Tokyo Weekender April 2017

I STAND BY MY
DECISION: SHE'S THE
BEST ACTRESS OF HER
GENERATION
IT FEELS WILDLY
INAPPROPRIATE FOR AN
AMERICAN STUDIO AND
THE BRITISH DIRECTOR
OF SNOW WHITE AND THE
HUNTSMAN TO PICK IT UP
AND SELL IT BACK TO US
EMILY YOSHIDA, FILM AND ANIME
CRITIC, ON…
…her initial reaction to seeing a movie
still of Johansson as The Major
The image of a famous white actress in
Kusanagi's signature black bob seemed like
another depressing example of Asian actors
being removed from Asian narratives.
© Paramount Pictures
Japanese audiences, unlike American
audiences, don't understand Motoko to
be a Japanese character, just because she
speaks Japanese and has a Japanese name.
This speaks to the racial mystery zone that
so much anime exists in, allowing viewers
to ignore such unpleasant dynamics as
oppression and discrimination even as
they enjoy stories that are often direct
responses to those dynamics.
…her doubts about letting Hollywood
have a go at a very complicated set of
cross-cultural touchstones
Ghost in the Shell is the product of and
response to decades of physical erasure and
technological alienation. It's pop cultural
fallout, a delicately layered croissant of
appropriation upon appropriation. It's as
timely as ever, but it feels wildly inappropriate
for an American studio and the British
director of Snow White and the Huntsman to
pick it up and sell it back to us.
DIRECTOR RUPERT SANDERS ON…
…why Johansson was The One, and the difference
between actors and movie stars
You know, you want to take Ghost in the Shell to
the world, and I think she is such an incredible
actor that she's grown to such a global appeal,
and I think to me, that's really what is so impressive
about her as an actor. She's transcended
so many of those levels, she's been doing it for
20 years and along those 20 years she's made
incredibly intelligent choices and made some
really seminal films, especially around this
topic, from Her to Lucy to Under the Skin. I
mean, you work with actors and then you work
with movie stars. Actors are incredible, but
there's something that movie stars have – and
there's very few of them. For me, I stand by my
decision: she's the best actress of her generation,
and I was flattered and honored that she would
be in this film.
…why the criticism doesn’t bother him, and
why he thinks the proof will be in the viewing
I think any criticism hasn't really come from Japan.
I think [original anime director Mamoru]
Oshii very categorically came out and enforced
her as The Major, but to me, that's not going to
silence the critics, because nothing really silences
critics … I hope the conversation changes
into what the film does do and how different
it is from what people were expecting. She
really can speak for herself ultimately in the
film, and I think people will judge her and say,
"Yeah, she was totally the right decision."
…the ambiguous ethnicity of advanced
androids
I don't think it's an accident that the cyborgs
of Ghost in the Shell, including Motoko, are
more “anime-looking” than the characters
who are mere Japanese or American
humans. This is not to say that they are supposed
to be white, but they are not explicitly
Japanese, either. They're a supposed sign of
progress in a blindly technologized future,
where not only can an individual's race
be augmented away; one's entire physical
being can be.
…why Japanese viewers may have an
entirely different take on the subject of
whitewashing
© Paramount Pictures
* We heard from Johansson, Sanders, and Kitano at a press event in Tokyo, and Emily
Yoshida’s remarks come from her 2016 article on Verge.com: bit.ly/TWEmilyYoshida