White-washing and ‘Ghost in the Shell’
An Essay, April 27, 2018
The opening sequence of the 2017 version of Ghost in the Shell (wr. Jamie Moss, William Wheeler and Ehren Kruger/dir. Rupert Sanders) is a beautiful series of shots depicting the creation of the android called The Major (played by Scarlett Johansson). Visually stunning, it takes all the ground-breaking imagery from the 1995 Manga film and faithfully enhances it in the way only modern visual effects can render. In almost any other context, the artistry of this visual sequence would have been an easy hook for anyone who paid to see this film. It perfectly illustrates the artificiality of her creation. This creature wasn’t born, she was manufactured.
“I guess cyborgs like myself have a tendency to be paranoid about our origins.”
– The Major/Motoko Kusanagi (Atsuko Tanaka/Mimi Woods)
But the sequence had a nagging familiarity about it that detracted from its impact. Modern audiences couldn’t help but wonder: Where have I seen that before? Did the filmmakers steal that idea from somewhere? Of course, you have seen a lot of it before, despite the breathtaking originality of the sequence. You’ve seen bits of it in films like the Matrix (wr./dir. the Wachowski brothers) and Avatar (wr./dir James Cameron). And in television shows like HBO’s Westworld (created by Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan) and Sci-Fi Channel’s Battlestar Galactica (created by Glen A. Larson and Ronald D. Moore).
The appropriation of images and story from “Ghost in the Shell” is hardly unique, of course. There is a along tradition of English language remakes of Asian films and books going back decades. Who isn’t aware of the many English language remakes of Godzilla, based on the original cult classic Japanese films beginning with Gōjira (wr./dir Ishiro Honda) in 1954? And there is 1960’s The Magnificent Seven (wr. William Roberts/dir. John Sturgess), which was a remake of Seven Samuari (wr. Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, and Hideo Oguni/dir. Akira Kurosawa). More recently, there was The Departed (wr. William Monahan/dir. Martin Scorcese), based on Internal Affairs (wr. Felix Chong and Alan Maki/dir. Andrew Lau and Alan Maki). Edge of Tomorrow (wr. Jez And John-Henry Butterworth and Christopher McQuarrie /dir.Doug Liman) was based on the Japanese young-adult illustrated novel “All You Need Is Kill” by Hiroshi Sakurazaka.
But, at least many of these writers and filmmakers were given credit for their work. There are many instances where the original Asian film makers are denied any credit. American filmmakers have been the perpetrator of this cultural appropriation for many decades, ripping off most of their ‘original’ ideas from Asian Cinema. For instance, Black Swan (wr. Mark Heyman, Andres Heinz and John McLaughlin/dir. Darren Aronofsky) was “unconsciously” lifted from the Anime “Perfect Blue” (wr. Sadayuki Murai/dir. Satoshi Kon). This also applies to television, of course.
But none was more guilty of outright theft than The Matrix (wr./dir. The Wachowski brothers). From the dark, moody claustrophobia of the rainy streets, to the plugs in the back of the neck, to the machine gun fire destroying the columns in the lobby elevator scene, the list is endless. And then there was the utilization of the iconic green text “rain”, which was originally in the opening sequence for Ghost in the Shell. This couldn’t be used in the remake because it would have infringed on the copyright of the Wachowski brothers’ (sisters?) highly profitable franchise.(1) Their deficit of original ideas has been shown most clearly in their subsequent movies, both sequels and “originals”, that never came close to the originality of the ideas they lifted from cyberpunk Anime like Ghost in the Shell.
“My name is Major, and I do not give my consent.”
— The Major (Scarlett Johansson)
The filmmakers held nothing back in the 2017 remake of Ghost in the Shell. Director Rupert Sanders has a limited but solid resume in the director’s chair and he handled the action sequences and the emotional scenes with equal competence. The photography of the movie was top rate, with Jess Hall’s solid cinematography supplemented by augmented digital environments provided by the world renowned Weta Workshops set up by director Peter Jackson for the Lord of the Rings films. Supervising the look of the film was Production Designer Jan Roelfs, who also designed shows of such variety as Gattaca (wr./dir. Andrew Niccol) and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (wr./dir. Peter Greenaway)
The original 1995 Anime version of Ghost in the Shell (wr. Kazunori Itô /dir. Mamoru Oshii) (2) was based on a long-running Manga graphic novel written by Shirow Masamune and serialized in magazines between 1989 and 1991. The Manga comics was heavily influenced by European artists like Enki Bilal (Enes Bilalović) and Moebius (Jean Giraud), combining them with traditional Manga to give a harder edge. This certainly went both ways, with Manga heavily influencing the European ‘Heavy Metal’ style. This cross-pollination created what we call the ‘cyberpunk’ look and it was elaborated on for the look of the film’s characters, as well as the cityscapes of Hong Kong and Kobe. (3)
Ghost in the Shell was the first Anime released worldwide at the same time as it was in Japan. It was followed by two sequels, Ghost in the Shell: Innocence in 2002 (wr./dir. Mamoru Oshii) and Ghost in the Shell: Arise (wr. Tow Ubukata, dir. Kazuya Nomura) Also, a 2002 television series based on the manga comic books ran on Japanese television called “Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex”(wr./dir. Kenji Kamiyama).
In the 1995 original, director Mamoru Oshii and screenwriter Kazunori Itô were able to successfully distill the rambling, complex story of Shirow’s books into a coherent narrative that was able to comment meaningfully on the intrusion of technology into our minds and bodies.
“That’s all it is: information. Even a simulated experience or a dream; simultaneous reality and fantasy. Any way you look at it, all the information that a person accumulates in a lifetime is just a drop in the bucket..”
–- Batô/Batou (Akio Ôtsuka/Richard Epcar)
In retrospect, the ‘Hollywood’ remake of Ghost in the Shell might seem like it was doomed to fail. The perception that the remake was overly derivative was only part of the reason for the tepid box office reception for the film. Too many superhero movies had trodden the same ground. Too many movies about artificial intelligence androids running amok. Too many super-cops. Too many car chases. Too much gunplay. Too much strict adherence to the long-discredited Joseph Campbell hero myth guidelines. (4) Even visually, Ghost in the Shell had the appearance of unoriginality, despite it being the source material for many of the ‘original’ American films it has been unfairly compared to. Given the exceptional standards for originality of the Anime, there was a high bar set for the remake, and in some ways there was just no way to achieve anything remotely as novel.
In addition to all that, Ghost in the Shell also had everything that you’re not supposed to have in a film aimed at young American males: It had a female hero. It had existential discussions about life and death, self-worth and loyalty. It questioned the use of violence to solve problems. The United States hardly factors into the story. The movie is set in Asia, with ethnically diverse heroes who are all based there. It never tries to hide this fact, even celebrating it. (5)
But it was the bad publicity surrounding the accusation of ‘whitewashing’ that probably limited the prospect of the film’s success. An Asian co-worker challenged me for not boycotting the film because the lead character, the Major, was not played by an Asian actor. Now, he had every right to complain, since the “Americanization” of Asian films usually meant ‘whitewashing’, a term used to describe the process of recasting Asian characters with American (ie: Caucasian) actors. The most famous recent case of this is the controversy concerning the casting of Emma Stone as Allison Ng, a Chinese-Americancharacter in the 2015 film version of “Aloha” (wr./dir. Cameron Crowe). It caused such a backlash that the film never really recovered and it ended up tanking at the box office.
The instance of whitewashing that I remember best when I was growing up was the casting of David Carradine as the lead in the brilliant 1970’s martial arts/western mash-up “Kung Fu” (created by Ed Spielman and Herman Miller) which had been written and conceived for Bruce Lee. But the networks determined the American public would never connect with an Asian lead character. (6)
If there was any actual ‘whitewashing’ in Ghost in the Shell it was confined to Dr. Ouelet (played by Juliette Binouche), whose character is an old Japanese man in the Manga. The director indicated that change was his decision, feeling the character would feel more maternal toward The Major. But that didn’t really explain the ‘whitewashing,’ since he didn’t venture to explain exactly why the character had to be Caucasian.
And then there were some outright dumb things that only fed into the perception of whitewashing. For instance, the tombstone for Motoko Kusanagi, the teenager who ‘donated’ her brain the Major, is written in romaji (Roman characters), instead of Japanese Katakana letter forms. There’s no logical reason why a grieving Japanese mother would inscribe her lost daughters name in romaji. For the filmmakers to go so far as to Anglicize Motoko’s name was just asking for it. Especially since a subtitle would have sufficed.
Now, I know Scarlett Johansson is not even remotely Asian looking. (7) But the thing is that the character she is playing, by outward appearance, is not Asian either. And she is clearly identified as Mira Killian, not Motoko Kusanagi. The Major is the result of what is called a ‘cerebral salvage’ where the brain of a real human was used as a starting point to create an enhanced intelligence in the experimental android called The Major. Where most of the other characters are cyborgs (mechanically enhanced humans), the Major is an android, a generic ‘shell.” a built-from-scratch experiment in human/machine integration.
The Project, called 2571 in the movie, and 2501 in the Anime, was funded by the anti-terrorism division of the Japanese government (called Division 9) and implemented by a private company. The Major is unique in that a real human brain was used as part of her construction and we only find out in then end that the salvaged brain of the character is actually Japanese.
The Major was never represented physically as Asian, even in the original Manga comic books. Her oversized blue eyes, as drawn masterfully by Masamune Shirow, were no accident. Her ‘shell’ was manufactured with the expressed purpose of being racially ‘neutral’, as were most of the other shells in the film. The other shell depicted in the original Anime film (occupied by the Puppetmaster) is as blond-haired and blue-eyed as any American male fantasy of a voluptuous Swedish stewardess. If the shells were meant to look Japanese, I think they would have been drawn that way. Clearly, the intent was to suggest that the shells were provided by an American or European manufacturer.
“It feels like — there’s always this thick fog over my memory and I can’t see through it.”
— The Major (Scarlett Johansson)
In the story line, the Major cannot remember her past due to the fact that the anti-rejection drugs she takes for her brain implants also repress her memories of who she really is. But certain memories intrude, including a pagoda Motoko Kusanagi hid away in as a teenage runaway. She only vaguely becomes aware of her Japanese heritage as the movie progresses, and has no idea how she came to be until quite late in the film. She goes on a quest to discover ‘who she really is’, a singular European obsession that doesn’t really mesh with the Asian philosophy of the original. She discovers her real name is Motoko Kusanagi, not Mira Killian and that her parents being killed by terrorists was a lie and her mother is still alive.
In the Anime, The Major encounters the ‘ghost’ inside a purely mechanical AI that should have no ‘ghost’. This ghost offers to merge with her and provide her with the knowledge of the universe. Her origins as a Japanese teenager are incidental.
“You don’t know how alone that makes me feel.”
— The Major (Scarlett Johansson)
Scarlett Johannsen unfairly bore the brunt of the backlash, despite the fact that she was a near perfect bit of casting based on the source material. As you can see in the comparison photo, the resemblance was uncanny. As was the character of her partner, Batou, (played pitch perfect by Pilou Asbæk).
The backlash against the alleged whitewashing forced Ms. Johansson and the director to defend themselves against this accusation of racism when there was no racism to begin with based on the source material. The publicity department at Paramount was given the choice of enduring the controversy or defending the film by revealing the climax of their very expensive movie before anyone actually saw it. Spoilers for these types of movies are already hard enough to keep quiet.
This is why I believe that in the particular case of the remake of Ghost in the Shell, term ‘whitewashing’ was unfairly applied. Ghost in the Shell, and the Manga on which it was based, has been ripped off with impunity by Hollywood, so it’s ironic that this is the film that has been singled out as white-washing. It’s clear that the original filmmakers were more than comfortable with the rebooting of their project in this manner. I find it highly unlikely that anyone in Japan found the movie ‘culturally insensitive’ or was a case of ‘cultural appropriation’.
I firmly believe the accusations of ‘whitewashing’ were the result of the amplification of just a few voices of people who had never seen the original film, let alone the remake. While the film did make its money back, the unfair controversy prevented any chance of a franchise sequel.
“When we see our uniqueness as a virtue, only then will we find peace.”
— Aramaki (Takeshi Kitano)
Even without the whitewashing controversy, there were changes to the tone and story of the film that could have only been seen as a betrayal by the fans of the original Anime. The most significant, and questionable, change made to the original story was the replacement of the Puppetmaster story-line with the character of Kuze (played with glitchy eccentricity by Michael Pitt). Kuse is actually a character from the Anime television series, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. Kuze, also now living inside a shell like the Major, was Motoko Kusanagi’s boyfriend and fellow anarchist before she was killed and her brain was salvaged and inserted into the shell that became The Major.
This change in the story-line might have been a misguided attempt at a love story, substituting this tired trope for the Major’s philosophical awakening in her interaction with the Puppetmaster in the Anime. And it made Kuse’s request to ‘merge’ with the Major end up having a weird sexual connotation that just wasn’t there in the original film. The Puppetmaster story from the Anime made more sense, where the synthetic ‘ghost’ that developed from the network offered to reveal to her its God-like perspective of the world, including the entire history of her origins. This would have been a far more interesting and tempting prospect for The Major than android sex with an old boyfriend. Haven’t female characters earned the right not to have to look to a man to find fulfillment? Thankfully, the writers had the good sense to have The Major refuse Kuse’s offer to merge.
“I guess once you start doubting, there’s no end to it.”
-– Batô/Batou (Akio Ôtsuka/Richard Epcar)
I suppose it was inevitable that the filmmakers would be unable to resist trying to ‘improve’ the story in a remake, and they do this knowing full well that the established fan base for the original are going to take a dim view of anyone screwing with their favorite movie. The assumption is made that die-hard fans will accept almost anything to see their favorite show given the full Hollywood treatment. But as JJ Abrams found out with the 2009 reboot of Star Trek (wr. Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman/ dir. JJ Abrams), that only takes you so far. The self-contradictory nature of this impulse has always led to the alienation of the very fans who were supposed to pay for multiple viewings at the theatre.
“Don’t send a rabbit to kill a fox.”
— Aramaki (Takeshi Kitano)
Now, for the most part the writers resisted changing the overall story radically, but what they did change shifted the tone so much it was hardly recognizable. The screenplay, by Jamie Moss, William Wheeler and Ehren Kruger, is adequate but uneven. It was unfortunate that the filmmakers felt it was necessary for one of the characters to explain what the title of the movie meant right at the beginning. It didn’t bode well for the rest of the movie if they felt such expository dialogue was necessary. Trust me, the fans of the original don’t need to have this explained to them. And anyone new to the story could easily have figured it out by the end. It’s exactly this kind of pandering to the least intelligent member of the audience that makes these kind of movies so hard to watch. If anyone in the audience needs to have this explained to them, there is absolutely no chance they are coming back for a second or third viewing.
It appears, in the interest of maintaining the momentum of the action scenes, much of the character scenes were cut down to the point where they hardly made any sense. With awkward transitions between the action sequences and the dialogue-heavy quieter scenes, this lent a certain frantic note to the introspective dialogue that made it difficult to engage emotionally. Exactly how was an audience member supposed to connect with these characters? I would have thought film makers would have learned that relentless momentum is exhausting, and good stories need to give the audience a real break. For example, the scene in the boat in Hong Kong harbour is three times longer in the Anime than in the remake, but it works better. The same can be said for pandering to the lowest level of emotional intelligence in the audience. Every producer will tell you that a movie must connect emotionally with the audience, and yet, when they feel the roller-coaster slow down for even a second, their first instinct is to cut the slow, emotional scenes that make the audience care about the characters. Adding to that, Ms. Johansson’s choice to play The Major with the trope of deep emotionless seriousness didn’t serve the story in the least, in fact it detracted from it considerably. She chose to eliminate much of the cheeky playfulness and comradery of the original, which had a subtle sense of dark humour missing from the remake. (8)
“I’m just here to fish. Did you see any?”
— Batou (Pilou Asbæk)
I would have thought the first thing a manufacturer would think of when creating an artificial human would be to program their androids with human characteristic like humour or sarcasm. The Major being an android didn’t dictate the emotionless monotone that seems to have become the go-to characterization for Androids. In the original Anime, the director chose a more subtle, and more visual, option by showing the character as vibrantly human, but giving hints of her true mechanical nature by not having The Major blink even once during the movie. For a master class in what an actor can do to make a cold, emotionless character come alive, you need only look to the original of such characters, Mr. Spock himself. Leonard Nimoy could do more with the subtle movement of an eyebrow than most actors can do with their entire body. No other actor playing a Vulcan has come close.
“Everyone around me seems to fit. They seem connected to something, I am… not.”
— The Major (Scarlett Johansson)
T
he Anime was about enlightenment and transcendence, not a quest for self-fulfillment. The search for self-fulfillment and self-discovery in the remake is unlike the Japanese philosophy of the source material. And it wasn’t just Asian philosophy that was referenced. There were also many biblical references in the Anime, like the Major’s reference to “putting aside childish things” and referencing her obscured memories as if they were in a ‘mirror darkly.’
But the fact is that many in the production end of film making see the philosophy and the emotion as being secondary, tangential to the ‘hero’s journey’ style of story telling of Joseph Campbell. It’s a mistake many American movies make these days, fearing their audience is too cynical to accept genuine thought or emotion, when in fact they are begging for it. None of the elaborate imagery of the original stories has any effect without the emotion and the philosophy behind them. If you cut out the philosophy and the emotion, the imagery falls apart.
A lot of the exploration of this philosophy and morality was replaced by unnecessary action sequences like the superfluous Yakuza bar fight. I would have cut that completely, or used it in a sequel once the characters were established. The other action scenes were more than enough eye candy. I would have focused on Major’s reconciliation of her origins. Or taken more time exploring The Major’s humanity. Or Batou’s infatuation with her. Or any of the other half-dozen themes running through the original Anime. With Ghost in the Shell, maybe that was the problem. With so many philosophical threads to choose from in the source material, the filmmakers may have found it hard to settle on just one. (9)
“Can you offer me proof of your existence? How can you, when neither modern science nor philosophy can explain what life is?”
– Puppet Master (Tom Wyner)
I could make the argument that a more obvious philosophical theme might have diffused the ‘whitewashing’ controversy all together: the assimilation of most of the world’s cultures into American culture. The Major was the personification of this, literally an Asian mind trapped inside a Caucasian ‘shell’. I see the much heralded movie Black Panther (wr. Ryan Coogler And Joe Robert Cole /dir. Ryan Coogler) as a symptom of this very problem. It isn’t enough to depict African culture, it has to be trivialized as a childish superhero movie in order for it to be acceptable for American audiences. I see it as just another form of racism. Most Africans don’t live in mud and grass huts. In comparison, Ghost in the Shell is the least offensive when it comes to cultural appropriation.
“All things change in a dynamic environment. Your effort to remain what you are is what limits you.”
– Puppet Master (Tom Wyner)
Ghost in the Shell could have been a story about how American culture and technology is literally devouring diversity worldwide. It would have made for a much better film, even if American audiences might take offense. It could have been a story of an inductee into the cult of violence who decides she doesn’t want to do that any more. But her very existence depends on continuing to follow the rules. Like most of humanity, she’s trapped in a situation where she is forced to do something she hates in order to make a living. And if there’s anything Americans don’t want to hear is the need to be awakened from their cult of violence.
Despite its many flaws, I really enjoyed this movie, but like many of us guilty white men, I was made to feel bad for admitting this. I was told I should have been offended by people who had not seen the movie, or the original Anime (or the Manga before that). Though Ghost in the Shell wasn’t the most original movie out there, I will persist in inviting people to watch it. It’s hard to think of anything equaling the sheer visual novelty of the set pieces, like the Geisha assault sequence or and the shallow-water fight sequence with Skinny Man (played by the transformative Daniel Henshall). (10) Or the use of digital technology to create congested city escapes familiar to Asians but not so much for American audiences.
And if the visuals aren’t enough, I recommend watching it as an introduction to the original material, for no other reason than to see why this kind of Asian cinema was worth stealing from in the first place.
***
(1) – Such is the state of international copyright laws, where the difference between ‘inspired by’ and ‘stolen from’ is determined by the size and prestige of the law firms involved.
(2) – Called Kôkaku Kidôtai or “Mobile Armored Riot Police: Ghost in the Shell” in Japan when it was released.
(3) – Not Tokyo, as many assume.
(4) – Possibly the most compelling idea behind the Anime version of the Major’s ‘hero journey’ is that she does not want to be a hero, even at the end. Her journey was to enlightenment, not saving the world as it exists. She’s forced to be a hero or her warranty would expire. Deal with that, Professor Campbell.
(5) – That in itself was refreshing. District 9 (wr. Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell/dir. Neill Blomkamp) had the same feeling of freshness that Blomkamp has never been able to replicate in his films set in America.
(6) – Given the state of racism at the time, they were probably right in that assessment, even considering Bruce Lee’s popularity.
(7) – Her name suggests she’s of Swedish descent, which is as far from Asian you could possibly get, I suppose.
(8) – I find most of these Marvel-type movies so damn serious they’re tedious. Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy was the worst of them. This is from a person who LOVES anything Christopher Nolan makes — that doesn’t involve Matthew McConaughey, of course.
(9) – They may have thought of exploring these themes more in sequels, but now it seems there isn’t likely to be any.
(10) – It was too bad they never thought to develop his character a bit more. His story in the original Anime, though brief, was heartbreaking. Another instance of replacing heart with meaningless action.
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