The Ghost of Whitewashing in Hollywood
How Hollywood adaptation of Ghost in the Shell shows the pale effects of whitewashing in media today.
On March 31, 2017 a Hollywood adaptation of the iconic Japanese manga series Ghost in the Shell originally written and illustrated by Masamune Shirow premiered in movie theaters all across the nation featuring actress Scarlett Johansson as the main character. Since the release of the original manga in 1989, the obvious success of the series can be measured in the multiple video games, TV series and animations created in the following years. It is no wonder that the series has accumulated a large fan base and positive reactions from readers and viewers alike because of the fascinating nature of the storyline. Ghost in the Shell is a fictional tale that takes place in a city in futuristic Japan where Public Security Section 9, an intelligence department not controlled by the government, aim to counter issues such as terrorism and criminal activity in the country. Taking place in a time where intelligence is extremely advanced, Ghost in the Shell provides a window into a possible future where humans and technology co-exist within each other as the idea of computerized minds and prosthetic bodies becomes a reality. Due to the peaking interest in the topic of artificial intelligence in today’s society, one can see why director Rupert Sanders saw an opportunity and potential of this narrative to make a break in Hollywood’s competitive industry. Sanders took on the project to make the series into a live-action adaptation for the very first time. At first fans were ecstatic to hear the news that the cult favorite would hit the big screens, but the excitement was shortly lived as it was replaced with feelings of disappointment and confusion while social media feeds saw an uproar of opinions on the controversy of the new film.
The controversy revolved mainly around the fact that a large portion of the cast including main character Motoko Kusanagi (Scarlett Johansson) were white actors and actresses in a Japanese world. At the first release of a photo where Johansson was seen as the star of the film, many people reacted with feelings of anger that set the stage for conversations about the issue of “whitewashing” in Hollywood. People brought up past scenarios of Hollywood movies casting white people as leads for characters of differently intended ethnic backgrounds. A few examples include Mickey Rooney as Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Noah Ringer as main character Aang in The Last Airbender and Tilda Swinton as The Ancient One in Doctor Strange. Since the release of Ghost in the Shell in March, many people have taken to their social media platforms to question how whitewashing in Hollywood is still going on and celebrities like Constance Wu have spoken out, criticizing the industry on its problem. The issue of Hollywood constantly casting white people for these roles and turning a blind eye to the people who question their motives connects to what Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky wrote about in Manufacturing Consent in 1988.
Herman and Chomsky introduced the idea of A Propaganda Model in which they explain the effects of mass media on a society. Chomsky mainly writes to prove a point that mass media exists essentially to “amuse, entertain, and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior that will integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society” which requires systematic propaganda. This idea implies the important fact that a society does not have to be under a system of communism or enforced uniformity to face the issue of propaganda. Rather, even in free market societies like democracy, the use by media to inculcate ideas into a people is just as prevalent only more discreet. Chomsky iterates that mass media has different filters that make up the propaganda model, and even though he is mainly talking about news outlets it is evident that this model works in big systems of influence like Hollywood.
The effect of the propaganda model could even be applied to the controversy of “whitewashing” in Hollywood. When interviewed about the issue raised by the public, producer Steven Paul defended the movie and said that “[he] don’t think it was just a Japanese story. Ghost in the Shell was a very international story, and it wasn’t just focused on Japanese; it was supposed to be an entire world.” Johansson responded by saying that she “would never attempt to play a person of a different race,” implying that the character she played is not obligated to be represented as Japanese. These responses raise questions of whether or not the propaganda model proposed by Chomsky can be applied in these situations. Is there propaganda behind this idea that white people can play the role of characters coming from different ethnic heritages if the idea is justified by saying that those characters are not actually tied their backgrounds? Johansson’s justification of playing a Japanese character is that the uniqueness and centrality of the character was based on her identity as a being with artificial intelligence. The character’s tie with Japan and her heritage as a Japanese person is therefore voided. This shows that the propaganda model can be true if people buy into that justification, because it is the use by a large industry to inculcate an idea into the public mind. Producer Steven Paul’s response further shows that even Hollywood has a way of filtering their media by the way he almost avoids the direct root of the question.
The question of whether or not Chomsky’s propaganda model fits in even to Hollywood today is one that really challenges myself even to understand the media that is being portrayed to us today. What I found especially interesting is that in 1961 when Breakfast at Tiffany’s came out and white actor Mickey Rooney was physically changed to look like an asian man, the New York Times came out with an article calling his transformation “broadly exotic”. That implies that the media at that time spoke positively and approved of a character that was pretty much racist in his entirety, and really makes me think of how propaganda is evident and has been evident for a very long time in Hollywood.
