Our quest today begins in 1954, with the release of one of my favourite films of all time; Godzilla. Why, you may ask, does our quest start here, that's simple, Godzilla is Japanese, it was produced by a Japanese company; Toho, it's director; Ishiro Honda was Japanese, and the guy in the suit and effectively all of the film's cast were also Japanese. You're probably thinking no shit, and probably still thinking why is this relevant, but it becomes relevant in 2014, with the release of Hollywood's second swing at the big lizard, Godzilla, I've gushed about Godzilla a lot though, so I'll keep this to the point. Godzilla was produced at Legendary Pictures and distributed by Warner Bros, both American companies, the director; Gareth Edwards, is English, as is a few of the main cast, with the rest being American, and with the notable exceptions of Ken Watanabe, Japanese, and Juliette Binoche, French. The 2014 production of Godzilla is a western production through and through, English or American talent, and American money, all good talent as well, Gareth Edwards is an incredible director, and Bryan Cranston is the Danger. The word adaptation is important to hold onto throughout this, since this was a reboot of the series, which at the time had been dead for a decade, and while Toho did have some involvement, Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros had most of the power, and they planned to make a Godzilla that was as marketable to western audiences as possible. And while Godzilla's numbers weren't exactly mind blowing, they're nothing to scoff at, opening at number 1 with $93 million domestic, and rounding out it's theatrical run internationally with a handsome return of $529 million, $30 million of which coming from Japan, so they liked it, as did jolly old Britannia with similar numbers, this is all according to Box Office Mojo, but it's hard to deny Godzilla was a success, if not exactly Marvel. This is a point I'll be coming back to later, but Godzilla, an American adaptation of a Japanese property, did well financially. Whether or not the case was made for Godzilla being whitewashed is something I actually had trouble finding, but it's irrelevant in the context of the box office numbers because the film was a success, and if you ask me, Godzilla wasn't Whitewashed, not because of the token Japanese guy, which was actually contractually obligated by Toho, but because I disagree wholeheartedly with the very concept of Whitewashing, in other words, I think it's bullshit.
Now let's delve into the main reason I decided to write this, because at some point I intend to have another look at Ghost in the Shell, the 2017 adaptation that is actually not a bad film and that I described as definitely worth watching. The reason I dwelled on Godzilla's box office numbers is because Ghost in the Shell, unlike Godzilla, tanked, only raking in $169 million internationally on a $110 million production budget, and only grossing $40 million domestically, which is fucking woeful. Ghost in the Shell, like another alright movie that came out this year; The Great Wall, was heavily marred by controversy leading up to its release, and the main complaint? you know what it is. Apparently there was something wrong with the casting of Scarlett Johansson in the lead role, I know this mainly because Undoomed did a video on it way back when, just kidding, I know because like the controversy surrounding the all female casting of Ghostbusters, it was impossible to avoid. It was actually Ghost in the Shell that hardened my resolve on the matter, because I genuinely didn't see the reason people were mad, I thought Scarlett Johansson was a fine, if calculated choice for the role, but I guess I'm not a Social Justice Activist who sees sexism hiding in the air conditioning. The main issue seems to be that Scarlett Johansson, a white woman, is playing a character from an anime, and that role should instead be played by a Japanese actress, and the fact that it wasn't is proof that there's a problem with diversity and representation in Hollywood, but that's all a bit complicated, so let me translate it; *clears throat* bullshit. Just like the example of Godzilla I dwelled on before, Ghost in the Shell was a western production through and through; director, English, production company; DreamWorks, American, cast; majority American with some British and European. I guess I'm missing something because to me these situations aren't all that different, they're both Japanese franchises being taken on by American companies with the hopes of creating a more marketable product for western audiences, could the argument that it's cynical be made, sure, but I've seen both of these movies, and neither of them struck me as very cynical at all. Is the difference that Ghost in the Shell is also a Manga? because Edge of Tomorrow was a Manga at one point, and there was no Whitewashing backlash there. Or is the difference that Ghost in the Shell is a popular Manga, because, again, All You Need is Kill (Edge of Tomorrow) was a Manga, so that sounds to me like cherry picking.
Here's the real problem with Whitewashing in relation to Ghost in the Shell, apparently it was Whitewashing's fault for the film's financial failure, according to idiots, and apparently at least one Paramount executive, I need to stop saying that word; apparently. Ghost in the Shell's failure is a far, far more complicated issue than simply bad casting, which I still don't think Scarlett Johansson was. Before I said her casting was calculated, what I meant by that was it was a decision at the studio level to try and get more butts in seats; in 2012 Marvel's Avengers Assemble absolutely annihilated the competition at the box office, raking up $1.5 billion internationally, and who do you find in the casting credits if you IMDb Avengers Assemble, why none other than Scarlett Johansson. It was star power, plain and simple, she's Scarlett Johansson, Black Widow, she was in that Avengers movie that made a fuck ton of money, and clearly the studio thought that they could get a bit of that. I reckon that the primary reason Ghost in the Shell failed was brand recognition. Let's go back to Godzilla, Godzilla has been around for more than half a century, he's got a star on the walk of fame, he's graced the big screen more than 30 times, he had a Hanna-Barbera cartoon, and he popularised Tokusatsu as a style of film making for 50 years, his design is instantly iconic and recognisable across the globe, he's a piece of history. Ghost in the Shell has its fans, but, like anime in general, it's very much in a niche market, which isn't to say Anime is insignificant, shit, Ghost in the Shell itself left its mark on western cinema, but far, far more people in the west have seen The Matrix than seen Ghost in the Shell, influential or not, the mass audience appeal is just not there. Anime also has the tricky problem of not being taken seriously by mainstream audiences, who probably see the kids with their Pokemons and don't get what it's all about, and that certainly doesn't help. What else doesn't help is that Beauty and the Beast, the highest financial performer of the year at $1.2 billion, was in its third weekend when Ghost in the Shell hit the screens, so even if the obstacles Ghost in the Shell was already facing were completely irrelevant, it still wouldn't have stood a chance against the Disney Juggernaut. Ghost in the Shell had a lot going against it; it was based on a niche anime, had a standard but unremarkable marketing campaign, was hit with bad reviews upon release, was heckled by a bunch of busybodies, and was going up against serious competition at the box office, really the only thing going for it was, ironically, the casting of Scarlett Johansson, which was a turn off for the Whitewash complainers, and not enough of a selling point for everyone else. In fact, Scarlett Johansson was possibly the best thing to happen to the film, replace her with some Japanese actress that'd be really good for the role but that no one in America had heard of, and you effectively remove the only selling point the film had left, even more ironically, fix the Whitewashing problem, and the film would have bombed even harder, it was dead on arrival regardless. Maybe the heckling busybodies did have a minor effect, but the main reason for its failure? no, the truth is it was going up against Beauty and the Beast and The Boss Baby and the majority of the movie going population just didn't give enough of a shit.
As evident by our final nail, The Dark Tower. IT may have shown that Stephen King adaptations can make good things happen for studios, but movies based on Stephen King works have a rocky track record. Before IT and The Dark Tower, the last high profile King Adaptation was Carrie, a horror remake that didn't make much of a splash, critically or financially, and after that you had Cell, which was released via Video on Demand and was a complete train wreck, you have The Shining, and then Sleepwalkers, Misery, and then Dreamcatcher, they're all over the place kind of like my way of writing. Unlike Ghost in the Shell, the reasons for The Dark Tower failing at the box office, and only grossing $111 million internationally on a $60 million production budget, are more difficult to discern, most likely though it was again an unremarkable marketing campaign, and mass audience appeal being lacking, even with the combined star power of Idris Elba and Mathew McConaughey, the bad reviews probably didn't help either. For once, I'm actually looking at the critical comments of the film on Rotten Tomatoes, where the film sits at 16% Critic and %53 audience, all of the top critics seem to share a similar sentiment, that the film is dull, cynical, and a bastardisation of the source material. That last one is the most interesting to me, since while I haven't read the books, I know a fair bit about the character of Roland Deschain, The gunslinger. Most notably I know of the most common perception of the character, a man who bears a very strong resemblance to the Man with no Name, apparently this point is relevant at some point in one the books, again, I don't know because I haven't read them, but if The Gunslinger is a ripoff of the Man with no Name, that would make him white. It's taken me this long so I might as well say it, changing a character's race in an adaptation is something I don't care about, because I don't think it does or should matter, skin colour is skin colour, it says nothing about acting ability or suitability for the role, maybe Ed Skrein could have been good in Hellboy, but we'll never know, because to some people, skin colour does matter. Now here's why I brought up the Gunslinger and The Dark Tower, here's why the very concept of Whitewashing pisses me off, it's only a problem when it's a white star, if it's a black star in a white role, i.e. The Dark Tower and Idris Elba, no backlash at all. Again, this shit really shouldn't matter, and I don't actually think it particularly matters with The Dark Tower, Idris Elba's one of the best actors working right now, you could cast the guy as a block of cheese and he'd steal every scene he was in, but I can't help but get frustrated by the glaring double standard of Whitewashing being a massive problem, and Blackwashing not even being a thing. Of course this is all along racial lines, and according to the Social Justice definition, racism is prejudice plus power, which is really convenient because in our majority white western world, the majority of positions of authority are held by white people, meaning that you can't be racist to white people.
I hate this way of thinking, because just look at me, a 20 year old Brit working a part time job as a warehouse assistant, I ain't got any authority. The problem with thinking on racial lines, just like thinking on gender lines, is you collectivise those groups, sure the most powerful man in the world right now is white, and so am I, but I don't get the privilege of writing policy because we share such a superficial characteristic. So taking it back to the subject of Whitewashing, is the real problem that minorities have been historically marginalised and oppressed, something that is itself at this point pure dogma, because again, this ignores individuality and collectivises people into racial categories, and I just do not see the world like that. My problem isn't that Whitewashing is a thing, it's that Whitewashing is a thing and Blackwashing isn't, even if we have to see things racially, at the very least we should be consistent, or we should do what I think is the best thing to do, and not care about race. But as I understand it, the issue is with representation; we apparently don't have enough women and ethnic minorities in our media, and this is a problem, supposedly, (didn't say apparently this time.) This no doubt feeds back to the dogma of historical marginalisation and all that jazz. But here's another problem I have, I, not giving a damn about race, don't mind ethnic minorities in my films, what I do mind is characters that aren't compelling. This is something I said when I talked about Jodie Whittaker as Doctor Who, I have no problem with the casting, I have a problem with the pedestalising of the star's identity, Jodie Whitaker isn't just the next Doctor, she's the first female Doctor, this is no longer Doctor Who going through another iteration, this is Doctor Who moving our world forward. I see race in the same way, and I see the same problem, pedestalise a person based on something so superficial as their race or gender, and you inevitably belittle what they could add to your story, or worse, you make their characterisation dependant on that characteristic, leaving you with a really shallow and lame character, this is one of the many ways Ghostbusters went wrong, it's where I think Doctor Who will go wrong, and it's a sad but true outcome of this way of thinking. Recently I've been replaying Rise of the Tomb Raider, a game that, obviously, has a female playable character, and you know what, when I'm zip lining down snowy mountains being chased by an attack helicopter that's firing missiles at me, I don't care that I'm playing as a woman, I care that I feel like a badass, that Lara Croft, in this moment, is a complete badass. That's also how I look at movie characters, if they are compelling, or entertaining, or awesome, I don't care what colour they are, I don't care that the Major is played by a white woman or voiced by a Japanese woman, I care that the Major is a compelling character.
So in conclusion, the problem with whitewashing isn't that it marginalises minority actors, or belittles them or their culture, which is a whole other can of worms, the problem is that when you see along racial lines like that, it makes it harder to see the true strengths and weaknesses of the talent or character. It also bothers me that it's all one way, people only get upset about it when it's a white person, which to me seems a bit, hmm, there's a word for it, discriminatory, perhaps. What you do when you complain about Whitewashing is accentuate the importance of a person's race, and in a world where people are obsessed with race and racism, I was always under the impression that the less we care about race, the less racist we, as a society, will be. So like I said in my review of Ghost in the Shell, can we all just get back to enjoying films, and stop worrying that you think someone has the wrong skin colour for a role. God help us all if they ever make an Attack on Titan movie, or Death No- oh.
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