When word came out that Ghost in the Shell would be given the Hollywood adaptation treatment last January, many wondered if it would go the way of the Akira adaptation, e.g. stuck in development hell with little to no faith that it’ll ever be made in spite of the intense interest by the project’s director. Last month, progress was made in the film’s development when DreamWorks announced that Scarlett Johansson would star in the film.
Fans of the anime called the casting foul and have since created a petition to remove Johansson from the role. The petitioners cite Hollywood’s long-running practice of “white-washing” films. The most recent controversy surrounding Hollywood’s tendency to white-wash films was seen in the Christian Bale-led film, Exodus: Gods and Kings, which starred Bale as the Biblical Moses.
Indeed, Hollywood hasn’t been the kindest to minority actors, with the petition citing only 4.4% of speaking roles in high-grossing Hollywood films in 2013 featured Asian characters. There are many talented Asian actors who could take the mantle from Johansson, with Pacific Rim and Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter actress Rinko Kikuchi being the first actress to come to mind.
However, given how big an industry Hollywood is, especially with the budgetary risks that go into adapting very popular source material, there’s a bit of an understanding as to why DreamWorks would opt to cast an A-list actress like Johansson into the film. Furthermore, all adaptations aren’t necessarily held to keeping 100% true to the source, as the Ghost in the Shell narrative could be altered to befit Johansson’s casting. In saying that, film studios are essentially strong-armed into having to cast well-known names to sell films, no matter the risk.
Does this mean Hollywood has to continue to turn its back on underrepresented races in films? Absolutely not, but the financial reasoning behind such decisions makes sense, despite how much we may disagree with it. The odds of Johansson being removed are slim to none, but hopefully enough attention is drawn to the controversy to have the powers that be second-guess their casting decisions when it comes to adapting culturally-dependent properties in the future.
[via IGN]