American, and America has a sizable asian population. I have a half-Japanese friend, and she's like, "Man it would be super nice if this Japanese character was played by a Japanese actress, can I get some representation all up in here?"

    Japanese people in Japan see themselves represented every day in their media. Japanese Americans? Not so much.

  • CharmyCharmy Registered User regular
    I think it's worth talking about the difference between whitewashing and colourblind casting, since the two often get conflated. Just look at the backlash over the idea of Donald Glover playing Spider-Man. A lot of people don't understand why that's okay but casting ScarJo as an asian woman is wrong.

    I think that when you're casting, there's two questions you have to ask:

    1. Does your casting choice take away a role from an under-represented group?
    2. Does your casting choice fundamentally change the character?

    If the answer to #1 is "yes", then don't do it. That's whitewashing and it's wrong. Whitewashing takes work away from minority actors, it prevents minority groups from seeing themselves represented in culture, it reinforces colonialist power structures, etc.

    Answering #2 forces you to consider why certain characters are the race they are. Does Spider-Man have to be white to be Spider-Man? Going to quote Donald Glover on this one:
    It’s fucking 2011 and you don’t think there’s a black kid who lives with his aunt in Queens… who likes science?"

    There's nothing in Spider-Man's story where he has to be white to make it work. In fact, there's nothing in most white character's stories where they have to be white to make it work. Because so much media has historically been produced by white people, most characters are white by default. Black Spider-Man is just as valid of a choice here. Go wild.

    Off the top of my head, the only comic book characters who's whiteness is fundamental to their characters are Captain America and Batman. Cap, because he was meant to be a propaganda tool for the army, and at the time he was created that required him to be white. And Batman, because an old-money billionaire who spends his nights beating the hell out of the poor and mentally ill while the police look the other way is basically "White Privilege, the Superhero". Casting a person of colour in either of these roles fundamentally changes the story - which isn't necessarily a bad thing! Casting can be used as a tool to recontextualize how we see these stories (see: Hamilton), but it's something you have to be aware of during the casting process.

    This post is already way longer than I intended, and has sort of gotten away from me, but basically what I'm trying to get at here is that most white characters aren't white for any particular reason, so changing their race to increase on-screen diversity is totally fine. Whereas doing the opposite - whitewashing roles and decreasing diversity - is an entirely different issue, and a choice that's almost universally wrong.

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  • PaladinPaladin Registered User regular
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    Note on manga: Its almost always in black and white. Meaning that there is nothing in the original drawings of GitS that says the Major is white beyond her not having the visible dark skin of a black person.

    Therefore you can't point to the original skin color because there is no original skin color to point at. The first anime movie isn't the original source material.

    Pale white skin isn't out of character for Japanese people. We tend to forget that pale skin has been a status symbol around the world way before the White man showed up. The Geisha with the white make up face you see in movies? A real thing.

    So when the Major has albino white skin, its a callback to classic Japanese makeup for Geisha and higher class women.

    In real life most white people don't have skin that pale.

    If we go by madame shirow's earliest works she'd be heck of tanned

    Marty: The future, it's where you're going?
    Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
  • The EnderThe Ender Registered User regular
    Even the fucking comic books themselves figured out that black Spider Man was a good look.


    The film industry? Ha ha ha. Wait your turn black people, yeesh.

    (Your turn happens when the Academy finally finishes dying-off)

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  • Kipling217Kipling217 Registered User regular
    Paladin wrote: »
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    Note on manga: Its almost always in black and white. Meaning that there is nothing in the original drawings of GitS that says the Major is white beyond her not having the visible dark skin of a black person.

    Therefore you can't point to the original skin color because there is no original skin color to point at. The first anime movie isn't the original source material.

    Pale white skin isn't out of character for Japanese people. We tend to forget that pale skin has been a status symbol around the world way before the White man showed up. The Geisha with the white make up face you see in movies? A real thing.

    So when the Major has albino white skin, its a callback to classic Japanese makeup for Geisha and higher class women.

    In real life most white people don't have skin that pale.

    If we go by madame shirow's earliest works she'd be heck of tanned

    First of its MISTER Shirow. Guy is a dude. Masamune Shirow

    And if you a referring to Deunan Knute of Appleseed, she is explicitly a multicultural mix of White, Arab and Black. She is also a former LAPD Swat officer from America.

    So she is not Japanese in any way.

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  • JuliusJulius Captain of Serenity on my shipRegistered User regular
    Duffel wrote: »
    I kind of hate to point this out, but I don't see how you can read Katniss as being black based on her appearance as described in the books, much less "explicitly" so.

    It doesn't talk a lot about her appearance but what little it does say is "straight black hair, olive skin, and grey eyes" which is apparently common of people in her area. That doesn't sound like any "race" that exists that I'm familiar with; I figured that since the HG series is set pretty far in the future that genetic drift had occurred to the point that there were new groups of people that don't exist in our present.

    "Olive skin" usually refers to Mediterranean or slightly darker skin (like people from the Middle east), black hair is also closely associated with it. Grey eyes can also be found in the Middle East.

    I don't believe she is obviously meant to be some specific ethnicity, but I also don't think she is some magical race that is like no human on earth.

  • OptimusZedOptimusZed Registered User regular
    Reading the books with my middleschoolers, I always pictured Katniss as Native American, what with the olive complexion and straight black hair.

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  • PaladinPaladin Registered User regular
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    Paladin wrote: »
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    Note on manga: Its almost always in black and white. Meaning that there is nothing in the original drawings of GitS that says the Major is white beyond her not having the visible dark skin of a black person.

    Therefore you can't point to the original skin color because there is no original skin color to point at. The first anime movie isn't the original source material.

    Pale white skin isn't out of character for Japanese people. We tend to forget that pale skin has been a status symbol around the world way before the White man showed up. The Geisha with the white make up face you see in movies? A real thing.

    So when the Major has albino white skin, its a callback to classic Japanese makeup for Geisha and higher class women.

    In real life most white people don't have skin that pale.

    If we go by madame shirow's earliest works she'd be heck of tanned

    First of its MISTER Shirow. Guy is a dude. Masamune Shirow

    And if you a referring to Deunan Knute of Appleseed, she is explicitly a multicultural mix of White, Arab and Black. She is also a former LAPD Swat officer from America.

    So she is not Japanese in any way.

    Obviously my autocorrect has some sort of agenda

    Marty: The future, it's where you're going?
    Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
  • tinwhiskerstinwhiskers Registered User regular
    Want to know why ScarJo was cast? ScarJo prints money. Lucy made $460m and that movie was not good.

    On top of that she is already a known entity in the Chinese market thanks to the MCU, and Chinese-Japanese relations have been oscillating quite a bit the last few years.

    Making sure your lead isn't going to be a liability in the second most important movie market because some party official decided to wave the Nanking flag again is definitely a consideration.

    Budget plus advertising will probably be close to $400m for GiTS, that's a big bet. Doubly so when you consider it is an anime adaptation so it it's going to have a hill to climb in the US market.

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  • The EnderThe Ender Registered User regular
    OptimusZed wrote: »
    Reading the books with my middleschoolers, I always pictured Katniss as Native American, what with the olive complexion and straight black hair.

    This is also fair.


    I think anyone who thinks the ethnicity doesn't matter or isn't commented on is completely missing the allegory; Katniss works in The Seam, a coal mining district, which has a slave labor relationship with The Capitol. There is a lot of classic Imperial Rome in the themes, including the latin names used for different locations, but also an overarching message about colonialism, slavery & assimilation.

    I think the allegory in the works is clumsily handled, but it is nevertheless right there. 'Well the books only mention olive skin' is a really dull talking point.

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  • DuffelDuffel jacobkosh Registered User regular
    Julius wrote: »
    Duffel wrote: »
    I kind of hate to point this out, but I don't see how you can read Katniss as being black based on her appearance as described in the books, much less "explicitly" so.

    It doesn't talk a lot about her appearance but what little it does say is "straight black hair, olive skin, and grey eyes" which is apparently common of people in her area. That doesn't sound like any "race" that exists that I'm familiar with; I figured that since the HG series is set pretty far in the future that genetic drift had occurred to the point that there were new groups of people that don't exist in our present.

    "Olive skin" usually refers to Mediterranean or slightly darker skin (like people from the Middle east), black hair is also closely associated with it. Grey eyes can also be found in the Middle East.

    I don't believe she is obviously meant to be some specific ethnicity, but I also don't think she is some magical race that is like no human on earth.

    That's not what I meant. I just meant that, it seemed to me (especially with all the stuff going on in the capitol) that by the time of the HG series concepts of "race" specific to our own time had broken down and there were observable phenotype categories that don't fit in to modern conceptions of race. There's actually a historical precedent for that sort of thing happening in Appalachia.

  • Local H JayLocal H Jay Registered User regular
    Morkath wrote: »
    Changing a characters race for the sole purpose of checking a box is bad. In either direction. Ideally roles are given to whomever can best portray that part.

    Manga and Anime adaptations are kind of a weird line, that is going to be subjective based on the work in question. Every character is going to look Asian, simply due to the market they are designed for. So when converting them for consumption of a different audience it's pretty important to determine if that characters nationality is actually important to this, or any story being told with them.

    A:TLAB was a good example of doing this wrong, as the story plays heavily into the history and thematic's of different Asian cultures. It is a large part of the story being told. White washing is a horrible thing to do in this movie and very much ruins the experience.

    Dragonball was not really a big deal, because as mentioned, Asian culture has little to actually do with this story (outside of it being based on journey to the west). Goku isn't even Asian, he is literally an alien from another planet. Casting a non-Asian actor in this case is not a big deal and actually kind of works as a concept, to show him as different from those around him.

    GITS, if they wanted white actors in it, they should have stuck with Batou, I think they could have gotten away with it without too much of an issue. From the story it looks like they are going with, I remember nationality being a pretty large part of it. So whitewashing a lot of the characters in this case is pretty bad.

    For properties that are actually more inclusive (than most Manga/Anime in this example), I am personally kind of against ever changing a character for any reason. Speaking as an outsider to the problem, but to me it feels disingenuous and basically saying, "We don't think a character of typeX could ever stand on their own, unless their popularity was first propped up by being known as this white/male character."

    I think we should absolutely have more diversity at all levels, however I would rather see new or existing properties that stand on their own merits be proposed.

    e:
    As for the ancient one / tilda scandal. I still say the best answer was to just go with a, "She has become unfocused from reality", and have her constantly changing gender/race in every scene. She has become everone and everything, due to her constant exposure to the supernatural.

    I don't know, Dragon Ball is based on Journey to the West, a pretty famous Chinese novel. The concept of the Flying Nimbus and the extendable pole were lifted from that, as well as the wish-granting Dragon.

    I am not saying we can't get adaptations with different ethnicites as main characters, it's just it is almost always Asian characters that get changed to white and not often when the opposite happens. The reasoning behind it is to attach a more attractive, well-known lead instead of sticking to the source material. As Marvel movies have shown, sticking closer to the source is usually better for fans and in general for storytelling.

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    Pony wrote: »
    So, about the stuff with the Ancient One in Doctor Strange

    Yao, the Ancient One in the comics, is a racist stereotype. He is. He is an Orientalist nightmare of a character, the "wise old Tibetan master". He was created in the 60's by white men, the character played completely straight is just laughably, badly racist in today's world.

    But on top of that, being Tibetan, he's politically a landmine for Marvel. You can't have a Marvel movie in 2016 with an ancient Tibetan mystic and expect China to just be okay with that. Even if it wasn't a racist as shit character (which it is), if you chose to do it, China would tell your movie to get fucked. China is not okay with movies that acknowledge Tibetans as y'know, people, but especially not ones that acknowledge Tibetan mysticism. It's not just a racial issue, it's a political issue. Marvel can't afford to have Yao be Tibetan, it would make the film banned in China. Plain and simple.

    So, they decided to completely redo the Ancient One as a character who is sort of otherworldly looking, and uncouple the character from their racist origin. There are few actors who pull off "otherworldly" like Tilda Swinton, so she's an amazing choice for the role. Plus, they recast what was previously a male role into one for a woman, creating a role for a woman as a mentor for a superhero, something that doesn't come up a lot in the genre.

    This is where the accusation of whitewashing comes in. Tilda is white (so very, very white), and since Yao is Asian (Tibetan, specifically), why couldn't they have given the role to an Asian actor?

    But this has its own problems. As mentioned, you can't make the Ancient One a Tibetan, because China. A lot of people name-drop Asian actors and actresses, with Michelle Yeoh being a popular choice. Michelle Yeoh is Chinese. If you don't think there's a problem with replacing a Tibetan character's ethnicity with a Chinese actor because making them Chinese is politically easier, then that's fucking racist. It's basically saying "Chinese, Japanese, whatever", with an added dose of being extremely blithe to the cultural genocide going on right now against the Tibetan people by the Chinese government.

    Now Hollywood does have a long history of treating "ethnic" actors as basically interchangeable (Erick Avari has made an entire career out of it!) but for fucks sake mate we shouldn't be encouraging that shit.

    A writer for Doctor Strange called this situation "Marvel's Kobayashi Maru". The only choice they had was how to lose. There was no good way to write this character that wasn't racist and insensitive to somebody.

    I asked three different friends (yeah yeah, I know, "I have black friends") of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean heritage respectively about exactly this problem.

    The response from all three was "hire an Asian writer to create a fictional Asian country and move all of the Ku'n-Lun storylines there."

    every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.

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  • ElJeffeElJeffe Moderator, ClubPA mod
    Nova_C wrote: »
    The Ender wrote: »
    LostNinja wrote: »
    Feral wrote: »
    GONG-00 wrote: »
    It's a problem, but given the themes of Ghost in the Shell, being critical of the appearance of the protagonist in an environment where identity and appearance can be fluid makes it a weaker example of it in my mind especially since we currently lack the full context of the performance. For now, stick to The Last Airbender, Gods of Egypt, The Lone Ranger, or older movies like The Ten Commandments and Lawrence of Arabia for solid examples.

    It's just particularly striking with Ghost in the Shell because they dyed her hair black to do it and initially did some test runs to see if they could use CGI to make her look more Asian. They failed spectacularly.

    When you're casting a white actor to play a non-white part and you're looking for ways to make that actor look like some other ethnicity, that's a really big red flag that you need to stop what you're doing.

    I wasn't really seeing much of a problem in this particular case because 1) cyborg and 2) anime's tendency to draw its characters as white anyway, but the bolded does make it a little indefensible.

    I've seen this argument multiple times for different properties, and IMHO it's just terrible. Manga / anime is so stylized that it doesn't represent any ethnicity at all; it clearly is intended to evoke some ideal form of beauty (and arguably succeeds... I'm half tempted to ask @simonwolf to comment, since he's studied it professionally). Even just in terms of skin tone, properties are all over the place (and rare is the source manga that isn't greyscale or monochrome).

    Regardless, manga /anime is a readily identifiable style with clear origins in Southeast Asia, often featuring protagonists / antagonists that are very explicitly Asian, even if they are visually depicted as the Platonic form of fuckability or whatever.

    Again, look at the box art I linked. Kusanagi does not look like a white person in that artwork. She looks like she's Japanese.

    So even the argument that anime characters often look white doesn't apply.

    She looks like a pair of tits with sunglasses in that picture. There is no "clearly" anything.

    This is completely aside from the casting decisions for that film. You may as well ask what the clear race of 8-) is.

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  • PaladinPaladin Registered User regular
    That's emojian, duh

    Marty: The future, it's where you're going?
    Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
  • CharmyCharmy Registered User regular
    Want to know why ScarJo was cast? ScarJo prints money. Lucy made $460m and that movie was not good.

    On top of that she is already a known entity in the Chinese market thanks to the MCU, and Chinese-Japanese relations have been oscillating quite a bit the last few years.

    Making sure your lead isn't going to be a liability in the second most important movie market because some party official decided to wave the Nanking flag again is definitely a consideration.

    Budget plus advertising will probably be close to $400m for GiTS, that's a big bet. Doubly so when you consider it is an anime adaptation so it it's going to have a hill to climb in the US market.

    This is true, but not relevant to the conversation. Just because a choice is economically sound doesn't make it morally right.

    And really, we don't have enough data to know if these choices are economically sound. We don't know if an Asian American woman could have the same box office draw as ScarJo because Asian American women aren't given the same career opportunities as ScarJo. It's circular logic; we only cast white people in blockbusters because only blockbusters headlined by white people have been successful because we only cast white people in blockbusters.

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  • MorkathMorkath Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Morkath wrote: »
    Changing a characters race for the sole purpose of checking a box is bad. In either direction. Ideally roles are given to whomever can best portray that part.

    Manga and Anime adaptations are kind of a weird line, that is going to be subjective based on the work in question. Every character is going to look Asian, simply due to the market they are designed for. So when converting them for consumption of a different audience it's pretty important to determine if that characters nationality is actually important to this, or any story being told with them.

    A:TLAB was a good example of doing this wrong, as the story plays heavily into the history and thematic's of different Asian cultures. It is a large part of the story being told. White washing is a horrible thing to do in this movie and very much ruins the experience.

    Dragonball was not really a big deal, because as mentioned, Asian culture has little to actually do with this story (outside of it being based on journey to the west). Goku isn't even Asian, he is literally an alien from another planet. Casting a non-Asian actor in this case is not a big deal and actually kind of works as a concept, to show him as different from those around him.

    GITS, if they wanted white actors in it, they should have stuck with Batou, I think they could have gotten away with it without too much of an issue. From the story it looks like they are going with, I remember nationality being a pretty large part of it. So whitewashing a lot of the characters in this case is pretty bad.

    For properties that are actually more inclusive (than most Manga/Anime in this example), I am personally kind of against ever changing a character for any reason. Speaking as an outsider to the problem, but to me it feels disingenuous and basically saying, "We don't think a character of typeX could ever stand on their own, unless their popularity was first propped up by being known as this white/male character."

    I think we should absolutely have more diversity at all levels, however I would rather see new or existing properties that stand on their own merits be proposed.

    e:
    As for the ancient one / tilda scandal. I still say the best answer was to just go with a, "She has become unfocused from reality", and have her constantly changing gender/race in every scene. She has become everone and everything, due to her constant exposure to the supernatural.

    I don't know, Dragon Ball is based on Journey to the West, a pretty famous Chinese novel. The concept of the Flying Nimbus and the extendable pole were lifted from that, as well as the wish-granting Dragon.

    I am not saying we can't get adaptations with different ethnicites as main characters, it's just it is almost always Asian characters that get changed to white and not often when the opposite happens. The reasoning behind it is to attach a more attractive, well-known lead instead of sticking to the source material. As Marvel movies have shown, sticking closer to the source is usually better for fans and in general for storytelling.

    I absolutely agree, that in a straight adaptation of JttW, it should be predominantly Asian cast, however Sun Wukong was never Chinese, he was a stone monkey statue brought to life. So this is a role they really can cast with any actor, and it isn't really hurting anything.

    Also, if I remember correctly the DB movie actually had a pretty full asian cast for most of the other parts.

  • PonyPony Registered User regular
    edited April 2016
    Feral wrote: »
    Pony wrote: »
    So, about the stuff with the Ancient One in Doctor Strange

    Yao, the Ancient One in the comics, is a racist stereotype. He is. He is an Orientalist nightmare of a character, the "wise old Tibetan master". He was created in the 60's by white men, the character played completely straight is just laughably, badly racist in today's world.

    But on top of that, being Tibetan, he's politically a landmine for Marvel. You can't have a Marvel movie in 2016 with an ancient Tibetan mystic and expect China to just be okay with that. Even if it wasn't a racist as shit character (which it is), if you chose to do it, China would tell your movie to get fucked. China is not okay with movies that acknowledge Tibetans as y'know, people, but especially not ones that acknowledge Tibetan mysticism. It's not just a racial issue, it's a political issue. Marvel can't afford to have Yao be Tibetan, it would make the film banned in China. Plain and simple.

    So, they decided to completely redo the Ancient One as a character who is sort of otherworldly looking, and uncouple the character from their racist origin. There are few actors who pull off "otherworldly" like Tilda Swinton, so she's an amazing choice for the role. Plus, they recast what was previously a male role into one for a woman, creating a role for a woman as a mentor for a superhero, something that doesn't come up a lot in the genre.

    This is where the accusation of whitewashing comes in. Tilda is white (so very, very white), and since Yao is Asian (Tibetan, specifically), why couldn't they have given the role to an Asian actor?

    But this has its own problems. As mentioned, you can't make the Ancient One a Tibetan, because China. A lot of people name-drop Asian actors and actresses, with Michelle Yeoh being a popular choice. Michelle Yeoh is Chinese. If you don't think there's a problem with replacing a Tibetan character's ethnicity with a Chinese actor because making them Chinese is politically easier, then that's fucking racist. It's basically saying "Chinese, Japanese, whatever", with an added dose of being extremely blithe to the cultural genocide going on right now against the Tibetan people by the Chinese government.

    Now Hollywood does have a long history of treating "ethnic" actors as basically interchangeable (Erick Avari has made an entire career out of it!) but for fucks sake mate we shouldn't be encouraging that shit.

    A writer for Doctor Strange called this situation "Marvel's Kobayashi Maru". The only choice they had was how to lose. There was no good way to write this character that wasn't racist and insensitive to somebody.

    I asked three different friends (yeah yeah, I know, "I have black friends") of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean heritage respectively about exactly this problem.

    The response from all three was "hire an Asian writer to create a fictional Asian country and move all of the Ku'n-Lun storylines there."

    Point of order, Doctor Strange has nothing to do with Ku'n-Lun.

    That's Iron Fist. And Ku'n-Lun already is a made up fantasy country place sorta, it's a Shangri-La kind of deal in the comics where it's like kind of "beyond" normal geography.

    And I'm pretty sure that's what they're doing with it in the MCU? When Madame Gao in Daredevil (who is implied to be related to Iron Fist's stuff in some way) talks about returning to her homeland, she is asked if she is referring to China. She instead says it is " considerably farther".

    Doctor Strange's shenanigans in the comics is explicitly Tibetan, the Ancient One is a Tibetan dude (from a fictional Tibetan city because, y'know, written by white guys in the 60s). You could also tie Doctor Strange in with the K'un-Lun stuff from Iron Fist, but since Marvel Films thinks so little of the Netflix series they cast a woman in Civil War who was already cast in Luke Cage as completely different characters, I doubt that kind of thing is gonna fly.

    Pony on
  • a nu starta nu start Registered User regular
    a nu start wrote: »
    By casting ScarJo in GitS, I'm fairly confident the movie will actually make MORE money in Japan than if they had cast a Japanese actress. Hollywood-style Japanese actors/actresses (for lack of a better term) just aren't that popular here. Hell, in Pacific Rim the girl that played little Mako Mori is more popular in Japan than adult Mako Mori. They just don't have that much interest in people that don't play the "Japanese media game".

    Maybe you guys have seen this, I don't know. I can't keep up with everything that goes on here.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DhoBuU1Dtc

    But we really aren't talking about what Japanese people in Japan like or dislike. The remake is American, and America has a sizable asian population. I have a half-Japanese friend, and she's like, "Man it would be super nice if this Japanese character was played by a Japanese actress, can I get some representation all up in here?"

    Japanese people in Japan see themselves represented every day in their media. Japanese Americans? Not so much.

    Nothing made in Hollywood is just "American", or else we wouldn't really be having a conversation about them changing the Ancient One because of possible Tibet/China cultural concerns.

    If GitS is such a uniquely Japanese story, featuring Japanese concepts and themes wrought from decades/centuries of Japanese history, then I don't see how the opinion of Japan doesn't matter.

    Number One Tricky
  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    That was the other way around, wasn't it? (Netflix cast a woman who was already cast in Civil War because they liked her performance)

  • tinwhiskerstinwhiskers Registered User regular
    Charmy wrote: »
    Want to know why ScarJo was cast? ScarJo prints money. Lucy made $460m and that movie was not good.

    On top of that she is already a known entity in the Chinese market thanks to the MCU, and Chinese-Japanese relations have been oscillating quite a bit the last few years.

    Making sure your lead isn't going to be a liability in the second most important movie market because some party official decided to wave the Nanking flag again is definitely a consideration.

    Budget plus advertising will probably be close to $400m for GiTS, that's a big bet. Doubly so when you consider it is an anime adaptation so it it's going to have a hill to climb in the US market.

    This is true, but not relevant to the conversation. Just because a choice is economically sound doesn't make it morally right.

    And really, we don't have enough data to know if these choices are economically sound. We don't know if an Asian American woman could have the same box office draw as ScarJo because Asian American women aren't given the same career opportunities as ScarJo. It's circular logic; we only cast white people in blockbusters because only blockbusters headlined by white people have been successful because we only cast white people in blockbusters.

    You are just arguing from ignorance there..

    We don't know so we should do X is not a good argument.

    These discussions always remind me a lot of the classic Limousine Liberal issues. It's easy to argue someone else should take on some negative effect. But it's not your career if the movie bombs, or your money lost.

    6ylyzxlir2dz.png
  • syndalissyndalis Getting Classy On the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Products regular
    Genuinely curious where remakes like "The Ring" and "The Departed" fit into this.

    SW-4158-3990-6116
    Let's play Mario Kart or something...
  • simonwolfsimonwolf i can feel a difference today, a differenceRegistered User regular
    Oh hey, I was tagged and @ wasn't stripped by later quotes, no wonder I have eight notifications.

    I'll write up something later today bringing my specific academic knowledges to this issue, but to briefly address and concur with several of the other posters in here: Motoko Kusanagi, across the depictions in media she has been represented through, is undeniably Japanese, and to suggest otherwise is to ignore both the narrative context and the specific illustrative/animetic language through which she has been realised.

    An argument I have seen before is that, as fictional cyborg, Kusanagi could be any race she wishes to be - this is true, inasmuch as fictional characters are only ruled by the systems of narrative/logic we, as producers/consumers/produsers, apply to their fantasy. But this argument runs uncomfortably close - in my experience, admittedly - to serving solely as a justification for why a white woman should be able to play a role that, as we have established, could be played by a woman of any race. Motoko Kusanagi, as illustrated/animated, is not subject to the body discipline/politic we, as real humans, are subject to; when converting her depiction to "real life" media forms, we cannot simply ignore the body discipline/politic that such a conversion necessitates addressing.

  • GatorGator An alligator in Scotland Registered User regular
    I look forward to being cast in a Hollywood movie


    605b04c99701a3eff3584a5cdef21011.jpg

  • DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    syndalis wrote: »
    Genuinely curious where remakes like "The Ring" and "The Departed" fit into this.

    They're not really comparable? American adaptations of foreign live-action films don't eliminate the existence of the original, which existed first.

  • jmcdonaldjmcdonald I voted, did you? DC(ish)Registered User regular
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Nova_C wrote: »
    The Ender wrote: »
    LostNinja wrote: »
    Feral wrote: »
    GONG-00 wrote: »
    It's a problem, but given the themes of Ghost in the Shell, being critical of the appearance of the protagonist in an environment where identity and appearance can be fluid makes it a weaker example of it in my mind especially since we currently lack the full context of the performance. For now, stick to The Last Airbender, Gods of Egypt, The Lone Ranger, or older movies like The Ten Commandments and Lawrence of Arabia for solid examples.

    It's just particularly striking with Ghost in the Shell because they dyed her hair black to do it and initially did some test runs to see if they could use CGI to make her look more Asian. They failed spectacularly.

    When you're casting a white actor to play a non-white part and you're looking for ways to make that actor look like some other ethnicity, that's a really big red flag that you need to stop what you're doing.

    I wasn't really seeing much of a problem in this particular case because 1) cyborg and 2) anime's tendency to draw its characters as white anyway, but the bolded does make it a little indefensible.

    I've seen this argument multiple times for different properties, and IMHO it's just terrible. Manga / anime is so stylized that it doesn't represent any ethnicity at all; it clearly is intended to evoke some ideal form of beauty (and arguably succeeds... I'm half tempted to ask @simonwolf to comment, since he's studied it professionally). Even just in terms of skin tone, properties are all over the place (and rare is the source manga that isn't greyscale or monochrome).

    Regardless, manga /anime is a readily identifiable style with clear origins in Southeast Asia, often featuring protagonists / antagonists that are very explicitly Asian, even if they are visually depicted as the Platonic form of fuckability or whatever.

    Again, look at the box art I linked. Kusanagi does not look like a white person in that artwork. She looks like she's Japanese.

    So even the argument that anime characters often look white doesn't apply.

    She looks like a pair of tits with sunglasses in that picture. There is no "clearly" anything.

    This is completely aside from the casting decisions for that film. You may as well ask what the clear race of 8-) is.

    clearly "simpsons".

  • darkmayodarkmayo Registered User regular
    edited April 2016
    syndalis wrote: »
    Genuinely curious where remakes like "The Ring" and "The Departed" fit into this.

    Departed (remake of Infernal Affairs) was set in Boston and dealt with the Boston mob because that is something Americans can related to instead of Hong Kong and the Triad. So not really a whitewash?

    The Ring was also a remake that was set in the US and not Japan so that isnt really whitewashing either (at least I don't think so)

    Ju-On/The Grudge changed the Japanese social worker to an american and cast Sarah Michelle Gellar, the film still took place in Japan, with a good chunk of actors from the original film. Whitewash?? I suppose a little but unless you were into the Asian horror movie scene when these came out you would have never heard about The Ring or Ju-On or Dark Water, Kairo... making them risky projects to adapt with no star power.

    darkmayo on
    Switch SW-6182-1526-0041
  • FeralFeral MEMETICHARIZARD interior crocodile alligator ⇔ ǝɹʇɐǝɥʇ ǝᴉʌoɯ ʇǝloɹʌǝɥɔ ɐ ǝʌᴉɹp ᴉRegistered User regular
    edited April 2016
    Pony wrote: »
    Point of order, Doctor Strange has nothing to do with Ku'n-Lun.

    That's Iron Fist. And Ku'n-Lun already is a made up fantasy country place sorta, it's a Shangri-La kind of deal in the comics where it's like kind of "beyond" normal geography.

    And I'm pretty sure that's what they're doing with it in the MCU? When Madame Gao in Daredevil (who is implied to be related to Iron Fist's stuff in some way) talks about returning to her homeland, she is asked if she is referring to China. She instead says it is " considerably farther".

    Doctor Strange's shenanigans in the comics is explicitly Tibetan, the Ancient One is a Tibetan dude (from a fictional Tibetan city because, y'know, written by white guys in the 60s). You could also tie Doctor Strange in with the K'un-Lun stuff from Iron Fist, but since Marvel Films thinks so little of the Netflix series they cast a woman in Civil War who was already cast in Luke Cage as completely different characters, I doubt that kind of thing is gonna fly.

    The bolded is the idea. I was unclear in my post. K'un-Lun is named after a Tibetan mountain range, so if they're pussy-footing around the Tibet problem, they need to move the K'un-Lun stuff too. The suggestion is to create one fictional place to house both backstories.

    Feral on
    every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.

    the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
  • AntoshkaAntoshka Miauen Oil Change LazarusRegistered User regular
    DarkPrimus wrote: »
    syndalis wrote: »
    Genuinely curious where remakes like "The Ring" and "The Departed" fit into this.

    They're not really comparable? American adaptations of foreign live-action films don't eliminate the existence of the original, which existed first.

    What about something like 'Death at a Funeral'?

    n57PM0C.jpg
  • GaddezGaddez Registered User regular
    I think the most infuriating thing about these arguments regarding Ghost in the shellès casting of SJ as the lead is that it patently ignores core themes of the series and that specific character; that being the question of who we are if litterally every part of our body can be replaced with mass produced mechanisms that can pass for natural flesh and blood. Further, Kusanagi as a character was converted into a cyborg at an extroardinarily young age, to the point where shès not even sure she was ever human.

    By casting a white actress to play the part of a japanese cyborg, the company may have stumbled ass backwards into a rather poignant truth bout the series.

  • DaypigeonDaypigeon Registered User regular
    a nu start wrote: »
    a nu start wrote: »
    By casting ScarJo in GitS, I'm fairly confident the movie will actually make MORE money in Japan than if they had cast a Japanese actress. Hollywood-style Japanese actors/actresses (for lack of a better term) just aren't that popular here. Hell, in Pacific Rim the girl that played little Mako Mori is more popular in Japan than adult Mako Mori. They just don't have that much interest in people that don't play the "Japanese media game".

    Maybe you guys have seen this, I don't know. I can't keep up with everything that goes on here.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DhoBuU1Dtc

    But we really aren't talking about what Japanese people in Japan like or dislike. The remake is American, and America has a sizable asian population. I have a half-Japanese friend, and she's like, "Man it would be super nice if this Japanese character was played by a Japanese actress, can I get some representation all up in here?"

    Japanese people in Japan see themselves represented every day in their media. Japanese Americans? Not so much.

    Nothing made in Hollywood is just "American", or else we wouldn't really be having a conversation about them changing the Ancient One because of possible Tibet/China cultural concerns.

    If GitS is such a uniquely Japanese story, featuring Japanese concepts and themes wrought from decades/centuries of Japanese history, then I don't see how the opinion of Japan doesn't matter.

    US films are aimed increasingly at international audiences, for sure, but they're still products of this nation's film industry

    and it's that industry in particular that we're looking at, and its long history of whitewashing. In that context, this shit has gotten tiring, and this is a particularly blatant example of it. So, Asians in the US are gonna complain about it, because in this context we are an under-represented minority.

    The opinion of a bunch of random people off the street is interesting, I suppose, but they're not gonna have the same kind of vested interest because that's not a type of discrimination they're ever gonna run into, unless they move elsewhere.

  • CharmyCharmy Registered User regular
    Charmy wrote: »
    Want to know why ScarJo was cast? ScarJo prints money. Lucy made $460m and that movie was not good.

    On top of that she is already a known entity in the Chinese market thanks to the MCU, and Chinese-Japanese relations have been oscillating quite a bit the last few years.

    Making sure your lead isn't going to be a liability in the second most important movie market because some party official decided to wave the Nanking flag again is definitely a consideration.

    Budget plus advertising will probably be close to $400m for GiTS, that's a big bet. Doubly so when you consider it is an anime adaptation so it it's going to have a hill to climb in the US market.

    This is true, but not relevant to the conversation. Just because a choice is economically sound doesn't make it morally right.

    And really, we don't have enough data to know if these choices are economically sound. We don't know if an Asian American woman could have the same box office draw as ScarJo because Asian American women aren't given the same career opportunities as ScarJo. It's circular logic; we only cast white people in blockbusters because only blockbusters headlined by white people have been successful because we only cast white people in blockbusters.

    You are just arguing from ignorance there..

    We don't know so we should do X is not a good argument.

    These discussions always remind me a lot of the classic Limousine Liberal issues. It's easy to argue someone else should take on some negative effect. But it's not your career if the movie bombs, or your money lost.

    Dude, I work in the film and television industry. I think about these issues a lot.

    As a white guy, the state of the industry I work in benefits me! Let's look at the numbers. Only 20% of editors are women. Only 11% of writers are women. Even less for directors. When I go out for jobs, that's 51% of the population I functionally don't have to compete against. And that's not even getting into how bad it is for minorities in film and television. It's easier for me to get work because the industry I work in is sexist and racist.

    So it is my career affected by these issues, and it is my money put on the line by expanding opportunities for women and people of colour. And I'm telling you, right now, that I'd take that chance. Because the current system is fundamentally unfair and wrong.

    But you're also assuming that casting more women and people of colour in films is going to have a negative effect, which is just as much an argument from ignorance. You say that "we don't know so we should do X is not a good argument", but trying things that other people haven't is actually a great idea! In just a few years we've gone from Hollywood insisting that women can't headline blockbusters, to having a growing number of films with female leads (The Hunger Games, Star Wars, the Ghostbusters reboot, etc.) because people started trying it and it worked. Because women watch movies, and they want to see themselves represented in movies.

    Asking for increased diversity and representation isn't asking people to lose money, because trying new things and serving underserved markets is actually a great way to make money. Expanding opportunities helps everyone.

    I have a twitter.
  • PonyPony Registered User regular
    edited April 2016
    Feral wrote: »
    Pony wrote: »
    Point of order, Doctor Strange has nothing to do with Ku'n-Lun.

    That's Iron Fist. And Ku'n-Lun already is a made up fantasy country place sorta, it's a Shangri-La kind of deal in the comics where it's like kind of "beyond" normal geography.

    And I'm pretty sure that's what they're doing with it in the MCU? When Madame Gao in Daredevil (who is implied to be related to Iron Fist's stuff in some way) talks about returning to her homeland, she is asked if she is referring to China. She instead says it is " considerably farther".

    Doctor Strange's shenanigans in the comics is explicitly Tibetan, the Ancient One is a Tibetan dude (from a fictional Tibetan city because, y'know, written by white guys in the 60s). You could also tie Doctor Strange in with the K'un-Lun stuff from Iron Fist, but since Marvel Films thinks so little of the Netflix series they cast a woman in Civil War who was already cast in Luke Cage as completely different characters, I doubt that kind of thing is gonna fly.

    The bolded is the idea. I was unclear in my post. K'un-Lun is named after a Tibetan mountain range, so if they're pussy-footing around the Tibet problem, they need to move the K'un-Lun stuff too. The suggestion is to create one fictional place to house both backstories.

    I don't know if Marvel is going to pussy-foot around K'un-Lun for Iron Fist because Iron Fist is Netflix, and ain't no Netflix in China.

    Whereas the Chinese box office matters a great deal to the films like Doctor Strange.

    So connecting Doctor Strange to Ku'n-Lun basically creates more problems than it solves? Because, once again, now you have a Tibet connection (which, to be frank, didn't even exist in the comics)

    This is what C. Robert Cargill, writer for Doctor Strange, was talking about when he said he's frustrated with how everyone thinks they have a simple solution. There isn't one.

    There are ways to solve Marvel's Asian superhero problems. Trying to work with their Asian stereotype characters isn't how you do it. You don't do it with Iron Fist or the Ancient One or Shang-Chi or Jimmy Woo or Amadeus Cho.

    The right way would be to take a previously "white by default" character who has nothing to do with stereotypically Asian traits, and cast an Asian actor.

    So, y'know, not a kung fu master or a guy who has math superpowers or is a "mystic oriental"

    Pony on
  • Local H JayLocal H Jay Registered User regular
    Regarding remakes, something is to be said for execution. If the American version is a good film and a faithful adaptation that understands the property, then I think it's fine. But considering a remake like the American version of Old Boy, it doesn't capture or express the themes of the original. By sticking in a white dude and making allusions to the better film, you only draw negative comparison. It's usually not a race issue if they recast to expand the audience, but it becomes one when they cash in with an Americanize version for the money and not to do a faithful adaptation of an Asian work.


    Regarding the "Scarjo got the job because she puts ass in seats" is a self-fufilling prophesy. Nobody casts Asian leads->there's no evidence Asians leads will sell a big budget film->we HAVE to get a white person is bad logic. Just because Hollywood is scared to get outside it's comfort zone of racism and sexism, doesn't mean a film with a minority actor will perform worse. Whenever a Jackie Chan movie is made in America, they pair him with a random popular American actor to soften the blow of an Asian starring in a Western film. Meanwhile his better, self-made films in are about him and his character, he doesn't play foil to somebody who will mock his accent.

    And lastly, regarding wether or not Motoko looks Japanese, well... This first image is from a Japanese play they put on for the 25th anniversary of GitS:
    sli5pl.jpg
    ofq4hj.jpg

    Also, about Japanese people not caring about a white actor. I wouldn't put too much stock into that, Japanese culture is very racist in many other respects. They are very homophobic too, we really shouldn't use their take as a barometer for political correctness.

This discussion has been closed.