The hugely popular manga and anime Fullmetal Alchemist is being made into a live-action movie in Japan. The film’s creators have been lauded by writers at Fusion, The Daily Dot and Indiewire for their decision to include an all-Japanese cast. In a Japanese movie. In Japanese…
These writers tried to tie the casting decision into the broader debate about whitewashing, which is when a white character plays a role meant for a minority. The latest whitewashing controversies pertain to Scarlett Johansson playing a woman intended to be Japanese in the anime adaptation of Ghost in the Shell and Tilda Swinton playing a Tibetan monk in Doctor Strange. (In the case of Doctor Strange, Marvel chose not to cast a Tibetan actor because China is such a big piece of the box office, and it didn’t want to piss off Chinese censors.)
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But Fullmetal Alchemist doesn’t fall into this mold even if it did star all white people. The anime was set in a fantasy universe based on early 20th-century Germany. It even serves as an allegory to World War I and II. The main character has blonde hair and blue eyes.
I’m not saying anyone should be reverse-outraged that they cast Japanese people in white roles either. Who cares—it’s a Japanese movie. But journalists getting paid to write about these buzzwords shouldn’t toss them around in situations where they don’t make sense
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