I was prepared to write a post about this. I wasn't going to defend the casting, but just to point out that it isn't racism per se, but rather it's America's uneasiness with foreign stuff. (Remember that it was only by JK Rowling's insistance that the Harry Potter movies were actually as British as the books.) I would then claim that in the unlikely event that Canadians made a movie Hollywood deemed worthy of remaking, they would probably insist on re-setting it on their side of the 49th. Then I'd point out that I don't condone this sort of soft-xenophobia, but that it's not as serious a charge as racism.
But now I find out that the upcoming movie hasn't been transplanted to the U.S. It's still set in Japan, with Japanese characters. That is, they're making a movie whose main character is named "Motoko Kusanagi", but we're just supposed to accept that she looks like Scarlett Johansson. Yes, I know, the character is a cyborg, you could easily explain that she has chosen a body that looks caucasian because she felt like it. Aside from not being real true to the character, that's the sort of fake-sounding exposition that jams up the audience's suspension of disbelief. But the fact is, the issue is apparently not making the movie more American, but more white.
To explain the casting, many people have resorted to money. The phrase, "you don't know how the industry works" seems to come up a lot. The idea is that there aren't any famous (in the West) Japanese actresses. First of all, that's hardly an excuse, it's merely a deflection, like my aforementioned planned post. But that line of reasoning has a few problems:
- They originally cast the significantly-less-famous Margot Robbie in the role
- When a movie's main draw is either special effects or a pre-established franchise, Hollywood is okay with a little-known star.
- Most of the major supporting players are white too.
No comments:
Post a Comment