Scarlett Johansson is the Wrong Choice for “Ghost in the Shell”

Whitewashing, the practice of casting white actors to play characters that should have been people of color, has been a Hollywood staple since the very beginning of the film industry. Director D.W. Griffith, one of the founding fathers of film, was known as both “the Shakespeare of the screen” and a virulent racist; naturally, his seminal work The Birth of a Nation featured a slew of black characters played by white actors in blackface. Celebrated classics are guilty of whitewashing as well, with Elizabeth Taylor in the role of Cleopatra, Natalie Wood as Maria in West Side Story, and Mickey Rooney playing the raging stereotype I.Y. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

I would like to believe that racism in Hollywood has diminished over the past few decades, but it is wishful thinking to expect modern-day mainstream movies to be inclusive. After all, The Hunger Games sought only Caucasian actresses for the role of “olive-skinned” Katniss. And now, only five days into 2015, Scarlett Johansson has signed on to play Motoko Kusanagi in the live-action adaptation of Ghost in the Shell.

For the uninitiated, Ghost in the Shell is a Japanese franchise based on Masamune Shirow’s manga of the same name. With multiple anime and video game adaptations inspired by the manga, Ghost in the Shell is a modern classic. The series takes place in a future Japan where humans have become “cyberized,” integrating technology with their bodies. Major Motoko Kusanagi, the cyborg protagonist, is the head of a Japanese counterterrorism taskforce that deals with cyber crime.  

Re-read that previous paragraph. Note that the franchise is Japanese, the series takes place in Japan, and the protagonist is the head of a Japanese task force. “Motoko Kusanagi” is a Japanese name for a Japanese character. Yet somehow, a white woman has been chosen to play her. Media coverage on the subject has been disturbingly positive, mostly cheering the choice for ScarJo playing an action hero. Vanity Fair makes only passing mention of the fact that Motoko is Japanese, while Esquire claims that “no Hollywood actress is as prepared as Scarlett Johansson” to play the role.

On the contrary, there are plenty of actresses that could play the role just as well as ScarJo, and who also happen to Japanese. The first who comes to mind is Rinko Kikuchi, the first Japanese woman to get an Oscar nomination in 57 years. She proved her ability to act in action films in her role as the kickass Jaeger pilot Mako Mori in Pacific Rim, directed by Gulliermo del Toro. Another suitable choice would be Chiaki Kuriyama, whose extensive filmography includes titles like Battle Royale and both volumes of Kill Bill, in which she fought alongside Lucy Liu as the terrifying schoolgirl Gogo Yubari.

Rinko Kikuchi in Pacific Rim, which Esquire has apparently never heard of. 

This hearkens back to the fiasco that was the movie adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender. In the infamous butchering of the acclaimed Nickelodeon series, director M. Night Shyamalan crushed the dreams of brown kids around the world with a cast of lily white actors in the roles of characters from East Asian and Inuit-inspired cultures.

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When I say that the movie was dream-crushing, I speak from experience: I grew up watching Avatar, with Aang and co. as my first confirmation that you don’t have to be white to be a hero. In addition to being saddening and infuriating, the choice of white actors is also totally absurd. Think about it: Aang is his universe’s equivalent of a Tibetan monk. The protagonist of the Shyamalan adaptation, then, was a white Tibetan monk. Likewise, Katara and Sokka were essentially white Inuits.

Similarly, the choice of ScarJo as Motoko Kusanagi is not just racist, it’s utterly nonsensical. What white woman is named Motoko? The other characters pose a problem, too: will ScarJo be a beacon of whiteness in the midst of a group of Japanese sidekicks, or will other characters be whitewashed as well?

The anime series also critiqued the United States—which, in the series, had become the American Empire. When agents from the American Empire pay a visit to Section 9, the Major’s agency, they are portrayed as obnoxious, immoral characters who are totally nonplussed by a past massacre carried out by the American army. I wonder whether this critique will be part of a film that’s made for American audiences.

Just to clarify, racebending—changing a character’s race—isn’t always bad. Quvenzhané Wallis, for example, made a wonderful Annie. Casting a black actress like Wallis as Annie, a traditionally white character, gives black girls some much-needed media representation. The impact of inclusive representation cannot be minimized; when white images of beauty and power are the only ones present in media, it creates the impression that the rest of us can’t be beautiful and powerful, too. As I mentioned before, the multiethnic cast of Avatar: The Last Airbender empowered elementary/middle school me in a way few other shows have.

Furthermore, it is incredibly difficult for women of color to get lead roles in Hollywood movies. The “universal” heroine, according to the American movie industry, is white; meanwhile, people of color are stuck with small roles or none at all. The fact that women of color are left out of lead roles in most movies is bad enough, but to add insult to injury, even roles originally written for women of color go to white stars—like Scarlett Johansson—far too often.

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