{"version": "1.0", "type": "rich", "title": "\u2018Ghost In The Shell\u2019 Writer Defends Whitewashing New Movie By Claiming There Are No Good Asian Actresses", "author_name": "kontextmaschine", "author_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "provider_name": "kontextmaschine", "provider_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "url": "https://kontextmaschine.com/post/143623632193/", "html": "\u2018Ghost In The Shell\u2019 Writer Defends Whitewashing New Movie By Claiming There Are No Good Asian Actresses\n
Max landis is the same dude who went on Twitter and whined about how people don\u2019t want original movies when like every movie he ever wrote bombed
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\u201cCasting Scarlet Johansson is the best thing that could have happened to Ghost in the Shell\u201d Is a real thing that came out of this guys mouth, I legit want to die
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I can name two, right now, who are in mainstream television shows and have a strong history of martial arts.
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Lucy Liu and Ming-Na Wen.
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Okay. Hold on.\u00a0
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I dunno if y\u2019all 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.\u00a0
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I don\u2019t necessarily agree with his whole \u2018Scarlett is the best thing that could have happened to this movie\u2019 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.\u00a0Landis is not talking about how good\u00a0Asian\u00a0actresses are at their craft, he\u2019s talking\u00a0about how the industry views their relative star power. Also, Landis isn\u2019t less\u00a0defending the white washing, so much as explaining why it\u2019s happening.\u00a0
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I do think it\u2019s worth arguing that the movie producers could have tried harder to get green lit through other channel. It\u2019s worth talking about how few Japanese people were cast, even outside of the main role. It\u2019s worth talking about why the industry doesn\u2019t 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\u2019t 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\u2019t 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.\u00a0
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Also, I would like to point out that the character and story in question are fundamentally Japanese\u00a0and 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\u00a0\u2018one asian is the same as any other asian\u2019 thing. So if you want to suggest actresses, keep that in mind.\u00a0
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All good points.
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I\u2019ve noticed that often people on Tumblr will be right that someone is wrong, but wrong about why that person is wrong.
Something that isn\u2019t mean but isn\u2019t right either gets taken as something else that is much more, and much more obviously, horrendous.
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The problem is, it seems that he\u2019s wrong.\u00a0
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Look at Ms. \n\nJohansson\u2019s own filmography from the era before The Avengers. It\u2019s 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.
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\n\nEither he\u2019s wrong about how Hollywood works, or, more likely, he\u2019s wrong about the fact that Hollywood is justified in thinking that way (and hence he\u2019s wrong that the movie industry is merely reflecting the preferences of the culture at large).
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He\u2019s right. Presales. As far as a distributor in Buttfuckistan judging yet-to-be-filmed prospects is concerned, \u201c[solid, well-told story] in [foreign language] featuring [talented and thematically appropriate thespian]\u201d is arthouse shit (and neither of those quality promises are guaranteed), while \u201c[cinematic output] featuring [actor his audience has not only heard of, but recognizes as an aspirational icon of humanity]\u201d is a saleable product.
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