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Japanese Reactions to the Ghost in the Shell (2017) Movie

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kswiston

Member
Most People don't care about Whitewashing, it just so happens that most movies with a whitewashing controversy, are also pretty bad.

People also care more if the leads are white washed. Look at the Martian, which white-washed and did great.

Also, Noah didnt get much blowback that I remember. Definitely less than Exodus.
 
I actually remember r̶e̶a̶d̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶a̶n̶ ̶a̶r̶t̶i̶c̶l̶e̶ watching a video saying that japanese people don't believe whitewashing to be a bad thing and actually prefer it to getting a japanese cast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DhoBuU1Dtc

edit: added the source, also, so everyone knows im not saying whitewashing isn't an issue. Just figured id share another related piece of content. Also they have different point of views and show both like for ghost in the shell casting and dislike for death note casting and casting behaviors of the director.
 
Most People don't care about Whitewashing, it just so happens that most movies with a whitewashing controversy, are also pretty bad.

I'd like to think that if your gonna whitewash a movie, there's a very good 50/50 chance it's gonna be shit. At this point it kinda goes hand in hand. If you aim to whitewash you probably care more about your white actors than the actual story.
 

dlauv

Member
So-called progressives revealing themselves as nationalists.

No. No, it's not.

I'm sorry, would you both clarify what notions you think you're responding to?

I'm not defending the movie's casting as-is. I'm saying if the casting were Asian that it shouldn't be beholden to the nationalist perspective of other countries.

Where would one draw the line? Casting a person of Chinese descent would be insensitive to Japan. How about a third-generation Japanese-American? Would that be pure enough?

America simply isn't that ethnocentric (in this way, at least). Look at Get Out, where a British man attempts to portray the black American experience.
 

Chuckie

Member
Also, Noah didnt get much blowback that I remember. Definitely less than Exodus.

I think a lot of people still have this image of some white dude when they think Noah (due to white-washing centuries ago) while the thought of a whole Egyptian royal family being white is awkward af no matter what.
 

Slayven

Member
People also care more if the leads are white washed. Look at the Martian, which white-washed and did great.

Also, Noah didnt get much blowback that I remember. Definitely less than Exodus.

People were more upset about the Rocklords being in Noah
 
If there were Asian-Americans complaining (which there are), would it change anything for you? Asian-Americans might not have uniform opinions but I think the ones who worry about minority representation have legitimate concerns that people shouldn't ignore because someone in Asia thinks differently.
Yes it would. It's just beyond cringe worthy when you have a bunch of white people making themselves feel better for some white washing topics when the people of said race don't give a fuck. This is just a common trend that happens in North America, particularly the States.

ScarJo was signed because she's a big name to a movie with niche market potential. It makes sense from a business perspective. But everyone whining about this is ignoring or says it doesn't matter at all for a movie in this position based on their imaginary degree in marketing or business. Diversity is good to have, but there's nothing about this particular, casting choice that's worth throwing a tantrum over. In a perfect world, an Asian chick should have been cast. I fucking hate when they make changes to OG material in regards to any medium (though I come to expect it for manga -> movie adaptations) But you need a star for this particular movie to try to pull numbers, and there's no one out there with that kind of cache. Which of course leads to the annoying spiral of experience -> job -> experience that many people have to deal with. At this point, someone just needs to blow the door open to make it easier for people of a similar race for example, to pave the way by being noticeably better than the competition. It sucks that it has to be difficult, but this is generally the way to break through in Hollywood whose notorious for sticking for what works (just look at the big movies nowadays, the same fucking comic book movies on an annual basis)

Most People don't care about Whitewashing, it just so happens that most movies with a whitewashing controversy, are also pretty bad.
this is true to be fair lol
 

Arkeband

Banned
Well aside from the casting controversy, those movies are also crap.

There's actually a scene in Gods of Egypt where a character reads blocking as his line and they kept it in.

When Jaime Lannister gets his powers back (despite the movie explicitly stating he can't without some macguffin), his human helper goes "Impressed! Ha-HA!", because his script was probably like:

Code:
[Impressed] Haha!

So yeah, Gods of Egypt is on a whole different level of bad movie.
 
Yes it would. It's just beyond cringe worthy when you have a bunch of white people making themselves feel better for some white washing topics when the people of said race don't give a fuck. This is just a common trend that happens in North America, particularly the States.

ScarJo was signed because she's a big name to a movie with niche market potential. It makes sense from a business perspective. But everyone whining about this is ignoring or says it doesn't matter at all for a movie in this position based on their imaginary degree in marketing or business. Diversity is good to have, but there's nothing about this particular, casting choice that's worth throwing a tantrum over. In a perfect world, an Asian chick should have been cast. I fucking hate when they make changes to OG material in regards to any medium (though I come to expect it for manga -> movie adaptations) But you need a star for this particular movie to try to pull numbers, and there's no one out there with that kind of cache. Which of course leads to the annoying spiral of experience -> job -> experience that many people have to deal with. At this point, someone just needs to blow the door open to make it easier for people of a similar race for example, to pave the way by being noticeably better than the competition. It sucks that it has to be difficult, but this is generally the way to break through in Hollywood whose notorious for sticking for what works (just look at the big movies nowadays, the same fucking comic book movies on an annual basis)


this is true to be fair lol
I'm not white.

And star power doesn't mean shit.
 

Tigress

Member
Its an interesting take though, funny how he immediately dislikes the idea of people of another Asian heritage playing the character tbh.

I could see his point. no one mistakes white people for Japanese people. But a lot of Asians (not just Japanese) get fed up with white people thinking they all look the same (and not being able to tell the difference). By casting another Asian heritage it is just acknowledging that other people see no differences between them and think they're all the same (they as in Japanese, Chinese, Korean, etc).
 
I'm not white.

And star power doesn't mean shit.
This hurts just reading. You're right. They go for stars in most big movies not because it means shit, but because studios want to spend extra millions on actors instead of spending a lot less money on smaller named actors. One thing studios look at when making movies, is spending more money then they need to.
 
Thanks to the cultural and historical tensions in East Asia, Japanese people in general would be more offended if an asian American (that wasn't of Japanese origin) played a Japanese person than, say a white or a black American.

That's just how it is over there, and it's different from our perspective. For most of us (not all of course), there's no problem if a white person played a white person, or a black person played a black person, regardless of nationality.

It's interesting, to say the least.

Well, Chinese and Japanese are two different ethnicities after all. It shouldn't surprise anyone.
 

Bulzeeb

Member
What is adaptation for 100 Alex? And Speed Racer was based on Elvis Presley

not sure what 100 Alex is but Edge of Tomorrow is an adaptation for "All you need is Kill", a japanese light novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka

All_You_Need_Is_Kill.jpg


I havent read the novel yet, but as far as I know they changed everything to make it western and avoid that weird mix of having a elite team full of Americans inside a japanese special military unit
 

Skittles

Member
This hurts just reading. You're right. They go for stars in most big movies not because it means shit, but because studios want to spend extra millions on actors instead of spending a lot less money on smaller named actors. One thing studios look at when making movies, is spending more money then they need to.

Just to throw more on here. Passengers just came out with Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Patt headlining and still bombed pretty badly. Star power ain't shit, straight up waste of money.
 
An ethnically homogenous country with long standing resentment of it's neighbor and expats who leave said ethnically homogenous country wouldn't like anybody but somebody from there to be in the role? They'd just rather it be a white person instead?

Gee wiz that sure is shocking.
 
This hurts just reading. You're right. They go for stars in most big movies not because it means shit, but because studios want to spend extra millions on actors instead of spending a lot less money on smaller named actors. One thing studios look at when making movies, is spending more money then they need to.
Who are these people who wanted to go see Exodus for Christian Bale and Joel fucking Edgerton? Movie execs are still humans who are still prone to bad decision making. A lesson these people should be learning is that a famous actor is not a meal ticket.
 

Volimar

Member
Just to throw more on here. Passengers just came out with Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Patt headlining and still bombed pretty badly. Star power ain't shit, straight up waste of money.

Just waiting for studios and distributors to catch up to that truth, because as long as they believe you need a star to make money, they'll keep acting like it.
 

Big One

Banned
1) the production company literally said it was

2) do u really think this is just a big coincidence

*snip*
While white washing is an issue none of those movies were adversely effected by it that much. Most audiences do not give a shit, they just give a shit about whether they think the movie looks good or not. Every single one of those movies looked like garbage in the trailers, so of course they're going to flop.
 

OceanBlue

Member
Yes it would. It's just beyond cringe worthy when you have a bunch of white people making themselves feel better for some white washing topics when the people of said race don't give a fuck. This is just a common trend that happens in North America, particularly the States.

ScarJo was signed because she's a big name to a movie with niche market potential. It makes sense from a business perspective. But everyone whining about this is ignoring or says it doesn't matter at all for a movie in this position based on their imaginary degree in marketing or business. Diversity is good to have, but there's nothing about this particular, casting choice that's worth throwing a tantrum over. In a perfect world, an Asian chick should have been cast. I fucking hate when they make changes to OG material in regards to any medium (though I come to expect it for manga -> movie adaptations) But you need a star for this particular movie to try to pull numbers, and there's no one out there with that kind of cache. Which of course leads to the annoying spiral of experience -> job -> experience that many people have to deal with. At this point, someone just needs to blow the door open to make it easier for people of a similar race for example, to pave the way by being noticeably better than the competition. It sucks that it has to be difficult, but this is generally the way to break through in Hollywood whose notorious for sticking for what works (just look at the big movies nowadays, the same fucking comic book movies on an annual basis)


this is true to be fair lol
How do you know that this isn't an issue Asian-Americans are concerned about?

I agree on the surface with what you're saying, but I just think it's strange that you claim that some movie needs to "blow the door open", but it can't be Ghost in the Shell. What makes Ghost in the Shell different? Every movie needs to make money so why ever take that risk of casting Asian-Americans?
 

LionPride

Banned
not sure what 100 Alex is but Edge of Tomorrow is an adaptation for "All you need is Kill", a japanese light novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka

All_You_Need_Is_Kill.jpg



I havent read the novel yet, but as far as I know they changed everything to make it western and avoid that weird mix of having a elite team full of Americans inside a japanese special military unit
It's a Jeopardy joke
Shit its almost​ like a movie stupid enough to do it would have serious problems elsewhere.
There's like a 60/40 chance of that
 

Llyranor

Member
Most of the people in the states complaining are not even asian americans, but white people which is comical.

It's just beyond cringe worthy when you have a bunch of white people making themselves feel better for some white washing topics when the people of said race don't give a fuck.

Any evidence to back up your claims, or is this an attempt to handwave Asian-Americans' opinions by pretending they don't exist?

Maybe we're just sick of having to play whitewashing bingo everytime people come up with new excuses not to cast Asian-American actors?
 
No one in Japan knows the Speed Racer anime or whatever it was called there. The Speed Racer was seen as American movie (they didn't even bother with replacing the name with the original Japanese one).

The same way how no one would think that Saber Rider is somwhow based on an anime.
 

4Tran

Member
Asian isn't a thing in Asia, same way European isn't a thing in Europe.

Not to say it's not thing at all but national identity is much, much stronger.

The issues surround the film for better or worse are American.
Exactly. I'd say that nationalism and racism are much more prevalent in East Asia than they are in Europe. Nobody in Japan is going to characterize themselves as "Asian" because they see themselves as different for the rest of Asia so there's zero interest in seeing non-Japanese actors portray Japanese characters.

Most People don't care about Whitewashing, it just so happens that most movies with a whitewashing controversy, are also pretty bad.
Correction: Most people in countries like Japan don't care about Whitewashing. The reason is that they don't have any problem with representation. Japanese people can see tons of Japanese actors in film and TV all the time, and they don't have any issues breaking into their domestic entertainment industries. This isn't true in North America, and that's why Whitewashing is largely confined to Hollywood.
 
Think Japanese people give a real fuck about Hollywood casting when they have their own country and movie industry where they're not marginalized brehs

OP, eat a dick tho
 
I suppose its a fair point. If you aren't going to cast an actual Japanese person (the correct choice) then it might as well be literally anything else.
 

4Tran

Member
I suppose its a fair point. If you aren't going to cast an actual Japanese person (the correct choice) then it might as well be literally anything else.
That's only technically true for Japanese audiences. But that's at least partially because they don't give a damn about representation in Hollywood.
 

mantidor

Member
It's funny when people assume not casting a big star would have prevented the movie from bombing while criticizing the decision of casting a big movie star in the first place, like, you realize the irony?

Giving that the Wonder Woman movie is also being predicted as another bomb I'm starting to believe there is a real problem of sexism not just in Hollywood itself but in movie audiences, what female lead in a new IP has been successful? I'm struggling to come up with a name.
 
I hate how people are actually getting upset over "cyber social justice warrior", when you kneejerk react that way/get your jimmies rustled, don't you think you're letting the trolls win? As soon as I saw SJW I knew exactly what was to follow, can't we stop being so predictable?
 
That's only technically true for Japanese audiences. But that's at least partially because they don't give a damn about representation in Hollywood.

Of course, I'm not naive enough to think this reaction matters even 1% in any other country in the world.
 

Skittles

Member
It's funny when people assume not casting a big star would have prevented the movie from bombing while criticizing the decision of casting a big movie star in the first place, like, you realize the irony?

Giving that the Wonder Woman movie is also being predicted as another bomb I'm starting to believe there is a real problem of sexism not just in Hollywood itself but in movie audiences, what female lead in a new IP has been successful? I'm struggling to come up with a name.
Lucy with ScarJo herself
Hunger games with J law
Twilight

I hate how people are actually getting upset over "cyber social justice warrior", when you kneejerk react that way/get your jimmies rustled, don't you think you're letting the trolls win? As soon as I saw SJW I knew exactly what was to follow, can't we stop being so predictable?
Why should we let just let trolls be on this forum?
 
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