Why Scarlett Johansson for Japanese cyborg?
Tilda Swinton(top) from "The Chronicles of Narnia" and Ancient One from "Doctor Strange"
By Ko Dong-hwan
Some new American film remakes have been criticized for apparently “whitewashing” ― hiring white actors for nonwhite roles.
The latest example of Hollywood producers’ favoritism of white actors has focused on American superhero film “Doctor Strange.” Scheduled for theater release in November, the film about a Marvel Comics character of the same name features Anglo-Scottish actress Tilda Swinton as “Ancient One,” a male mystic sorcerer from Tibet.
“Ghost in the Shell,” a film coming to theaters next year, based on a Japanese manga and animation franchise of the same title that started in 1995, has also drawn criticism. Major Motoko Kusanagi, a cyborg field commander for the Japanese public security force, is played by American actress Scarlett Johansson. She wears special makeup to augment a Japanese look.
Keith Chow, the founder of pop culture website “The Nerds of Color” and an editor of Asian-American comics anthologies, questioned the U.S. film powerhouse through a New York Times column on April 22 titled “Why won’t Hollywood cast Asian actors?”
“This one-two punch of white actors playing Asian characters showed how invisible Asian-Americans continue to be in Hollywood,” Chow said. “Why is the erasure of Asians still an acceptable practice in Hollywood?”
Scarlett Johansson(top) from "Don Jon" and Motoko Kusanagi from "Ghost in the Shell"
Hollywood’s whitewashing has replaced the roles of Native Americans in “Pan” (2015) and “The Lone Ranger” (2013), Egyptians in “Gods of Egypt” (2016) and “Exodus: Gods and Kings” (2014), Asian villain Rita Repulsa from the “Power Rangers” remake and a Chinese-Hawaiian character from “Aloha.”
Screenwriter Max Landis was quoted in Chow’s column as saying there are “no A-list female Asian celebrities right now on an international level” and blamed people for “not understanding how the industry works.” But Chow denies this, saying nonwhite actors ― crew from the “Fast and Furious” franchise as well as John Cho and Kal Penn from the “Harold and Kumar” trilogy ― have proved they can have ticket power and generate higher investment returns for studios and producers.
Experts said African-Americans and Asians have experienced whitewashing of their roles for as long as the industry has existed.