Is Ghost In The Shell's Scarlett Johansson Racist Casting? Anime Fans Review The Whitewashing
Channel: ABCs Of Attraction | Asian Dating Coach
Date: 2017-03-27

What's up with Ghost In The Shell's casting of Scarlett Johansson? Based on the Japanese cult classic anime, we review this movie with fans of the original anime.

Now the makers of the American version of this movie took great care to make the film as faithful to the original 90s animated movie – so much so, that certain iconic and spectacular action scenes can be matched almost frame-for-frame.

They clearly got much of the details correct… except one little (big?) thing.  

The main character/heroine ‘Major Motoko Kusanagi’ (as the name implies) was Japanese in the original animated film.  And obviously, Scarlett Johansson doesn’t have a drop of Japanese blood or a smidgen of Asian ancestry.

One could understand some leeway in casting, if the hired an Asian or Asian-American actor that wasn’t Japanese, but was Korean or Chinese, for example.  But Scarlett Johansson is of Swedish and Jewish extraction. 

So on paper, maybe the shoe doesn’t fit here.

But the debate rages on: is the casting of a white actress and the deliberate decision to disregard the setting of the story itself (in Japan) justified?  Is it ethical?  Or merely just a business decision?  

Or perhaps some artistic license taken?

Well, we took to the streets and asked a bunch of hot ladies at a comic and anime convention what they thought about this whole thing!

This was a cool outing.  Not only did we some really cool costumes and some very attractive girls wearing some of them, but we’ve noticed that lately, the girls who are into anime and Asian pop culture (whether it’s from Japan or Korea or China) have gotten progressively higher in quality.  They’re not just straight-up geeky girls, but are also quite attractive!  Many are in great shape, dress well (even out of costume), and generally appear to be some pretty cool women.

These girls have definitely upped their game on the outside – but how are they on the inside, in terms of the views and attitudes they hold about social issues that might affect Asian men?

Are these ladies more likely to take the Asian man’s side due to their familiarity with anime and other aspects Asian culture? Or are they also endorsing the Whitewashing of films and media, and remaining willfully oblivious to our plight?  Let’s find out what they say (and think) at the jump.