Ghost In The Shell (2017); A Post-Mortem

Warning: [Beware of a few major spoilers for the 2017 live action film adaptation of Ghost In The Shell]

After having decided to watch Ghost in The Shell (2017), I can honestly say that I had mixed feelings. The more time I spent with Scarlett Johansson, the more uncomfortable I became with her as a protagonist. It wasn't abundantly clear why. She was alright, she could be a little stiff at times, and some lines were delivered a little awkwardly but overall her performance was inoffensive. I could even tune out and enjoy her stoic portrayal of The Major.

When the twist at the end arrived, it hit me hard. It was problematic. Here's why;

1. There was an Asian-American actress cast as The Major, buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutttt...

So [Spoiler Warning] in the end it turns out Motoko is a runaway girl captured by Hanka Robotics and turned into a cyborg after rebelling against society... Or something. I'm unsure if my memory is foggy or if it just wasn't clearly explained but hey, her name is Motoko, and she is Asian.

Too bad she gets twelve seconds on screen.

I admit, I got angry. I was like, wow, that was just condescending. The studio went through the trouble of casting an Asian-American actress but couldn't be bothered to actually give her the lead role. I could practically hear the snide remark of some studio exec saying "See, we did cast an Asian-American as Motoko! We've got no racial prejudices!"

I had to look up Kaori Yamamoto, who plays the younger Motoko.

2. There's literally no reason for Motoko to be white.

There could have been. There could have been. I'm serious, there was a way to make this film show an active awareness for white normativity and add a layer of depth to the film that would have made this a breakthrough title that played entirely to the strengths of a caucasian lead.

All they had to do was say why Motoko's cyborg body was white.

And not subtextually, not in a throwaway line (if there even was a throwaway line, I definitely missed it) all they had to do was explain that Motoko was white because she was made to resemble a standard of beauty at the time, and that even in a dystopic future, society still views caucasian features as superior to that of people of colour.

Have her look at some mannequins in a store, or an ad on television, or something. Show Motoko that her face is an ever-present, an unobtainable ideal. Something. Anything. Instead, Motoko's cyborg body is white because Motoko's cyborg body is white. It could have been asian, or black, or indian and with the sound reasoning of there being no reasoning, no difference would have been made.

I get that studios are afraid of displaying to much left-leaning politics since it might alienate a part of the audience. But if you don't want to alienate the left as well as your core audience, don't make mediocre whitewashed adaptations of anime.

3. Problematic queer subtext

There's a moment where Motoko finds a sex worker on the street and they sit in a secluded room, and Motoko feels the sex worker's face. Motoko does this because she pangs for the feeling of organic skin and wonders what a human body feels like. The end result is that there's some rather heavy sexual tension. Which then makes you question Motoko's sexuality, and any hopes of queerness is bashed by the heteronormativity of her relationship with Kuze who is then revealed to be Hideo, Motoko's love interest fomr before she was taken.

Good old fashion queer bait strikes its head again.

Overall it's damn frustrating because there are parts of the film I really liked! The scenery was gorgeous, and I love Michael Carmen Pitt (although I still think there are plenty of Asian American actors who could also have gotten the role and done just as good a job). The Geisha automatons were creepy and spectacular. The film's fight choreography and stunts weren't much to write home about but they were entertaining. Some scenes were lifted right out of the original anime film and several shot by shot comparisons reveal how faithful this film was.

I've heard tell that a lot of the subtext is missing, and while I can't confirm that, I do feel like the film was a little thin with it's existential questioning but that's hardly it's most egregious offense.

Which means, with the way that this film flopped on opening weekend and the unfortunate casting of Death Note (My eyes roll into the back of my skull just thinking about the name 'Light Turner', ugh), this means that while GitS was, if taken without the aforementioned issues, an inoffensive adaptation, it wasn't great. It wasn't stellar. I don't even know if I could stretch it as far as good. It was passable. It did a couple things very right, but it did some Major (hah!) things very wrong.

And that unfortunately means it's still going to be a long ass time before Hollywood gets anime right.

Here's a great think piece from PBS Ideas Channel, check it out.

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Ghost In The Shell's Whitewashing

Scarlett Johansson has made a name for herself as an action heroine. With huge roles like the titular Lucy and Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow in several Marvel Cinematic Universe films, she's all but set for a top billing in a major Anime adaptation from director Rupert Sanders. She's capable and has the talent and popularity to drive box office sales.

The issue however comes in when you realize just how difficult it is for Asian-American actors to land leading roles.

To say one thing in the film's defense, it's pretty huge for a blockbuster action film to have a female lead, let alone to be a high budget adaptation of a critically acclaimed Japanese animation.  This brings a lot of diverse culture and ideas to mainstream audiences. And any leading female cast in the type of role that is generally played by men is also a huge win for feminism.

However, Kelly Hu, Sandra Oh, Lucy Liu, Yunjin Kim, Davon Aoki, Rinko Kikuchi , hell, even Kristin Kreuk could have been cast and none of the above would be invalid. It's not like Hollywood is devoid of Asian actors with long careers and star power. And even so, some of the best selling films of all time have had relatively unknown leads.

But here's where it gets tricky yet again; Anime itself has an issue with race. Let's take... Say, Unbreakable Machine Doll as our case study.



Of what ethnicity would you guess this character is? That wavy mostly straight hair, big blue eyes, pale skin, I'd definitely wager he's European, maybe even from a Germanic country. But he's not, this is actually Raishin Akabane, of the very Japanese Akabane clan. To make matters worse, he's voiced by english voice actor Clifford Chapin.

And this is an unnervingly common practice. Because of how hyper stylized Japanese animation is, mangaka and animation studios often have trouble designing Japanese characters as... Well, Japanese looking.

Unbreakable Machine Doll is my favourite case though. Look at the other cast of characters in the show and apart from vocal ques (I'll admit Lisette has a really pleasant Irish voice in the English Dub) and their names, I couldn't tell you their country of origin.

One of the many reasons so many western cartoonists opt to use anthropomorphic animals as their characters is that there are only so many different ways to draw a human face. I mean, Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, Felix The Cat, Garfield, Snoopy, Hobbes, Sonic... Half of these characters would be unremarkable as humans.

Anime gets around this unfortunate handicap with it's unique visual design quirks and stylization. Light Yagami is as recognizable as Bugs Bunny from that sinister look in his eyes to his ridiculously perfect hair and that eerie smirk that he wears on his face.

(The face one makes when they take a potato chip, and eats it)

 So it's perfectly natural for a medium to struggle to represent the subtleties of human ethnicity through it's abstract design when the phrase exaggerated subtleties is in itself an oxymoron.

What about when it does?


(Soichi from Detroit Metal City)

(Nakai from Bakuman)


(Afro from Afro Samurai)

(Balalaika from Black Lagoon)

Conversely, a Nicktoons show called Kappa Mikey managed to solve this ethnic incoherence by matching two extremely different visual designs together, and a lot of the humour of the show comes from the cultural differences of Mikey versus his Japanese cast members. I remember a whole lot of laughs coming from the spoofs of popular shonen tropes and just the silly situations the characters find themselves in.



What I'm saying is, it's possible to to both stylize and communicate ideas through creative design. And this is probably where the issue itself was born. Add to the fact that most popular anime protagonists are fair skinned males with European facial features and one might reach the startling conclusion that anime has kind of... Whitewashed itself. Don't believe me? Here's a picture of the Shonen Jump Ultimate Stars roster.



In a recent video published by That Japanese Man Yuta we see that most of the randomly chosen Japanese citizens on the street are perfectly fine with the casting. And while a handful of folks on the street don't represent an entire ethnic group, we can safely assume that to a lot of the general public, this is just a non-issue. Even the creator of Ghost In The Shell has supported and approved Scarlett Johansson's casting. While that makes for a separate discussion on whether or not a creator necessarily knows what's best for their own intellectual property and the adaptations thereof, the crux of the matter is that Scarlett Johansson has been cast, the film has already started production and is likely near finished and this won't be the last time it happens.

In future, I think I'd like to appeal to manga publishers like Shonen Jump, Tokyopop, Tanoshimi and the like to publish works with more ethnic diversity and racial themes. I'd also like to appeal to mangaka to create more protagonists that aren't the default harem attracting fair skinned Mary Sue Sasuke Uchihas in favour of more ethnically diverse heroes.

And finally, I'd like to appeal to anyone who likes anime to stop shitting a brick and screaming for the death of SJWs whenever anyone raises a legitimate concern about the state of the industry. Feminism, black activism, LGTBQ activism and political correctness are not going to kill your grandmother and take your toys. And to everyone else, it's okay to not go watch Ghost In The Shell because it did take a great anime and plaster a white face on it like the Kardashians claiming to have invented braids, but it looks to be a good film and to be honest, it might end up being the closest thing we ever get to a truly great major Hollywood adaptation of an anime, and if you can stomach ScaJo's face, it might be worth watching (I'd wait until the Rotten Tomatoes scores come out though).

Otherwise, there are plenty of live action adaptations from Japan that do their source material justice. I quite liked the second Death Note live adaptation because it ended in a better way than the anime did. So find a copy or stream it, grab popcorn and remember, the subtitles don't bite.

But fuck that Light Turner bullshit. That shit should get it's own theme song. Like fucking, Light Turner was an average kid that no one understands, his dad and the investigation unit always giving him commands. Gloom and doom up in his room, appearing instantly, is a magic shinigami giving him a book and in reality Ryuk's his god of death, odd god of death.

Fuck dat noise.

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