“Ghost In the Shell” is an amazing anime series. They would play episodes on AdultSwim’s animation block, Toonami.
Ghost in the Shell (攻殻機動隊 Kōkaku Kidōtai, literally “Mobile Armored Riot Police”) is a Japanese media franchise originally published as a seinen manga series of the same name written and illustrated by Masamune Shirow. The manga, first serialized in 1989 under the subtitle of The Ghost in the Shell, and later published as its own tankōbon volumes by Kodansha, told the story of the fictional counter-cyberterrorist organization Public Security Section 9, led by protagonist Major Motoko Kusanagi, in the mid 21st century of Japan.
In the series/movies, Major Kusanagi has a body that failed when she was a child. Through science and technology, she was put into a cyborg body, or “shell.” And in a society where shells are recognized as people and cybernetics are somewhat normalized, there is always the danger of hackers, terrorists, and everyday criminals abusing the technology or those that use it.
It is a great series and everyone should watch it.
But the upcoming movie…
I’m boycotting the movie.
I will not watch it in theaters. I will not buy the movie. If I see it, it will be on TV or Netflix/Amazon/Hulu, which may give the producers a tiny bit of money, but definitely not as much as they want.
Hollywood needs to understand that whitewashing their movies has results. Mostly that people of conscience will not watch them in the way they want.
And if, instead of the $8 they expect to receive per viewer, they only receive $0.30 — I hope they’ll get the message that what they’re doing is unacceptable.
Whitewashing is a casting practice in the Cinema of the United States film industry of the United States in which white actors are cast in historically non-white character roles. The film industry has a history of frequently casting white actors for roles involving people of color; the practice is as old as the film industry. Activist Guy Aoki said African Americans “have long felt the full brunt of the ‘whitewashing’ of roles” and that Asians have experienced it as well. Native Americans have also especially been subjected to this.
And for anyone that wants to say “What about poor Scarlett Johansson and the other actors?”
I guess they can weep into their beers.
It’s not like they didn’t get paid for making the movie.
It’s the studio(s) that are going to be punished. Because when they paid out millions of dollars to the cast and crew, it was on the faith that they would be rewarded with great money.
But as they have decided that PoC are not viable choices for playing the PoC main characters… then they can eat their losses and either learn from what they’ve done, or watch their studios die.
I am done with giving a pass to people stuck in the Stone Age.
You either adapt or die.
