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Ghost in the Shell: US Production White-Washes Kusanagi Character
The thing is, the "Big Star" argument doesn't work. Not unless the studios wanted the new Wonder Woman film to fail?
V.W. wrote: "The thing is, the "Big Star" argument doesn't work. Not unless the studios wanted the new Wonder Woman film to fail?"
I believe that you have a good point there. Gal Gadot was little known as an actress (but much better known as an Israeli top model) but she had the looks of a Mediterranean woman that was needed to portrait a character who is supposed to be an ancient Amazon, and the public reactions to her appearance in Batman v Superman showed that her casting was a good call. The recently released film trailer for WONDER WOMAN again showed her to be the right actress for the job. Casting a Caucasian actress, even a big star like Scarlet Johansson, would have been a mistake. Before someone nitpicks me on my history knowledge: yes, I know that Amazons were not Greek. In fact, they were Sarmatian nomads from the Caucasus area whose women rode horses and fought enemies alongside their men. Sarmatians were of Indo-European blood, by the way, and looked much like modern Iranians. Those women warriors were a historical reality, to the point that Greek writers were impressed enough by them to portrait them as mortal enemies of Greek heroes.
I believe that you have a good point there. Gal Gadot was little known as an actress (but much better known as an Israeli top model) but she had the looks of a Mediterranean woman that was needed to portrait a character who is supposed to be an ancient Amazon, and the public reactions to her appearance in Batman v Superman showed that her casting was a good call. The recently released film trailer for WONDER WOMAN again showed her to be the right actress for the job. Casting a Caucasian actress, even a big star like Scarlet Johansson, would have been a mistake. Before someone nitpicks me on my history knowledge: yes, I know that Amazons were not Greek. In fact, they were Sarmatian nomads from the Caucasus area whose women rode horses and fought enemies alongside their men. Sarmatians were of Indo-European blood, by the way, and looked much like modern Iranians. Those women warriors were a historical reality, to the point that Greek writers were impressed enough by them to portrait them as mortal enemies of Greek heroes.
Tom wrote: "I think we should be celebrating the fact that a woman has the star power alone to open a major motion picture in the science fiction genre.Once they decided to re-make Ghost in the Shell, and ma..."
See, I think this is sexist. There have been plenty of EXCELLENT films starring women. Where have you been?
I also agree with Michel and I think a lot of fans of GITS have this hangup for the same reason.
Kenneth wrote: "See, I think this is sexist. There have been plenty of EXCELLENT films starring women. Where have you been?..."Percentage wise, how many star men and how many star women? It's not sexist to look at the numbers and see an imbalance.
Sarah Anne wrote: "Kenneth wrote: "See, I think this is sexist. There have been plenty of EXCELLENT films starring women. Where have you been?..."Percentage wise, how many star men and how many star women? It's not..."
Oh absolutely there's an imbalance. I take issue with the other person suggesting that this is some kind of first.
Sarah Anne wrote: "Kenneth wrote: "See, I think this is sexist. There have been plenty of EXCELLENT films starring women. Where have you been?..."Percentage wise, how many star men and how many star women? It's not..."
I think those are separate discussions.
Studios do this all the time, as we've seen whenever there's an email leak. (Or leaked memos back in the old days.) "Black actors can't open movies overseas" and "films starring women don't perform as well as men's movies." Then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because they don't give anyone who isn't a white man a chance. Or when they do, they refuse to spend the same amount of money on budget or marketing, which hamstrings performance.
Now we have this other issue of diversity and whitewashing compounding everything.
The blame for the failure of the Ghostbusters reboot is going to be placed squarely on the fact that it stars women and the misogynistic reaction of a small fraction of the audience rather than the fact that it just wasn't a very good movie hampered by a disastrous initial trailer. Green Lantern had the exact same issues but no one thought it was because it starred a white guy and the fans hated the trailer.
None of this is new. It's just going to take a couple movies in a row starring different people before they get the message. Which is why it's critical that Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel do well.
I fervently hope that WONDER WOMAN will prove a success as a movie and will make a few moguls in Hollywood rethink their approach to casting.
Sounds like The Last Samurai.When demographics are important to a role (James Bond is a British man, Othello's black etc) they shouldn't be changed. When they're incidental, it doesn't bother me.
Mod
I submit there is a difference between appropriation and reimagining a thing. Unfortunately, that difference has a lot to do with power politics, which means basically white people gotta graciously hand over the mic and try to understand that it's ok to share our stories with other people, even if we can't do the same with non-white stories yet.
From what I can tell, a lot of casting is based on what we might call a "perceived wisdom" on the part of producers and financiers. That is, a very small number of people--sometimes with no actual knowledge or experience on the subject--make decisions based upon their assumptions of who and what the audience wants to see. In some cases, that's certainly got some basis in reality. Star power is a thing. People will go out and see a film or watch a TV show based upon the lead(s) of that product. However, I don't think it's quite the determinant that a lot of people assume. There are more failures than successes in the entertainment industry, and I'm sure we can all name flops that starred A-listers. For each of those flops there are maybe three or five financial failures, and for every other financial failure there's maybe one financial success. The much vaunted "star power" is just one factor. It's likely the factor that gets the most attention simply because that's the nature of the thing in the first place.Sometimes military planners will do a kind of simple math equation. Force = morale x technology x geography x weather x training x experience, etc. The success or failure of something like a film could be assessed the same way, with the lead being just one of many factors along with probably two or three "unknown" factors. Box Office = effects x supporting cast x advertising x writing x production values, etc.
Star power would undoubtedly be one of those multipliers, but traditionally it's been associated far too closely with the results than I think is objectively reasonable. In that context, the racial/ethnic background of the "star" issue gets a bit more perspective.
Trailers are out. It looks like they made it look as Japanese as possible. Except for Scarlett Johansson, that is.https://youtu.be/HapT0SKcyfY?list=PLV...
Trike wrote: Then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because they don't give anyone who isn't a white man a chance.
Thaddeus wrote:
Sounds like The Last Samurai
Exactly. And yes, there is a difference between appropriation and re-imagining. Hamilton works because it's clearly the latter. The Last Samurai suffers because it is the former, and only survives critical scrutiny on the efforts of the other cast members' brilliant performances.
So the jury is in, and we apparently have yet another bomb due, at least to some degree, to the whitewashing issue. Coming on the heels of the Matt Damon bomb The Great Wall, maybe studios will start getting the hint.http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat...
I just went to see 'Ghost in the shell' yesterday and loved it. It was visually and technically brilliant and the world depicted in it is very imaginative. Scarlett Johansson's play was in character and the critiques who said that her play was wooden were out to lunch (she was playing a robot, for God's sake! What did you expect? a clown act?). As for the purists who poo-pooed the film because it did not follow the lines of the Manga, I say that they should stick with the manga. The movie was meant to entertain the public and it did, very well indeed! As for the 'whitewashing', the city depicted in the film is a crowded, dystopian, multi-ethnic one, a bit like what Hong Kong could look like in a century or so. This movie is no bomb, irrespective of what 'critics' and those who haven't seen it and base their opinion of it on viewing the trailers may say. Go see it yourself and then make your opinion.
It's 2017! Surely we've moved beyond the need for actors to play only their own race and gender.
Mod
Less. Well. Less, until it's not always white people playing roles initially filled by people of color. When it no longer raises an eyebrow to have a black Odin, then we can reconsider.
I've heard Ghost In The Shell was very pretty and fun, and that it had none of the subtext/depth of the original, which is a shame as that was important and beautiful, too. It'd be like turning Casablanca into a romcom that takes place in his bar but it's not during WW2 and no nazis are stopping people from moving around.
It's really quite simple. I want to be able to watch a movie and see people who look like the world I see around me, and doubly so when there is cultural significance to a group for this movie or role. Luke Cage as played by a white man would have been an entirely different story. Of the billion plus people out there who look like Motoko, surely SURELY one of them was qualified as an actor to have taken the role. Where are they?
Allison wrote: "When it no longer raises an eyebrow to have a black Odin, then we can reconsider."I suspect there will always be raised eyebrows, whether it's black Annie or female Ghostbusters or Kusunagi played by the whitest woman in America.
It's all about star power. If people were really concerned with authenticity they would demand it filmed in Japanese with subtitles.
Mod
It seems though that star power wasn't enough, as the movie is tanking in theatres, beat out by Boss Baby. Ouch.
They pulled the plug on future Ghostbusters though, as you mention, and that was an enjoyable movie, too. The character roles were not critically male, unlike this role which is more importantly Japanese, it just had a cult following as well. So who knows what lesson they're really learning about making movies. Likely that women shouldn't lead, like Marvel just suggested.
Sigh.
I think it shows that if you're going to appeal to the lowest common denominator, as studios must if they want to maximise their ROI, then you have to go all out - dumb it down, spend huge money and get the biggest stars (and many of those are non-white, even if they're not East Asian). Enough nerds will still go and watch mainstream action/scifi movies with Johansson, Cruise and the Rock, as will your mass of teens and young adults wanting to stay abreast of the latest addition to popular culture.For cerebral stories like Ghost in the Shell was meant to be you will always have the forms enjoyed by the more nerdy among us. They just aren't worth investing too much capital in, but should we care? I stopped being offended long ago that I'm no longer in the target market for the prettiest movies. If they don't need my money that's fine with me, but I'm also not going to spend the money to support a social engineering experiment. I thought the new Ghostbusters was a cool idea but I wasn't interested in watching it. We vote with our wallets far more often than we vote in the polls.
Ryan wrote: "Allison wrote: "When it no longer raises an eyebrow to have a black Odin, then we can reconsider."I suspect there will always be raised eyebrows, whether it's black Annie or female Ghostbusters o..."
It's not all about star power - it's done on the self-fulfilling* belief that a Black/Asian/Other Minority/Female cannot bring in the ticket sales that a White Male/Well Known Female can.
How else did these actors become stars? They all have to start off as unknowns at some time.
*I say "self-fulfilling" because as mentioned by Trike says, "they refuse to spend the same amount of money on budget or marketing, which hamstrings performance." The powers that be do the exact same thing with book covers. The most insulting whitewash that I've seen (lately) was Liar. The reason? Covers with Black people don't sell well. Of course, if you NEVER have covers with Black people on them...of course they do not sell.
The MC for Liar is a Black teenage girl. The original cover for Liar was:
The story is about a compulsive liar - and when the readers read the written description of the character vs the cover, a lot of them started asking the writer if the character is lying about what she looks like as well. The author was (for a while) devastated - she said that the cover was killing her entire story.
After much outcry, the publisher had the cover updated to this:
Hopefully, Atomic Blonde, a R-rated film, performs better than Ghost in the Shell and that leads executive to think it was because GitS wasn't R-rated that it underperformed, not because it had a female lead. Lucy, an action flick that feature Scarjo, was R-Rated and gross 463 million world wide.
I'll probably not see Atomic Blonde, the lesbian scene in the trailer was gratuitous and made me think it was just fan service, but it is an action flick with a female leade, so...
MrsJoseph wrote: "It's not all about star power - it's done on the self-fulfilling* belief that a Black/Asian/Other Minority/Female cannot bring in the ticket sales that a White Male/Well Known Female can."Do you believe the studios don't want to maximise profits? Big business is dedicated to nothing more than making money. It can't afford to be prejudiced. If there is a market for X then a corporation will be looking to provide it. The people making decisions in these organisations likewise need to service the machine or they get replaced. Their personal ideologies (assuming they are white, male bigots) aren't allowed to drive decisions.
Ryan wrote: "Do you believe the studios don't want to maximise profits? Big business is dedicated to nothing more than making money. It can't afford to be prejudiced. If there is a market for X then a corporation will be looking to provide it. The people making decisions in these organisations likewise need to service the machine or they get replaced. Their personal ideologies (assuming they are white, male bigots) aren't allowed to drive decisions.I believe that they do not want to take chances - thus the never ending stream of movies that already have fan bases. I also think that they think that anything "other" is taking a chance. And that they have classified Black people/Asians/Other Minorities/Unknown Women as "other."
And personal ideologies drive decisions all the time.
Tell me how a blonde haired white girl ended up on the cover for Liar.
What about the white washing of the Peter Grant series?
What about basically every movie made about Egypt?
Didn't today's round of posts start because of two films that were whitewashed and thus performed poorly? Maybe the data doesn't lie but that doesn't mean they're always 100% listening.
Mod
It's assuming that a person in leadership has no internal biases, explicit or unconscious. It also assumes they know markets outside of the US majority, and understand those cultures well enough to do them in such a way that people in the culture portrayed are enticed, rather than repulsed.
If one of those things is not true, the work won't land well, meaning it won't perform well, and then the takeaway is that there isn't an audience for the work, rather than the work was set up to fail. Unfortunately this isn't a switch we can just pull. If, for example, you're Game of Thrones with no women writers on set, and you're writing feminine horror, you're gonna lose an audience that would have been available if there had been trust in the subject matter. Compare with the reception of Jessica Jones, another story of feminine horror.
Now, if people who would watch Jessica Jones but won't watch GoT are not considered part of the target audience to begin with...they'll never find that audience. They'll just try to make media that lands well with their assumed audience. We see this timeand time again.
They're not listening. They're not asking the right questions. And then they're not giving the information they have to people who are equipped to deliver. Whedon is close, but they keep effing with his storyline, and the audience can see.
If they lose enough money they will surely pay attention. These companies are driven by profit, not racism. Though I'm not surprised an English language remake of a specifically Japanese story featured a white lead actor. If it performed poorly I doubt it was due to the whitewashing. When you spend that much money on a movie you can't just appeal to manga fans.
Mod
Ryan wrote: "Market data doesn't lie."Data lies all the time. You can make data say anything you want it to.
Allison wrote: "They're not listening. They're not asking the right questions. And then they're not giving the information they have to people who are equipped to deliver. Whedon is close, but they keep effing with his storyline, and the audience can see."Then you would think these markets are putting their money where their entertainment needs are being serviced. I hardly watch movies any more other than shows my four year old daughter might like. My own entertainment dollar goes where I am being catered for, which is books and TV shows.
If there is truly demand for Japanese movies set in Japan and featuring Japanese casts all inexplicably speaking English then someone will find a way to supply it. But if something is just a dumb idea with a niche audience then it probably won't make money regardless.
Allison wrote: "Yeah, your argument is circular, Ryan, and makes a lot of assumptions that are not so common as to be safe to assume.It's assuming that a person in leadership has no internal biases, explicit or ..."
Agreed.
MrsJoseph wrote: "Data lies all the time. You can make data say anything you want it to."So you don't believe the Ghost in the Shell remake actually flopped? Is the data solid on this front or are you talking about the analysis of the data?
Are you implying that if GitS were made with a Japanese lead it would have performed better? And is it possible it could have performed even worse?
Ryan wrote: "Are you implying that if GitS were made with a Japanese lead it would have performed better? And is it possible it could have performed even worse? "That's entirely possible. But we'll never know until the studios actually try it.
As it stands, they aren't even giving anyone a chance at bat. You can't be a home run hitter if they don't let you play.
Allison wrote: "Curious, why wouldn't a Japanese star appeal to broader audiences? and what is your definition of racism that you are so sure it isn't a part of the issue?"Because the big studios are well aware there is money to be made in selling movies outside America, however the Japanese still aren't very popular in China. I suppose if you consider markets to consist of racist people then of course racism is an economic factor. But does that mean it is a corporation's place to lose money trying to teach people the correct way to think? It might be virtuous, but I'm selling my shares in such a 'business' before they are worthless.
Ryan wrote: "But does that mean it is a corporation's place to lose money trying to teach people the correct way to think? It might be virtuous, but I'm selling my shares in such a 'business' before they are worthless. "They're losing money *now*.
Would you likewise keep the shares of a company that keeps doing the thing that loses them money? Trying something new is the only option when the old thing no longer works.
Ryan wrote: "MrsJoseph wrote: "Data lies all the time. You can make data say anything you want it to."So you don't believe the Ghost in the Shell remake actually flopped? Is the data solid on this front or ar..."
I'm implying that you don't want to see what we are saying so you make generic statements to try to deflect from the real topic.
Ryan wrote: " Because the big studios are well aware there is money to be made in selling movies outside America, however the Japanese still aren't very popular in China. I suppose if you consider markets to consist of racist people then of course racism is an economic factor. .."This argument assumes that there's no racism against white Americans and that we're welcome everywhere.
Nicki wrote: "When something starring a white male fails, it's blamed on crappy writing. When something starring a woman or a POC (or heaven forfend, a WOC) fails, it's blamed on not having cast a white male. That's why some of us call the 'diversity doesn't sell' fallacy a self-fulfilling prophecy. Women/POC actors have to meet an impossible standard -- they have to somehow make the film they're in immune to bad writing or shoulder the blame for it."The two highest paid actors in the world last year are non-white. And while I agree a gendered analysis of film and TV points to a clear discrepancy between the portrayal of men vs women, I think it's clear that everyone is responsible for sexism. Right thinking people all agreed the Ghostbuster remake was a great idea and stuck it to those oppressive patriarchal trolls living in their mothers' basements. But then nobody actually went to watch it. And that includes women.
Trike wrote: "Would you likewise keep the shares of a company that keeps doing the thing that loses them money? Trying something new is the only option when the old thing no longer works."I get the feeling movie theatres are going the way of DVD rental places. It is exorbitantly expensive compared to other forms of popular entertainment, and even if I wait and watch the movie at home on Netflix it still requires a 90+ minute block of my time that I no longer have much of.
Mod
For example, Marvel's recent conclusion that their titles aren't selling very well due to their recent commitment to diversity. It is a fact that their titles aren't selling very well. It's not a fact that it's due to diversity..."
Well said, Nicki.
MrsJoseph wrote: "I'm implying that you don't want to see what we are saying so you make generic statements to try to deflect from the real topic."You probably shouldn't make any implications regarding what I do and don't want. What I see is a conspiracy theory, despite an African/Polynesian being the most popular actor in the world, and despite women continuing to pay as much as men to see movies with predominantly male casts.
The current numbers for GitS:Budget: $110,000,000
Release: 3,440 theaters
Domestic: $19,000,000
+ Foreign: $40,100,000
= Worldwide: $59,100,000
Source: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?...
So, it's not Water World but getting beat out by Boss Baby is an interesting distinction on a number of levels: live action versus animation, adult versus family oriented, etc. Plus, I guess in this context, white-washing versus a kind of imaginary, computerized, fantasy super-whiteness.... All things considered, it may turn out profitable in the long run, but it's hard to see a word of mouth campaign turning "Ghost" into a box office sleeper blockbuster.
Trike wrote: "Ah, the ancient Celts of medieval China."Well, there was a 'white tribe' in the lands that became today's modern China. Though not in medieval China*. And, apparently, they spoke a language 'closely related to German and Celtic.'
Well, the people currently living in that area where the mummies were found do - speak that 'related to Celtic' language.
https://owlcation.com/humanities/The-...
"the local people, even today, that live in the area where the bodies were found speak a language called Tocharian, the most eastern branch of Indo-European.
This language is closely related to German and Celtic."
* - dates - the mummies found are from 2000 BC to about 300 BC.
Mummies from that 'white tribe' have been examined for DNA evidence which indicates that they had origins in both the east and west ("The maternal lineages of the Xiaohe people originated from both East Asia and West Eurasia, whereas the paternal lineages all originated from West Eurasia").
And, unlike what I had initially thought, they didn't die off in China, they, apparently, wandered down to India at some point.
But yeah, not medieval China caucasians.
Sarah Anne wrote: "This argument assumes that there's no racism against white Americans and that we're welcome everywhere."No I'm aware there is a huge anti-American undercurrent in the world, including in my native Australia. It frustrates me too, but I know it's just resentment. That said, American movies still sell quite well outside the States. They are certainly the best sellers in Australia, despite (or because of) the fact that Hollywood is the reason Australia has no real film industry.
I don't know how many Chinese actors, directors or writers move to America to make their fortune but American movies are very profitable in China. I used to live in Sweden and it was the same there (popularity rather than profitability).
Thaddeus wrote: "Sounds like The Last Samurai.When demographics are important to a role (James Bond is a British man, Othello's black etc) they shouldn't be changed. When they're incidental, it doesn't bother me."
Are you suggesting (I realize long ago) that a black person can't be British? That the only true 'British man' is a white person?
Heh - and it's not like every James Bond actor has been British.
Don't know if it means anything that Sean Connery's nationality is listed as 'Scottish', while a guy like David Niven (who appeared as Bond in that parody movie) is listed as 'British'. Though my comment was more geared to knowing that George Lazenby is/was from Australia. Brosnan nationality is listed as "Irish". And Craig's is, oddly, listed as 'English'.
Nicki wrote: "Perhaps it is just because I'm very tired but I'm struggling to work out how this relates to my point. I'm guessing we've crossed our wires."Regarding the racism issue, I think the popularity of Dwayne Johnson shows everyone, including the studios, that customers are accepting of racial diversity. On the sexism front, women keep paying to watch men take the lead in movies. From a business point of view my opinion is obviously that you need to blame the customer not the supplier, and the customer includes at least 50% women in this particular media (movies).
Do women have nowhere else to spend their money if they are dissatisfied with movies? I believe the majority of fiction customers are women. Maybe literature features more diverse collections of characters? The movie studios have access to the data from this market as well. If they're not adapting despite losing money they deserve what they get. If they are adapting and still losing money then they're doomed anyway.
Anecdotally, the only movies I watch these days are made by the massively profitable Disney corporation, and they seem to consist of overwhelmingly female protagonists. Obviously the library of films is curated by my wife buying for my daughter. But that's just my point - we are free to spend on the movies/books/etc that we want to see. The studios/publishers/etc actually don't have the power to choose for us.
Okay, Ryan vs the 5 or 6 people who disagree with him are obviously never going to see eye to eye so let's please move on.
Ryan wrote: "On the sexism front, women keep paying to watch men take the lead in movies. From a business point of view my opinion is obviously that you need to blame the customer not the supplier, and the customer includes at least 50% women in this particular media (movies)."But the question we're asking is this: What choice do they have?
Here's a direct analogy: when I was in college I worked in a fast food place that sold ice cream. Every so often we'd run out of a particular flavor. People who came in to get that flavor didn't leave, they merely chose from the existing flavors. (In this case it was pralines and cream, which was popular, but we were having supply issues that summer.) The owner saw that we were selling other flavors more than pralines and cream, so he cut the order. This created a feedback loop where we'd run out sooner, sell less, order less, etc. Eventually we stopped making it.
People who would rather have pralines and cream but are only offered vanilla and chocolate will get whichever flavor is available. Sooner or later you get to the point where they don't even know they want pralines and cream because they're never given the option.
That entire chain went out of business because they kept making dumb decisions exactly like that. Now there are only a couple of those places left in the entire country and they do great business. Guess what one of their most popular flavors is?
Ryan wrote: "we are free to spend on the movies/books/etc that we want to see. The studios/publishers/etc actually don't have the power to choose for us. "
But that's the thing: they are making the choice for you, you just don't know it. By only offering you A or B, you have no choice. You can't choose X or Y because those choices aren't available.
People don't know if they want to see John Cho headline a movie because they only get to see him in a secondary role. Yes, Dwayne Johnson is very popular right now, but he was given multiple chances at the plate, striking out more often than not. If they had concluded after his second failure that people simply didn't want to see him, that would've been that. He's the exception that proves the rule.
Ryan Reynolds has had far more failures than successes, but studios keep throwing him into projects because one in ten of his movies hits big. John Cho doesn't get those opportunities, and he's every bit as good at everything that Reynolds is. In fact, despite Cho having been in numerous successful movies as a co-star, most people reading this have no idea who he is and had to go look him up.
That's the entire movie industry in a nutshell.
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Books mentioned in this topic
Liar (other topics)Manga: Masters of the Art (other topics)
Once they decided to re-make Ghost in the Shell, and make it live-action, and make it a tentpole movie, they are then committed to spend at least $100-150 million all-in with production and advertising. Probably a lot more.
That level of spend demands some star power attachment to even get a green light from a studio. Ms. Johansson has supported the science fiction genre with many roles and I think it's great that the studios see her as having the level of star power that can open a risky science fiction project.