The american obsession with melanin levels is insane. Why cant they be normal and be racist to people who live over the next hill, like us enlightened europeans.
I think the point is that if it was important for the character to be Hispanic, they could have hired a Hispanic actor for it. Her being Hispanic didn’t have any meaningful impact to the story, so why not just let her character be white? If they did it to make the film more appealing to Hispanic viewers, then surely an actually Hispanic actor would have been a better fit. White actors have historically been given distinctly non-white roles just because Hollywood is afraid of melanin.
The history of it goes all the way back to old black and white films, with movies like Dragon Seed or The Teahouse of August Moon, which both had major asian roles filled by popular white actors. The unfortunate part is that they often aren’t respectful when they do it; It often ends up being a caricature of the race instead. Anyone who has seen Breakfast at Tiffany’s will know what I’m talking about. Or hell, there are even cases of outright blackface, like a white actor playing Othello in the 1965 movie. Many people have criticized Al Pacino’s accent in The Godfather as offensive, bordering on caricature.
If you want more recent examples, we could point at Jake Gyllenhaal playing a middle-eastern prince in Prince of Persia. Or Johnny Depp playing a Comanche caricature in The Lone Ranger. Another good example is Scarlett Johansson being given the role of Matoko Kusanagi, in Ghost in the Shell. The movie is based on a Japanese anime, and is based in Japan. But Hollywood refused to hire a Japanese actor to play the role, and instead gave it to the whitest white woman who has ever whited.
Johnny Depp’s character was considered insane by the other native americans in the film, who were played by actual native americans like Saginaw Grant. It’s not much better but the film still doesn’t pretend he represents them.
Didn’t Gods of Egypt have an all white cast and 1 black guy playing as… the gods of egypt…?
Masamune Shirow himself confirmed that Kusanagi was a mass production model on the outside to blend in and not have her harvested for parts, like a custom body would be.
Also the whole fucking theme of the franchise is “what is a soul (ghost)”. Kusanagi has canonically swapped “shells” multiple times, is it a ship of Theseus thing or is she still the same person?
But this is an argument I can’t win, so I’ll leave this here and disappear 🫠
Yet in the original Anime the shell is still Asian, cause they are in Japan, why change that, you can pretend it was done to make a statement about soul vs body, but everyone knows why they actually hired a white actor. Also they treated that subject matter only at the surface level, a better example of this theme is in the movie The Creator.
Brown face? That’s just a tan
The american obsession with melanin levels is insane. Why cant they be normal and be racist to people who live over the next hill, like us enlightened europeans.
That’s offensive. Those over the hill have bushier eyebrows. They are totally different and meant to be hated.
Nah you guys just claim the brown ppl are “culturally different” because they’re Muslim so they should leave
I think the point is that if it was important for the character to be Hispanic, they could have hired a Hispanic actor for it. Her being Hispanic didn’t have any meaningful impact to the story, so why not just let her character be white? If they did it to make the film more appealing to Hispanic viewers, then surely an actually Hispanic actor would have been a better fit. White actors have historically been given distinctly non-white roles just because Hollywood is afraid of melanin.
The history of it goes all the way back to old black and white films, with movies like Dragon Seed or The Teahouse of August Moon, which both had major asian roles filled by popular white actors. The unfortunate part is that they often aren’t respectful when they do it; It often ends up being a caricature of the race instead. Anyone who has seen Breakfast at Tiffany’s will know what I’m talking about. Or hell, there are even cases of outright blackface, like a white actor playing Othello in the 1965 movie. Many people have criticized Al Pacino’s accent in The Godfather as offensive, bordering on caricature.
If you want more recent examples, we could point at Jake Gyllenhaal playing a middle-eastern prince in Prince of Persia. Or Johnny Depp playing a Comanche caricature in The Lone Ranger. Another good example is Scarlett Johansson being given the role of Matoko Kusanagi, in Ghost in the Shell. The movie is based on a Japanese anime, and is based in Japan. But Hollywood refused to hire a Japanese actor to play the role, and instead gave it to the whitest white woman who has ever whited.
To Be Fair
Johnny Depp’s character was considered insane by the other native americans in the film, who were played by actual native americans like Saginaw Grant. It’s not much better but the film still doesn’t pretend he represents them.
Didn’t Gods of Egypt have an all white cast and 1 black guy playing as… the gods of egypt…?
I mean…
In case the link doesn't work -
Thanks for pointing out that there’s always more than one lens to look at the world through.
Masamune Shirow himself confirmed that Kusanagi was a mass production model on the outside to blend in and not have her harvested for parts, like a custom body would be.
Also the whole fucking theme of the franchise is “what is a soul (ghost)”. Kusanagi has canonically swapped “shells” multiple times, is it a ship of Theseus thing or is she still the same person?
But this is an argument I can’t win, so I’ll leave this here and disappear 🫠
Yet in the original Anime the shell is still Asian, cause they are in Japan, why change that, you can pretend it was done to make a statement about soul vs body, but everyone knows why they actually hired a white actor. Also they treated that subject matter only at the surface level, a better example of this theme is in the movie The Creator.
SJ in Ghost seemed particularly fucked up given that all the original content was Japanese
Brown nose? That’s just business.
Brown finger, that’s just play time.