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MinibarMatchman posted:if this movie's role is to be so loving bad that the american live-action Akira idea is finally put to death forever then I'm all for it Let us hope so, my friend, lest this travesty be in vain. Is there a seppuku emote? That might be appropriate for this thread.
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Apr 18, 2016 23:23
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HorseLord posted:No, the things that make GITS what it is are the things I mentioned. If "android police in cyberpunk land" was the entirety of it's high concept and cultural significance then it would not be Ghost In The Shell. Shakespeare's plays are definitely a product of Elizabethan England, and yet they've been translated into every language on Earth, and adapted and redefined and re-imagined into any cultural situation you could imagine. And yet no one (sensible) gets into a huff about that. GITS is no different. All that's at the core of it are android police in cyberpunk land. Everything else are subtleties that can be lost, or changed, or added to across adaptations. I mean, poo poo, GITS isn't even a monolithic whole in Japan, there are three distinct versions (maybe four? I've not seen Arise yet, I don't know how different it is). You could set this film in Neo New York or Neo London or Neo Paris or Neo Madrid or Neo Mogadishu, and you could still call it Ghost In The Shell and explore most of the same themes, and maybe some other new ones. Crain posted:Off the top of my head, and before heading out to work, I can't think of any other recent and notable examples. This GitS movie however is going the route of the lazy remake. You can easily do a western adaptation of GitS. I mean poo poo, someone else already posted the Wachowski's filmography and showed that they've basically been doing just that in all but name their whole career. A big part of GitS is the Ship of Theseus paradox. When does Major Kusanagi stop being human? Or does she? The idea of human augmentation and human essence is easily doable from a western perspective. You just have to replace the Japanese political theater with something else. And as with The Departed, that's totally doable as well. Do you have inside knowledge on this movie? As far as I know, all we know about this film is some of the cast, that one picture, and that brief plot synopsis which doesn't even say if the film is set in Japan or if ScarJo is playing a character called "Motoko Kusanagi". But you're completely writing it off based on...? Personally, the fact that Beat Takeshi is involved suggests to me that this won't be the cashgrab you've already decided it will be. Incidentally, have there been any examples of actual Japanese people in Japan being upset about this?
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Apr 19, 2016 00:00
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Comrade Fakename posted:Incidentally, have there been any examples of actual Japanese people in Japan being upset about this? http://www.gossipcop.com/ghost-in-shell-backlash-scarlett-johansson-whitewashing-japanese-character-asian-white-casting/ quote:A user with the handle @XavierDLeau offered, “If there’s any Japanese protestors out there protesting against Ghost in the Shell, know I stand with you.” If, he couldn't even be bothered to find out lol
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Apr 19, 2016 00:34
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Looking at the IMDB for the movie, I don't see how they can have it set in Neo Tokyo as agents for the Japanese Government. There's only like 4 East Asian actors listed. If I had to guess they're going to have Section 9 be part of some sort of Interpol/U.N. agency or at least move them to a more multicultural country than Japan. Though it does still raise the question of why ScarJo's Major is still sporting a Japanese name and why they were looking to CGI their cast Asian. Unless they're really playing up the post World War N world where Japan is just now regaining full autonomy and as a result has a metric poo poo ton of non-Japanese all over the place.
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Apr 19, 2016 00:34
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I want to watch the 1995 movie again now, should I look for the original version or go with the "2.0" version where they made it look more like Innocence?
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Apr 19, 2016 00:43
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Gyges posted:Looking at the IMDB for the movie, I don't see how they can have it set in Neo Tokyo as agents for the Japanese Government. There's only like 4 East Asian actors listed. If I had to guess they're going to have Section 9 be part of some sort of Interpol/U.N. agency or at least move them to a more multicultural country than Japan. Though it does still raise the question of why ScarJo's Major is still sporting a Japanese name and why they were looking to CGI their cast Asian. It's a thing in East Asia where people view whiteness as the ideal and looking more white is closer to perfection. So in a way it'd be incredibly ironic - here's this Japanese woman who's become the picture of perfection, yet in exchange she has to abandon most of what makes her human.
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Apr 19, 2016 00:45
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Gyges posted:Though it does still raise the question of why ScarJo's Major is still sporting a Japanese name and why they were looking to CGI their cast Asian. Has it been confirmed anywhere that ScarJo's character will actually be called "Motoko Kusanagi"? And as for the CGI asian thing, they said it was only going to be for a single character in a single scene or something. The story has ballooned out that they were going to CGI the entire cast into asians.
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Apr 19, 2016 01:08
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Comrade Fakename posted:
They have said that ScarJo is playing Motoko, but they are only referring to her as "The Major", according to one of the stories earlier. And as far as me writing it off: The main reason for that is that there is nothing here to give me a reason to assume otherwise. The director is a literal nobody with 1 major credit that was nothing more than fairy tale action movie. They went with a meaningless casting decision for the biggest role. At best they probably thought "Oh hey, it's a bad-rear end woman character. Just get that Black Widow Chick". Then they balked at that idea when they caught wind of people being upset for the standard white washing that hollywood does, but instead of anyone actually giving a poo poo they decided to try and use loving yellowface to make it better, so that they didn't have to worry about recasting anything and lose potentially both crowd draw and contract guarantees to the actors they're cutting loose. Not to mention any reshoots that potentially might need doing. I said it previously, but this is no one's passion project. Looking through the credits we have on IMDB, the only person actually connected to GitS is Masamune Shirow, which is a writing credit, and I don't really buy that he's been given any amount of real control and is probably listed as a writer only because he wrote the source material. The producers, aside from Mitsuhisa Ishkawa, is just a grab bag of financiers. But a lot of their future projects seem to be full of other anime adaptations so that is also a negative. Seeing these guys trying to make a western live action Naruto as well as a western live action GitS does not inspire confidence. It makes me think "Hmm, someone thinks this is going to be big easy money to just take a bunch of manga and make movies out of them". And as far as the story? I think it's just going to be bare minimum window dressing. You have a writer from Straight Outta Compton and the guy who wrote the screenplay for Street Kings (?). That doesn't inspire confidence. They're going to be given a list of characters, the outline of what GitS was or some mishmash of plot points, a demo reel of fight scenes and action CGI that's already done, and be told to glue it together. Probably with a dialogue and screen time minimum spreadsheet for the various actors/actresses. Ultimately: I'm just really cynical about this. But I'm sure it's going to look beautiful. I'm sure you're favorite who's playing Aramaki is going to play his role very well. I don't think it'll save anything since he's not being given any real creative control. He's just an actor. I'm sure the cinematography will also be pretty good. They got the guy who worked on Hot Fuzz. In the end, it's going to be a not bad summer action flick. But it's not going to be a good GitS live action movie. And I would have been way more alright with it if they hadn't tried to put people in CGI Yellowface. It's like, if you give me a Big Mac for lunch that's fine. I'll eat it. But don't then piss on it and expect me to evaluate it the same way.
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Apr 19, 2016 01:10
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Comrade Fakename posted:And as for the CGI asian thing, they said it was only going to be for a single character in a single scene or something. The story has ballooned out that they were going to CGI the entire cast into asians. Hmmm. It seems that there's some updates and the various studios and effects groups are now playing the PR game From the Screen Crush article posted:[UPDATE 4/18/16: Thomas Nittmann, VFX Producer and Managing Partner at Lola VFX told us an in an e-mail, “Lola was not / has not been contracted to do VFX work on the film Ghost in the Shell.”] So when I read it they were saying it was multiple actors and ScarJo, then they said it was just a "background" character. Now the VFX group is saying no work was contracted to them, but the Studio is still saying it was Lola. And Screen Crush says they stand by the initial report. I'll back track and say I hope this get's sorted out. I don't really want to hate on this movie something that didn't happen.
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Apr 19, 2016 01:15
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Crain posted:Hmmm. It seems that there's some updates and the various studios and effects groups are now playing the PR game Edit: I'll once again take the liberty of saying they're lying about Ghost in the Shell as well. They tried to digitally yellowface ScarJo. They're just covering their asses with a backup story and pretending the ScreenCrush report is wrong. Echo Chamber fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Apr 19, 2016 |
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Apr 19, 2016 01:24
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Crain posted:They have said that ScarJo is playing Motoko, but they are only referring to her as "The Major", according to one of the stories earlier. And as far as me writing it off: The main reason for that is that there is nothing here to give me a reason to assume otherwise. The director is a literal nobody with 1 major credit that was nothing more than fairy tale action movie. They went with a meaningless casting decision for the biggest role. At best they probably thought "Oh hey, it's a bad-rear end woman character. Just get that Black Widow Chick". Then they balked at that idea when they caught wind of people being upset for the standard white washing that hollywood does, but instead of anyone actually giving a poo poo they decided to try and use loving yellowface to make it better, so that they didn't have to worry about recasting anything and lose potentially both crowd draw and contract guarantees to the actors they're cutting loose. Not to mention any reshoots that potentially might need doing. It just seems like you're damning this film based on no information. Race aside, I think that Johannson is an excellent choice for Kusanagi - she's obviously got the action chops, and Under the Skin showed that she can give off a very otherworldly quality that would befit a cyborg. And beyond that it's not like the crew are famous for clunkers or anything. There's no reason to just assume they will be terrible. This CGI "asianing" thing has really been blown way out of proportion. What was a single CGI test for a single actor in a single scene has exploded into the fear that Hollywood will CGI entire casts asian so they can set films in the East without actually having to employ real asian actors. No one is trying to do this. We have no idea what story justification there would have been for this CGI scene: for instance, they could have had a scene where they show lots of copies of the Major's robot body, and show that they even come in various different ethnicities. So they would have to CGI an asian face that still looks recognisably like Scarlet Johannson. That seems pretty reasonable to me. And at any rate, are we in such a drought of outrage that we are now reduced to getting angry about poo poo that movie studios decided not to do now?
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Apr 19, 2016 01:46
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Comrade Fakename posted:It just seems like you're damning this film based on no information. Race aside, I think that Johannson is an excellent choice for Kusanagi - she's obviously got the action chops, and Under the Skin showed that she can give off a very otherworldly quality that would befit a cyborg. And beyond that it's not like the crew are famous for clunkers or anything. There's no reason to just assume they will be terrible. I didn't say it would be terrible. I said it'd be a mediocre, if pretty, action flick that would have been fine on it's own without slapping the GitS name to it. You seem to be optimistic about them making a good GitS movie and I'm pessimistic about them making a bad GitS movie, but otherwise bland action movie. And as echo chamber said: Paramount lies to protect their films. There is clearly a lot of cross talk going on between Lola VFX, Paramount back tracking to say it was just 1 actor, and the movie news sights saying a variety of other things.
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Apr 19, 2016 01:52
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Comrade Fakename posted:Incidentally, have there been any examples of actual Japanese people in Japan being upset about this? The issue isn't about Japanese people in Japan. It's about asian people in America. No one gives a poo poo about the casting of the live action Attack on Titan because Japan is 98% Japanese and the other 2% are mostly from other asian nations. America is much more diverse. Under the age of 5 we're already in a majority-minority situation. But the representation of that diversity is still incredibly skewed in the media we make, especially when it comes to lead roles. If asian performers are already having a hard time making it big, it becomes that much more frustrating when they see big roles get whitewashed.
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Apr 19, 2016 02:06
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computer parts posted:It's a thing in East Asia where people view whiteness as the ideal and looking more white is closer to perfection. So in a way it'd be incredibly ironic - here's this Japanese woman who's become the picture of perfection, yet in exchange she has to abandon most of what makes her human. I have absolutely no faith that this in anyway crossed anyone's mind. If it did though, it bodes well for the movie as a whole since that's the type of thinking that fits in with GITS. As for giving the studio the benefit of the doubt on the CGI Yellowface, no thank you. Yes, it is fairly easy to come up with a plausible explanation for a single scene. However given that the studio hasn't released any information on the setting or plot despite a fair bit out internet outrage there's no real reason to assume they're doing something different than all the other times they whitewashed a role. All they'd have to do is give a plausible reason for Scarlett Johansson to be playing a Motoko Kusinagi beyond "pshh, cyborg bodies, who cares?" and they've been consistent in not doing so.
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Apr 19, 2016 02:26
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Where were all these weird racial purity people when America made a Speed Racer movie with an all white main cast and even cast a Korean as the lone Asian character.
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Apr 19, 2016 02:33
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Guy Mann posted:Where were all these weird racial purity people when America made a Speed Racer movie with an all white main cast and even cast a Korean as the lone Asian character. One of the Wachowskis is transsexual so they get a pass from the tumblr crowd.
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Apr 19, 2016 02:37
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Alhazred posted:To be fair, if Lucy Liu is in a movie there's a good chance that it's bad. Counterpoint: The man with the Iron Fist, directed and starring RZA and Russel Crowe.
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Apr 19, 2016 02:39
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Guy Mann posted:Where were all these weird racial purity people when America made a Speed Racer movie with an all white main cast and even cast a Korean as the lone Asian character. Not really a direct corollary. Speed Racer is just ~~~****AnImE****~~~ without any setting to nail down race or ethnicity. While whitewashing is still bad in that case, it's not really as heavily tied to a Japanese identity. Plus that was (I feel old now) 8 years ago. A lot has changed by way of public discourse since then. If people did care there probably wasn't much posted because the internet was an even shittier place then. By the way: Why are you asking?
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Apr 19, 2016 02:42
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Crain posted:By the way: Why are you asking?
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Apr 19, 2016 02:45
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Crain posted:Not really a direct corollary. Speed Racer is just ~~~****AnImE****~~~ without any setting to nail down race or ethnicity. While whitewashing is still bad in that case, it's not really as heavily tied to a Japanese identity. Actually, the setting of Mach GoGoGo (マッハGoGoGo) is uniquely and explicitly Japanese because 
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Apr 19, 2016 02:48
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Guy Mann posted:Actually, the setting of Mach GoGoGo (マッハGoGoGo) is uniquely and explicitly Japanese because Nice meltdown. 
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Apr 19, 2016 02:54
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Echo Chamber posted:He wanted to compare critics of whitewashing to Nazis. Japan is the country that still classifies fictional characters by blood type based on disproven racial profiling pseudoscience from 50 years ago, if you want to compare anybody to Nazis it should be your precious japanese animes.
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Apr 19, 2016 02:59
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Guy Mann posted:Japan is the country that still classifies fictional characters by blood type based on disproven racial profiling pseudoscience from 50 years ago, if you want to compare anybody to Nazis it should be your precious japanese animes. I'm reading your power level...wait. This can't be right. No one has a level that high...
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Apr 19, 2016 03:34
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HookedOnChthonics posted:Agree the Wachowskis would make a gorgeous, singular movie out of these themes that would probably utterly fail wih both critics and general audiences. Sense8 is basically a 13-episode extended exercise in visually representing the exact types of mind-body divisions and distributed consciousness stuff GitS inhabits. Have you rewatched The Matrix in the last 10 years? They can not make good movies.
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Apr 19, 2016 03:40
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Tenzarin posted:Have you rewatched The Matrix in the last 10 years? They can not make good movies. The Matrix and Bound are both pretty good.
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Apr 19, 2016 04:00
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The Matrix is still awesome, don't be a grumpy gus In other news, the Japanese appreciate Sony Walkmans on a much deeper level than you:  
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Apr 19, 2016 04:05
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Whizbang posted:One of the Wachowskis is transsexual so they get a pass from the tumblr crowd. The other one just came out a couple weeks ago, so they're now The Wachowski Sisters.
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Apr 19, 2016 04:47
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Detective No. 27 posted:The other one just came out a couple weeks ago, so they're now The Wachowski Sisters. I think after about 2002 or so they just became the Wachowski Whatevers.
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Apr 19, 2016 05:31
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7c Nickel posted:The issue isn't about Japanese people in Japan. It's about asian people in America. No one gives a poo poo about the casting of the live action Attack on Titan because Japan is 98% Japanese and the other 2% are mostly from other asian nations. That's true, and I do wish that the debate would stick to this central, actually relevant point, instead of allowing outrage to spread into increasingly tenuous arguments around it - "Hollywood's trying to CGI out all asians!", "For some reason, changing the location of a fictional story is immoral now!" But while I can understand that it can be frustrating to see a character who's originally asian played by a white lady, it seems to me to be more an artifact of the adaption process. If GITS was Western, and Kusanagi was always Japanese-American, then there's no doubt that this would be terrible whitewashing. But since GITS was about a group of all Japanese people, in Japan, any adaptation for a Western audience was going to involve changing either the location or the characters or both. And in that instance, why shouldn't it be Kusanagi who changes, rather than, say Aramaki, who is being played by an actual Japanese person. So, while it's a pity that another big film is coming out without an asian lead, it seems odd to single out GITS for that.
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Apr 19, 2016 06:31
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Mae posted:Counterpoint: The man with the Iron Fist, directed and starring RZA and Russel Crowe. If anything that just proves my point.
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Apr 19, 2016 06:59
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Guy Mann posted:Japan is the country that still classifies fictional characters by blood type based on disproven racial profiling pseudoscience from 50 years ago, if you want to compare anybody to Nazis it should be your precious japanese animes. 
icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 15:05 on Apr 19, 2016 |
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Apr 19, 2016 10:53
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Clipperton posted:The Matrix is still awesome, don't be a grumpy gus I guess that's better than the "All Japanese popular culture is a deep reflection on Japan's reckoning with WW2 history and its deep psychological scarring as a nation" thing people do icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 15:05 on Apr 19, 2016 |
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Apr 19, 2016 10:59
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Comrade Fakename posted:That's true, and I do wish that the debate would stick to this central, actually relevant point, instead of allowing outrage to spread into increasingly tenuous arguments around it - "Hollywood's trying to CGI out all asians!", "For some reason, changing the location of a fictional story is immoral now!" I don't think GITS is being singled out, honestly. The discourse on media representation has become a lot more public and widespread in the last five or so years, and this discussion happens pretty much every time any reasonably large media property whitewashes roles or perpetuates racist ideas instead of taking an opportunity to push for change. It was literally happening last week with Doctor Strange. If it seems like it's being singled out, it's usually just because smaller media properties receive less notice, so you're less likely to hear the stink being kicked up about them.
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Apr 19, 2016 11:05
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Comrade Fakename posted:That's true, and I do wish that the debate would stick to this central, actually relevant point, instead of allowing outrage to spread into increasingly tenuous arguments around it - "Hollywood's trying to CGI out all asians!", "For some reason, changing the location of a fictional story is immoral now!" I agree. It is sort of bizarre seeing Korean and Chinese Americans come out of the woodwork claiming postwar Japanese media as their own. Literally endorsing Pan-Asianism with Japan at the helm, somehow completely ignoring the context of that entirely I'm not sure why it's any more racist to not cast Asians in this than it is to not cast Asians in any other Hollywood movie icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 11:18 on Apr 19, 2016 |
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Apr 19, 2016 11:11
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So are critics of the whitewashing actually pan-Asian whitewashers or Japanese supremacists? What's the story now for this film's defenders? Have you ever thought maybe it's a matter of "if it looks like whitewashing, and if sounds like whitewashing..." If digital yellowface tests aren't, I don't know what is.
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Apr 19, 2016 11:42
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Comrade Fakename posted:, it seems odd to single out GITS for that. icantfindaname posted:
Yeah, why is an adaptation of a seminal Japanese work that turns out to have tried to CGI in Asianness being singled out? It's so random.
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Apr 19, 2016 12:52
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And again: it's not being singled out for whitewashing, it's being singled out for (maybe?) using cgi yellowface. There are plenty of recent examples of people speaking out against Hollywood whitewashing roles/stories, and not even exclusively in regards to Asian roles. Someone else already mentioned Aloha, where they decided that Emma Stone of all people could pass for half Hawaiian half Japanese. There's Tilda Swinton playing a vaguely Asian super monk in Dr. Strange. Then last year or so we saw people speaking out against Stonewall and Suffragette. Which were supposed to be historical dramas that decided to invent white characters who didn't exist, or who weren't the main focal character in reality, for the leading roles. So if you're thinking this is a one off and the detractors are only complaining because of some vague Pan-Asian sentiment or just because "muh anime" then you're not paying attention.
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Apr 19, 2016 13:20
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I'm not even upset about the white washing. I'm baffled by the thought process that ended up with them exploring CGI Asians because Asians were unsafe. If the goal is getting asses in seats, and more asses fill more seats when there's a white actor instead of an Asian actor, why turn the white actor Asian? Isn't that the same thing? Assuming the CGI is good enough that you'd go ahead with this ridiculous stunt in the first place, are the unwashed masses going to know the difference... I... I am lost for words. It's a dumb idea on so many levels. Attack on Princess fucked around with this message at 13:58 on Apr 19, 2016 |
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Apr 19, 2016 13:56
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Crain posted:So if you're thinking this is a one off and the detractors are only complaining because of some vague Pan-Asian sentiment or just because "muh anime" then you're not paying attention. I think it's more that while there are excellent arguments against whitewashing, there are also a lot of stupid arguments against it ("only the noble Nipponese can truly know what it is to drive a Honda Accord") and in the case of GITS the stupid arguments are particularly prominent because anime Donnerberg posted:I'm not even upset about the white washing. I'm baffled by the thought process that ended up with them exploring CGI Asians because Asians were unsafe. Friendly reminder that we don't even know what the in-story reason for it was yet!
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Apr 19, 2016 14:09
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Echo Chamber posted:So are critics of the whitewashing actually pan-Asian whitewashers or Japanese supremacists? What's the story now for this film's defenders? Clipperton posted:I think it's more that while there are excellent arguments against whitewashing, there are also a lot of stupid arguments against it ("only the noble Nipponese can truly know what it is to drive a Honda Accord") and in the case of GITS the stupid arguments are particularly prominent because anime That twitter guy's argument is especially hilarious because the opinion of the Japanese left, people like Miyazaki, etc, has always been that technology and industry are terrible because of their intimate connection to the WW2 era Japanese military-industrial complex. The entire point of Akira is that cyberpunk Japan is evil and that the technology is a monster that is sacrificing the Japanese people on an altar of authoritarian military-industry So yeah, he is actually implicitly endorsing the worldview of the Japanese right by saying that cyberpunk land is the true essence of Japanese-ness and by extension Asian-ness icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 14:19 on Apr 19, 2016 |
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Apr 19, 2016 14:14
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