Another egregious case of Hollywood whitewashing a person of color

Scarlett Johansson (right) is signed on to play Motoko Kusanigi (left):
 female, check; action hero, check; looks good in black, check; Japanese ... uh, oh!

HERE WE GO AGAIN! 

Last Spring, director/producer Cameron Crowe got lambasted for yellow-facing by casting Emma Stone as a part-Hawaiian, part-Chinese, part-haole character in his movie Aloha. The blonde, freckled, light-skinned actress couldn't convince the audience of her mixed racial heritage. 

In another case of whitewashing, Scarlett Johnasson is being cast as Motoko Kusanigi in the American remake of Masamuni Shirow's anime classic Ghost in the Shell, due to start filming the first quarter of 2016.

It appears that a petition to replace Johansson is being ignored by Dreamworks. Forbes has recently reported that the studio has already made arrangements with Paramount Pictures to co-finance the American big screen adaptation of the cartoon epic "Ghost in the Shell."

The character, Major Motoko Kusanigi, is a cyborg detective who works cybercrime cases. The production company still has the film set in dystopian Japan and cast the rest of the characters as Japanese. The biggest change is the ethnicity of the lead character.

Aren't there enough roles asking for white actresses that Asian actresses cannot auction for? When one of the few roles written for an Asian actress comes around, Hollywood finds it easy to change it by yellow-face casting. Are they going to tape her eyes back and make her wear buck teeth too ala Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's?

Johansson must have impressed Dreamworks honcho Steven Spielberg with her work in Lucy, in which she plays a robot, or her voice in Her, in which she is the disembodied voice for a computer.  

The cartoon character to be
played by Scarlett Johansson
is Japanese.

I get it. Any movie with Johansson is probably going to have big box office appeal. I probably would have less objection to the project if they just took the storyline and set it in an American setting, much like what was done with Magnificent Seven, a takeoff on the Kurosawa classic Seven Samurai.

But to stay true to the original setting and characters in Japan then throw out all pretense by casting Johansson - well, its just so jarring ... and wrong on a number of fronts.

Ghost in the Shell was originally a Japanese manga, a style of Japanese comic books and graphic novels aimed at adults as well as children.

The storyline focuses on Section 9, a branch of the Japanese National Public Safety Commission which combats cybercrime and cyberterrorism under the command of purple-haired, bi-sexual cyborg Commander Motoko Kusanagi.

Section 9 is populated by crime fighters with cybernetic implants while Kusanagi has entirely replaced her human body with one that is fully artificial.

The petition reads:

"Fans of the iconic 1995 animated Japanese sci-fi film Ghost in the Shell have been anticipating a live-action remake for years -- but now, instead of casting an Asian actress, Dreamworks has selected Scarlett Johansson for the lead role! The film revolves around Major Motoko Kusanagi, a member of a futuristic security force tasked with tracking a mysterious hacker.

"The original film is set in Japan, and the major cast members are Japanese. So why would the American remake star a white actress? The industry is already unfriendly to Asian actors without roles in major films being changed to exclude them. One recent survey found that in 2013, Asian characters made up only 4.4% of speaking roles in top-grossing Hollywood films.

"Dreamworks could be using this film to help provide opportunities for Asian-American actors in a market with few opportunities for them to shine -- please sign the petition asking them to reconsider casting Scarlett Johansson in Ghost in the Shell and select actors who are truer to the cast of the original film!"

If you would like to add your name to the petition, go to care2 petitions.  

At least Crowe saw the error of his casting for Aloha and he issued an apology to his critics. Even Emma Stone is a bit embarrassed for her role in the miscasting. 

RELATED: Why 'Aloha' means 'forget it!"

“I’ve become the butt of many jokes,” says 27-year-old Stone. 

“I’ve learned on a macro level about the insane history of whitewashing in Hollywood and how prevalent the problem truly is. It’s ignited a conversation that’s very important,” she acknowledges.

If only Johansson and Dreamworks head Spielberg, both purportedly part of Hollywood's liberal community and whom you would expect would be sensitive to the complaint of whitewashing, can understand the conversation referred to by Stone, and learn from that message.

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