Our entite class watched the 2017 remake of Ghost in the Shell, a Japanese sci-fi anime from 1995 about the fusion of humans and robots to create cybernetic super humans. The film instantly showed a mixture of the Matrix and Blade Runner with the dark aesthetic, powerful visuals and dramatic slow motion fight scenes. The dominant female badass role reminded me of Kill Bill and the darkness of the film had Tarentino like qualities. However, this movie took mainstream media by storm with its controversial casting of predominantly white actors along with strange dialogue and an unconvincing plot. For instance, famous Japanese actor Beat Takeshi had the only Japanese speaking role while main actress Scarlett Jo (Major) and other supporting cast spoke English. I have never seen the original, Ive only watched the remake one time. I plan to watch both versions mutiple times and analyze this controversy deeper by comparing other texts and media that portray “whitewashing”.
Ex. Japanese roles were significantly demoralized by dominantly white cast (goons, poor housemaids, prostitutes) vs. (elite doctors, CEOs, military generals)