A first image of Scarlett Johansson in the role of a cyborg named Major Motoko Kusanagi from the upcoming live-action film adaptation of "Ghost in the Shell." Credit: Paramount | DreamWorks Pictures Hollywood directors such as Steven Spielberg and the Wachoswski siblings have drawn inspiration from the science fiction vision of the 1995 anime film "Ghost in the Shell." But a live-action Hollywood remake of "Ghost in the Shell" has proven controversial because of the choice to cast Scarlett Johansson in the role of the story's main cyborg character known as Major Motoko Kusanagi. Let us not waste time on the common complaints about Johansson's casting: Hollywood's history of "whitewashing" Asian roles by casting white actors and actresses as Asian characters; the uphill battle that Asian American actors and actresses still face in getting meaningful roles in Hollywood films; the lack of consideration for how the original "Ghost in the Shell" story relies upon its Japanese cultural setting. I believe it's far more fascinating and relevant to consider whether Johansson has the acting skills and experience to portray a complex action heroine who must wrestle with existential questions about her identity as both human and machine. In the original 1995 "Ghost in the Shell" film, Motoko Kusanagi is a human whose original body has almost been completely replaced by mechanical parts. She is effectively a human brain controlling a powerful robotic body designed for combat. Her mechanical body parts can be repaired or replaced as needed, but not without cost. During the film, Kusanagi wonders what remains of her humanity as her body has become mostly machine. Even as she hunts a dangerous and mysterious hacker, she contemplates her own sense of growing isolation from the human society she has sworn to protect. The role demands an actress who can convey a commanding physical presence and power alongside moments of human vulnerability and sensitivity. Allow me to present a modest proposal: Johansson's acting career makes her supremely qualified to play a powerful cyborg struggling with an existential crisis in future Japan. In addition, Hollywood has plenty of movie magic to take care of concerns about her non-Asian appearance. We can rebuild her. We have the technology. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j6wsGuzP2Q
Cyborg in the Making
First, let's consider how Johansson's acting career has prepared her for the role of Kusanagi. There will be spoilers for some films, so read this section as your own risk.
"Lost in Translation" (2003): Johansson won critical acclaim for her role as a neglected young newlywed who forms an unexpected relationship with an older man (Bill Murray) while traveling in Japan. Her character, Charlotte, initially spends much of her time lounging around her Tokyo hotel room in apparent boredom while her husband is off doing celebrity photo shoots. But once she meets Murray's character, the two bond over their sense of estrangement from their respective marriages and the sense of isolation that comes from shallowly experiencing Japanese culture as a weird and futuristic wonderland. That key theme of isolation in the midst of an alien Japanese culture ought to serve Johansson well in her "Ghost in the Shell" role of being a non-Asian cyborg in a futuristic Japan.
"Lucy" (2014): Johansson plays a young woman named Lucy studying in Taiwan who unwittingly gains superpowers by ingesting a synthetic drug. As her mind-bending powers grow, Lucy eventually becomes so powerful that she can easily take on both heavily-armed police and the villainous Korean gang members alike. At the same time, her personality shifts to something fairly machine-like as she casually shoots the leg of a Taiwanese taxi driver who fails to speak English properly. (It's a known fact that anyone who cannot speak English in a proper manner is asking for a bullet in the leg: a rule that also applies to Americans who speak with a dialect other than the mainstream media approved "Midwestern" accent.) Lucy even gains the power to see electromagnetic signals from cell phones as though they were the computer code lines of "digital rain" running downward at the start of "Ghost in the Shell." (Yes, "The Matrix" took that inspiration from "Ghost in the Shell.") Johansson's "Lucy" role as a powerful, non-Asian heroine kicking ass in an interchangeable Asian setting might as well have been a test run for playing the powerful Kusanagi in Hollywood's "Ghost in the Shell" remake.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5tN3R9IrC8&t=1m25s
"Avengers: Age of Ultron" (2015): Johansson reprises her role in the Marvel superhero film extravaganza as the assassin-turned-agent Black Widow. Like Kusanagi, Black Widow has amazing martial arts skills and all-around combat prowess. And like Kusanagi, Black Widow faces a moment of crisis over her humanity as shares an intimate story about how her reproductive organs were removed as part of her assassin training. Black Widow suggests that her lack of ability to have babies makes her a "monster" by dehumanizing her existence. That incredibly deep insight explains why all women who can't experience the miracle of birth or motherhood automatically transform into subhuman troglodytes. Black Widow's understanding of her monstrous "otherness" parallels Kusanagi's sense of dehumanization stemming from her cyborg body's mostly non-biological existence in "Ghost in the Shell."
Even Johansson's real life has unintentionally inspired echoes of "Ghost in the Shell" themes. A Hong Kong robot enthusiast has built a humanoid robot with an uncanny resemblance to Johansson, Reuters reports. The robot's unnatural movements and stilted voice may seem creepy now, but it represents an exciting forerunner to the robotic and cyborg bodies of the future.
Turning Japanese
Johansson's qualifications to make "Ghost in the Shell" a success go well beyond her acting capabilities. Johansson represents one of the few actresses whose mere association with a project can guarantee that Hollywood studios will give the film the green light for production, as Variety explains. Johansson's roles in both large and small films has undeniably provided a boost for their box office revenues. Her star power's value to Hollywood's bottom line on the "Ghost in the Shell" project cannot be outweighed by concerns about portrayals of Asian characters and lack of casting opportunities for Asian American actors and actresses. (It helps here to cover your ears and sing "la la la" whenever someone mentions the Pew Research Center statistics about Asian Americans representing the "highest-income, best-educated and fastest-growing racial group" in the United States. Done? OK.) Still, Hollywood studios get it. They understand that it can seem a little strange to cast an actress of Ashkenazi Jewish and Scandinavian descent in the role of a character who originated as Japanese. The good news is that filmmakers have several technological tricks to dampen the outrage of social justice warriors and ensure that Johansson's casting satisfies everyone.
Digital Yellowface: Screen Crush reports that the new "Ghost in the Shell" production tested a computer-generated imagery technique of making Johansson's face look more Asian. It's a high-tech version of the tried-and-true "yellowface" method of using makeup to make Caucasian actors and actresses appear Asian. A spokesperson from Paramount Pictures, the main studio in charge of remaking "Ghost in the Shell," denied that the digital yellowface method had been tested to make Johansson appear more Asian. Instead, Paramount Pictures said the test was conducted on a background actor. But would Paramount Pictures really waste time and money on using CGI to make a random background character look more Asian? It seems more likely that the studio is modestly disguising its best intentions to make Johansson's casting seem less awkward for those few overly-sensitive moviegoers.
Lip Sync for Your Life: There may be an even bolder way of leveraging Johansson's star power while satisfying anyone who remains critical of her non-Asian appearance in the role. The 2013 film "Her" featured Johansson as the voice of an artificial intelligence OS (operating system) character named Samantha. Why not simply cast an Asian-American or Japanese actress as the body of "Ghost in the Shell" heroine Kusanagi and have Johansson once again deliver a compelling voice performance? Studios already translate Japanese anime films and TV shows into English by "dubbing" over the original Japanese voices and replacing them with the voices of English-speaking actors and actresses. Surely any actress would be proud to provide her facial expressions, body performance and lip syncing as a silent vehicle for Johansson's vocal star power to carry "Ghost in the Shell" to critical and financial success. If "Ghost in the Shell" becomes a success, the Asian-American or Japanese actress might even use it as a stepping stone to future Hollywood roles where she finally gets the chance to speak. It's basically the same path that early Hollywood actors and actresses followed when they moved on from the silent film era to the "talkies" of the 1920s and 1930s. (We have voices, guys! So exciting.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzV6mXIOVl4 Fans of the original "Ghost in the Shell" should feel grateful to be alive at a time when Hollywood's remake could introduce the story's philosophical musings on humanity's future to a much wider audience. In fact, many Japanese fans had already expected the Hollywood remake to star a white actress, according to
Sam Yoshiba, a director at the Japanese publisher that owns the "Ghost in the Shell" rights, even praised the choice to cast Johansson in the iconic role. As a result, The Hollywood Reporter shrewdly observes that Japan's outrage has seemed muted in comparison with the sound and fury coming from some Asian Americans and Western social justice warriors. This especially highlights the absurdity of the whitewashing complaints coming from Asian Americans. If the Japanese creators and fans of "Ghost in the Shell" can behave so reasonably, why can't Asian Americans follow the example of their kinfolk living on the other side of the Pacific Ocean? I'm no cultural expert, but I'm pretty sure that the views of people belonging to Japan's 98-percent majority population basically mirror the cultural identities and concerns of the Asian-American minority in the United States. Deep within our genetic heritage, we never really lose that cultural connection and identification with our ancestral homelands -- or the homelands of people who kind of look like us. After all, U.S. pollsters like to solicit the opinions of Irish citizens to really understand what white America is thinking about. And it's why Americans whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower can still sing "God Save the Queen" and salute the Union Jack with tears in their eyes. Enough with the negativity. Rather than dwell on outdated concepts such as ethnicity and identity politics, I think it's far more productive to focus on universal issues such as how people will preserve their humanity amidst the rise of sophisticated robots, artificial intelligence and cyborg bodies. I believe that Hollywood can transform "Ghost in the Shell" into the post-racial science fiction classic that the U.S. moviegoing audience deserves. Perhaps a successful remake could even inspire that utopian future when we slip the shackles of modern PC thinking and transcend our mortal existence like an exuberant Dr. Strangelove rising from his wheelchair. See you on the other side, space cowboys and cowgirls. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so8NQficzZg&t=2m23s DISCLAIMER: In case you couldn't tell, I humbly submit this post as satire. Lovesick Cyborg will return to its usual programming next time. EDITOR'S NOTE: After getting some helpful reader feedback on what was and wasn't working, I'm going to be playing around with the wording of this post to make my satirical intent more clear. Yes, my original post had a disclaimer at the bottom. But if the rest of the piece can't stand alone as satire, that's on me as a writer. Thanks all.
