by Maddie Levans
The whitewashing of Asian roles in Hollywood isn’t a new concept. From Holly Golightly’s Japanese landlord in Breakfast at Tiffany’s being played by Mickey Rooney, to Emma Stone being cast as a half-Chinese half-Polynesian fighter pilot in Aloha, more and more white actors are getting casted as Asian characters. This increasing lack of diversity in major motion pictures is raising red flags across all entertainment industries– and the problem is only getting worse.
In theaters now is the first live-action film adaptation of the Japanese Manga series, Ghost in the Shell, a supernatural, dystopian thriller based around the life of Major Motoko Kusanagi, a cyborg living in the futuristic city of Niihama, Japan.
The comic was adapted into various films, all animated, until this year. Rupert Sanders, an English director famous for his directorial debut Snow White and the Huntsman, decided to bring the comic to life- but there’s one major problem: Scarlett Johansson was cast as Major Motoko Kusanagi. Well, not Major Motoko the Kusanagi, actually.
The entire role has been changed to fit Johansson’s racial background, changing the character’s name to Mira instead of Motoko. Instead of hiring an Asian actress to play an Asian role, Hollywood decided to keep Johannson as the star of the film, advancing the ever-growing tide of whitewashing in the American film industry.
A similar manga series, Death Note, is being adapted into a Netflix original film, set to be release later this year. The plot follows Japanese teenager Light Yagami who finds a supernatural book that allows the owner to kill anyone whose name is written in its pages.
The whole storyline is changed, having the film be set in Seattle as opposed to Japan. Its main character’s name has been changed from Light Yagami to Light Turner in order to accommodate the ethnicity of Nat Wolff, the film’s star. Only two actors in the movie are actually of Asian descent, one of which only having a minor role as a waitress.
Constance Wu, star of the T.V program “Fresh off the Boat,” tweeted about Matt Damon’s role as the savior of China in the movie The Great Wall (2016), stating that “We have to stop perpetuating the racist myth that only a white man can save the world. It’s not based on actual fact.”
Casting white actors in roles made for and based on Asian characters is detrimental to the diversity of the film industry. Representation matters, and it’s about time that Hollywood learns that lesson.