In 2015, more than 15,000 people signed a petition decrying the choice of Scarlett Johansson – a white woman – to star in the remake of a Japanese anime classic.
Fast forward two years and every few weeks another movie is met with a “cultural appropriation” backlash.
Ghost in the Shell, in which which Johansson plays a killer cyborg questioning her selfhood, is released tomorrow.
It began life as a 1989 Manga comic and first became a film in 1995. It is credited as the first anime classic to capture Western imaginations – along with US dollars.
Rupert Sanders’s live-action remake is undeniably impressive, from the effects (purposefully artificial and operatic) to the action sequences and the acting.
It stays as close to the source material as possible. And Mamoru Oshii, who directed the 1995 film, brushed away the whitewashing controversy by pointing out that Johansson’s character “is a cyborg, and her physical form is an entirely assumed one”. The race of the cyborg’s current “shell”, he said, is of little importance to the story.
It was only after seeing the film, and enjoying it, too, that I had any problems with the casting. And those problems did not relate to the lead role.
As well as being one of the biggest names around, Johansson has a perfect resumé for the part. She has form playing humanoid life discovering itself (Under the Skin, Her) and acrobatic killer women (Avengers, Lucy).
Her character is told that her brain once belonged to a refugee trying to get into Japan, in some ways settling the race of her body or “shell”. But there’s a more sinister aspect of her apparent ethnicity that becomes clear with a twist I won’t spoil here.
Add into the picture Michael Pitt’s creepy-looking Aryan villain, and these white cyborgs have a Frankenstein quality – like real-life anime characters.
If there is any cultural appropriation critique to be levelled at the film, it is to do with the supporting cast.
The setting of New Port City, a futuristic Japanese metropolis, has as many Americans and Europeans, white and black, as Japanese people. This is from street level to the top of counter-terrorism and government science.
One might commend this progressive vision: in the future, every capital will be completely globalised and multicultural. Or it could be a kind of soft whitewashing in action.
Casting Scarlett Johansson over a hypothetically less famous Asian lead is, if not fair in terms of diversity, at least workable. Casting few Asian actors in significant roles in a film set in Japan is ridiculous.
From now on, Hollywood seriously needs to get its house in order. After not only the controversies, but successes such as the Oscar win of Moonlight, it is hopefully becoming apparent to studio execs that viewers’ needs have evolved beyond seeing the biggest white name on the bill.
It isn’t just a few outspoken Twitter voices that are speaking up; it is entire audiences. Rather than being laughed off, these audiences, and these controversies, should be learned from.
