Max landis is the same dude who went on Twitter and whined about how people don’t want original movies when like every movie he ever wrote bombed
“Casting Scarlet Johansson is the best thing that could have happened to Ghost in the Shell” Is a real thing that came out of this guys mouth, I legit want to die
I can name two, right now, who are in mainstream television shows and have a strong history of martial arts.
Lucy Liu and Ming-Na Wen.
Okay. Hold on.
I dunno if y’all actually watched the video Max Landis put out, but this post boils his argument down past his actual points and simplifies it so he looks like a racist idiot.
I don’t necessarily agree with his whole ‘Scarlett is the best thing that could have happened to this movie’ thing, BUT I do think the argument behind why he says it is actually pretty solid. There are different ways to get a movie green-lit and to receive substantial monetary backing for projects. One of those ways is to have an international big-name star attach their name to the project, because the industry sees a big name as a big draw for audiences and thus they think the movie will make money. Right now none of the well known Asian actresses on the market are actually big enough to be able to do that. Landis is not talking about how good Asian actresses are at their craft, he’s talking about how the industry views their relative star power. Also, Landis isn’t less defending the white washing, so much as explaining why it’s happening.
I do think it’s worth arguing that the movie producers could have tried harder to get green lit through other channel. It’s worth talking about how few Japanese people were cast, even outside of the main role. It’s worth talking about why the industry doesn’t put more value on Asian actresses, and why there are so few roles for them in the first place which limits their opportunities to become bigger stars. I also think Landis is out of line saying people shouldn’t be angry at the movie industry, but rather at the culture that makes it so we have no A-List Asian actresses (especially because the movie industry plays a large role in creating/disseminating that culture, as much as it is subject to the outcomes of the culture itself). But dismissing his argument out of hand isn’t actually going to help anyone improve the situation because it ignores the realities of big-budget movie production and the underlying causes that need to be addressed.
Also, I would like to point out that the character and story in question are fundamentally Japanese and neither Lucy Liu nor Ming-Na Wen are Japanese. While having an asian actress would be better than a white actress, it would still be pretty suspect to pull a ‘one asian is the same as any other asian’ thing. So if you want to suggest actresses, keep that in mind.
All good points.
I’ve noticed that often people on Tumblr will be right that someone is wrong, but wrong about why that person is wrong.
Something that isn’t mean but isn’t right either gets taken as something else that is much more, and much more obviously, horrendous.
The problem is, it seems that he’s wrong.
Look at Ms.
Johansson’s own filmography from the era before The Avengers. It’s not nothing, but going by IMDB, if you COMBINED the gross revenue for all 20-ish films she appeared in the 10 years before her first appearance in the MCU in Iron Man 2, it would be ~$475 million, less than Iron Man 2 individually and less than half of Avengers: Age of Ultron.
Either he’s wrong about how Hollywood works, or, more likely, he’s wrong about the fact that Hollywood is justified in thinking that way (and hence he’s wrong that the movie industry is merely reflecting the preferences of the culture at large).
He’s right. Presales. As far as a distributor in Buttfuckistan judging yet-to-be-filmed prospects is concerned, “[solid, well-told story] in [foreign language] featuring [talented and thematically appropriate thespian]” is arthouse shit (and neither of those quality promises are guaranteed), while “[cinematic output] featuring [actor his audience has not only heard of, but recognizes as an aspirational icon of humanity]” is a saleable product.
