6 ms·

I'm personally refusing to support a movie which continues a long legacy of poor representation of asian americans in Hollywood movies (e.g. the last airbender,

I'm personally refusing to support a movie which continues a long legacy of poor representation of asian americans in Hollywood movies (e.g. the last airbender, aloha, along with some others which removed asian secondary characters). Though I can't deny it looks like it might be a decent adaptation. Hollywood doesn't really like asians to be their main characters, though we're starting to see some good side characters like Glenn from the walking dead.

TheCoreh 10y ago
> Hollywood doesn't really like asians to be their main characters Sort of an odd statement considering Jackie Chan just won an honorary Oscar today. Think of it this way: Ghost in the Shell is an anime adaption. Do you see the anime studios in Japan going out of their way to hire american voice actors whenever a character is american? If they don't, then why should US movie studios? This notion that for whatever reason an actor can't play someone of a different ethnicity is a very recent sensitivity. Besides her obvious acting talent, they most likely picked Scarlet Johanson in the hopes that she'll bring a larger audience considering how popular she is among their intended audience.
- sosuke 10y ago
  Did you see Armitage III? Ross was voiced by Kiefer Sutherland.
  - mjevans 10y ago
    That entire series was really well done. It does not surprise me at all that they hired good actors too.
- Tharkun 10y ago
  If ever there was a character where it wouldn't matter, it'd be the one of Major Motoko Kusanagi. Her lack of a human body makes it entirely irrelevant what race she is portrayed as. The fact that the movie is largely about "what's on the inside" makes it a really poor target for anger about the actors' heritage.
  - chillacy 10y ago
    I heard that reasoning forever: * It's fine that Hugo Weaving used prosthetic eyelids to look asian, the movie is about reincarnation across different ethnicities * Emma Stone can play a half-asian half-white character since the character is half-white anyways. * Ang and the other 3/4 principals can be white in The Last Airbender, since...??? * Mickey Rooney was being funny in Breakfast at Tiffany's, don't take it so seriously Imagine being an asian-american actor and losing a role for Motoko Kusanagi to a caucasian actor, when the industry already has a long history of preferentially casting caucasian actors in at least the past 20-30 years, and before that basically always hired caucasian actors to play other ethnicities, not always very respectfully.
  - viraptor 10y ago
    > Her lack of a human body makes it entirely irrelevant what race she is portrayed as. I get the "what's on the inside" idea - it could be irrelevant. But there are also reasons why it does matter. She's specifically using a generic-looking body to not stand out and the setting is Japan. Americans do stand out from a crowd in Japan. (although in the anime nobody else seemed to use the same model...)
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  - internaut 10y ago
    I cannot agree. That Motoko is a Japanese woman is not irrelevant. What makes GITS interesting to many Westerners is precisely that it is a Japanese take on humans and technology. Instead of Hollywood's man vs machine it is a complex, deep marriage between the natural and the artificial. Kusangi has the ghost of a Japanese woman even if the shell she has is a mass manufactured generic. I'd prefer Motoko to be a Japanese woman because that is just more interesting.
- chillacy 10y ago
  > If they don't, then why should US movie studios? Because not all americans are white, and if there ever was a chance to see someone who looked like me in a movie being cool, I would hope it's the anime adaptation. GitS is merely the latest in a long line of movies to re-cast asian roles for caucasian actors. Some more: Avatar the last airbender, Aloha, Cloud Atlas was especially cringeworthy since caucasian actors had prosthetic eyelids... imagine if robert downey jr's character's blackface was played non-ironically. I wouldn't mind if it just happens sometimes, but it happens almost every time... They could easily find american actors who speak perfect english, that's supposed to be one of the advantages of being a country of immigrants no? I understand the financial motivations of a casting decision, but its somewhat of a catch 22. It's difficult to find minority actors who have lots of experience. It's difficult to get a lot of experience as a minority actor since you end up getting typecasted for a few roles.
sosuke 10y ago
Do you have any good write ups on why Major isn't Asian? Was there some reason?
- chillacy 10y ago
  http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/23/opinion/why-wont-hollywood-cast-asian-actors.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/23/opinion/why-wont-hollywood... The most convincing I've heard is that there are no big shot asian movie stars to draw viewers in, and Hollywood doesn't want to take risks. The reason is there are no big shot asian movie stars is that asian actors don't land big shot movies. This might arise from the way roles are cast by race in Hollywood.
- holyjaw 10y ago
  This is one of my favorite pieces on the matter, though it doesn't directly address your question: http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/9/11612530/ghost-in-the-shell-anime-asian-representation-hollywood http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/9/11612530/ghost-in-the-shell...
foxhop 10y ago
I had the same feel when the trailer was hoisted on my eyeballs.
- grzm 10y ago
  Did you mean foisted? Then again, I imagine hoisting would be much more painful.
  - foxhop 10y ago
    Ah yes, foisted. (today I learned)
vex 10y ago
It's ironic that you care about race here as people have transcended race in the works of Ghost in the Shell (people can easily inhabit a completely different body, even a non-humanoid one). I hope this world comes about soon so we don't have to worry about racial crap anymore.
- grzm 10y ago
  I'm sure we'll find something else to divide us. It's part of human psychology. It's not as if race is our only divisive issue.
  - chillacy 10y ago
    It'll be the square robots vs the round robots! This is an interesting study on the subject. (kind of messed up, like the stanford prison experiment on schoolchildren). A teacher designates kids with blue eyes as superior to those with brown eyes in their all caucasian class. Resulting in: > Those who were deemed "superior" became arrogant, bossy, and otherwise unpleasant to their "inferior" classmates. Their grades on simple tests were better, and they completed mathematical and reading tasks that had seemed outside their ability before. The "inferior" classmates also transformed – into timid and subservient children who scored more poorly on tests, and even during recess isolated themselves, including those who had previously been dominant in the class. These children's academic performance suffered, even with tasks that had been simple before http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/class-divided/ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/class-divided/
- chillacy 10y ago
  Ah, glad they have their society sorted out, but its definitely a pattern for Hollywood at this point: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/23/opinion/why-wont-hollywood-cast-asian-actors.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/23/opinion/why-wont-hollywood... GitS follows a handful of other movies recently which could have had a more asian cast but did not. Very frustrating to see the same decision made in movies like The Last Airbender, Aloha, Cloud Atlas, Dr Strange, etc. > worry about racial crap anymore. Great, maybe when a brown actor can as easily get roles for the main character instead of the taxi driver, we'll be past that. Till then, the game's stacked.
glandium 10y ago
On the other hand, in the original 1995 animation movie, the Major had big blue eyes...
ianai 10y ago
Well, I'll support it because it's not Yet Another Super Hero Movie and maybe will lead to more cross overs.
lake99 10y ago
> Hollywood doesn't really like asians to be their main characters Rather than racism, I chalk it up to Hollywood's tendency to spend millions of dollars on people who they consider marketable. For example, I read reviews of "The Man from UNCLE" recently, and noticed Germans talking about the bad German accent of the lead actress, Russians talking about the bad Russian accent of the "Russian" lead. I'll throw in my own complaint of the unnatural Indian accents I have seen from "Indian" characters of Hollywood. Can't they find real Russians or Germans or Indians to play these roles?
- lj3 10y ago
  It wouldn't matter. One particular episode of Leverage featured an Irish loan shark. Everybody complained that the attempted Irish accent of the actor was terrible and couldn't they get an actual Irishman to play the role? The twist: the actor is Irish and he wasn't doing an accent, that's how he normally talks.

TheCoreh 10y ago

> Hollywood doesn't really like asians to be their main characters Sort of an odd statement considering Jackie Chan just won an honorary Oscar today. Think of it this way: Ghost in the Shell is an anime adaption. Do you see the anime studios in Japan going out of their way to hire american voice actors whenever a character is american? If they don't, then why should US movie studios? This notion that for whatever reason an actor can't play someone of a different ethnicity is a very recent sensitivity. Besides her obvious acting talent, they most likely picked Scarlet Johanson in the hopes that she'll bring a larger audience considering how popular she is among their intended audience.

sosuke 10y ago
Did you see Armitage III? Ross was voiced by Kiefer Sutherland.
- mjevans 10y ago
  That entire series was really well done. It does not surprise me at all that they hired good actors too.
Tharkun 10y ago
If ever there was a character where it wouldn't matter, it'd be the one of Major Motoko Kusanagi. Her lack of a human body makes it entirely irrelevant what race she is portrayed as. The fact that the movie is largely about "what's on the inside" makes it a really poor target for anger about the actors' heritage.
- chillacy 10y ago
  I heard that reasoning forever: * It's fine that Hugo Weaving used prosthetic eyelids to look asian, the movie is about reincarnation across different ethnicities * Emma Stone can play a half-asian half-white character since the character is half-white anyways. * Ang and the other 3/4 principals can be white in The Last Airbender, since...??? * Mickey Rooney was being funny in Breakfast at Tiffany's, don't take it so seriously Imagine being an asian-american actor and losing a role for Motoko Kusanagi to a caucasian actor, when the industry already has a long history of preferentially casting caucasian actors in at least the past 20-30 years, and before that basically always hired caucasian actors to play other ethnicities, not always very respectfully.
- viraptor 10y ago
  > Her lack of a human body makes it entirely irrelevant what race she is portrayed as. I get the "what's on the inside" idea - it could be irrelevant. But there are also reasons why it does matter. She's specifically using a generic-looking body to not stand out and the setting is Japan. Americans do stand out from a crowd in Japan. (although in the anime nobody else seemed to use the same model...)
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- internaut 10y ago
  I cannot agree. That Motoko is a Japanese woman is not irrelevant. What makes GITS interesting to many Westerners is precisely that it is a Japanese take on humans and technology. Instead of Hollywood's man vs machine it is a complex, deep marriage between the natural and the artificial. Kusangi has the ghost of a Japanese woman even if the shell she has is a mass manufactured generic. I'd prefer Motoko to be a Japanese woman because that is just more interesting.
chillacy 10y ago
> If they don't, then why should US movie studios? Because not all americans are white, and if there ever was a chance to see someone who looked like me in a movie being cool, I would hope it's the anime adaptation. GitS is merely the latest in a long line of movies to re-cast asian roles for caucasian actors. Some more: Avatar the last airbender, Aloha, Cloud Atlas was especially cringeworthy since caucasian actors had prosthetic eyelids... imagine if robert downey jr's character's blackface was played non-ironically. I wouldn't mind if it just happens sometimes, but it happens almost every time... They could easily find american actors who speak perfect english, that's supposed to be one of the advantages of being a country of immigrants no? I understand the financial motivations of a casting decision, but its somewhat of a catch 22. It's difficult to find minority actors who have lots of experience. It's difficult to get a lot of experience as a minority actor since you end up getting typecasted for a few roles.

sosuke 10y ago

Do you have any good write ups on why Major isn't Asian? Was there some reason?

chillacy 10y ago
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/23/opinion/why-wont-hollywood-cast-asian-actors.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/23/opinion/why-wont-hollywood... The most convincing I've heard is that there are no big shot asian movie stars to draw viewers in, and Hollywood doesn't want to take risks. The reason is there are no big shot asian movie stars is that asian actors don't land big shot movies. This might arise from the way roles are cast by race in Hollywood.
holyjaw 10y ago
This is one of my favorite pieces on the matter, though it doesn't directly address your question: http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/9/11612530/ghost-in-the-shell-anime-asian-representation-hollywood http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/9/11612530/ghost-in-the-shell...

foxhop 10y ago

I had the same feel when the trailer was hoisted on my eyeballs.

grzm 10y ago
Did you mean foisted? Then again, I imagine hoisting would be much more painful.
- foxhop 10y ago
  Ah yes, foisted. (today I learned)

vex 10y ago

It's ironic that you care about race here as people have transcended race in the works of Ghost in the Shell (people can easily inhabit a completely different body, even a non-humanoid one). I hope this world comes about soon so we don't have to worry about racial crap anymore.

grzm 10y ago
I'm sure we'll find something else to divide us. It's part of human psychology. It's not as if race is our only divisive issue.
- chillacy 10y ago
  It'll be the square robots vs the round robots! This is an interesting study on the subject. (kind of messed up, like the stanford prison experiment on schoolchildren). A teacher designates kids with blue eyes as superior to those with brown eyes in their all caucasian class. Resulting in: > Those who were deemed "superior" became arrogant, bossy, and otherwise unpleasant to their "inferior" classmates. Their grades on simple tests were better, and they completed mathematical and reading tasks that had seemed outside their ability before. The "inferior" classmates also transformed – into timid and subservient children who scored more poorly on tests, and even during recess isolated themselves, including those who had previously been dominant in the class. These children's academic performance suffered, even with tasks that had been simple before http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/class-divided/ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/class-divided/
chillacy 10y ago
Ah, glad they have their society sorted out, but its definitely a pattern for Hollywood at this point: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/23/opinion/why-wont-hollywood-cast-asian-actors.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/23/opinion/why-wont-hollywood... GitS follows a handful of other movies recently which could have had a more asian cast but did not. Very frustrating to see the same decision made in movies like The Last Airbender, Aloha, Cloud Atlas, Dr Strange, etc. > worry about racial crap anymore. Great, maybe when a brown actor can as easily get roles for the main character instead of the taxi driver, we'll be past that. Till then, the game's stacked.

glandium 10y ago

On the other hand, in the original 1995 animation movie, the Major had big blue eyes...

ianai 10y ago

Well, I'll support it because it's not Yet Another Super Hero Movie and maybe will lead to more cross overs.

lake99 10y ago

> Hollywood doesn't really like asians to be their main characters Rather than racism, I chalk it up to Hollywood's tendency to spend millions of dollars on people who they consider marketable. For example, I read reviews of "The Man from UNCLE" recently, and noticed Germans talking about the bad German accent of the lead actress, Russians talking about the bad Russian accent of the "Russian" lead. I'll throw in my own complaint of the unnatural Indian accents I have seen from "Indian" characters of Hollywood. Can't they find real Russians or Germans or Indians to play these roles?

lj3 10y ago
It wouldn't matter. One particular episode of Leverage featured an Irish loan shark. Everybody complained that the attempted Irish accent of the actor was terrible and couldn't they get an actual Irishman to play the role? The twist: the actor is Irish and he wasn't doing an accent, that's how he normally talks.