When Scarlett Johansson was cast to play the lead role in the film adaptation of Ghost in the Shell, a staple of the Japanese anime genre, social justice warriors lost their minds on Twitter, claiming producers had “whitewashed” the movie.
But few of the same social justice warriors are speaking out now, when early production photos of the cast show several Asian characters from the comic now played by black actors.
Johansson’s character Kusanagi is a futuristic, crime-fighting cyborg whose race is never specified. In the anime, Kusangi’s builders deliberately design her with a “forgettable” generic look that does’t bear any resemblance to a particular race of nationality. But because the medium is decidedly Japanese, Kusangi naturally carries some Asian features, leading some SJWs to bemoan the casting.
Scarlett Johansson staring in "Ghost in the Shell"?! This isn't MARVEL. Stop with white washing already.
— Aaron Toponce (@AaronToponce) April 14, 2016
Seriously, Ghost in the Shell is an Japanese story about Japanese characters. Making the characters white invalidates the point of making it
— Graham Johnson (@jyrenb) April 14, 2016
They later lauded selecting a Japanese actor to play the head of Kusanagi’s security force section. But casting photos reveal that two main characters, Ishikawa (a human security field operative with some robot features) and Borma (a bomb-maker and explosions specialist), will be played by Lasarus Ratuere and Tawanda Manyimo, respectively, both black male actors.
Both characters are, like Kusanagi, canonically Japanese —at least, vaguely—in the anime series.
Normally, that sort of swap would be fine. After all, Ghost in the Shell exists in an alternate future, where people are enhanced by cyborg parts that give them unique abilities or replace failing limbs and features. Fans of the show might find the casting puzzling, but probably wouldn’t bemoan the creative license given to the film’s directors.
But what about the social justice warriors who were so concerned with the film’s “Japanese character?” Wouldn’t race-swapping some of the cast have a similar disrespectful effect on the film’s source material? The outrage should be palatable—and yet, social justice warriors are completely absent on the issue.
