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Hollywood Reporter: Why Did Marvel and Dreamworks Whitewash Their Asian Characters?

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Did they announce they wanted an androgynous actor prior to casting Tilda Swinton, or was that their justification after they were called out for whitewashing a role?

Do you want to know how that casting went? I'll tell you.

Marvel: Man, casting the Ancient One will be hard. We'd probably like to adapt the character to be something more gender neutral if possible. Who could we get for that?

Chris Evans: I was in Snowpiercer with this actor Tilda Swinton, she can basically morph into anyone in the world

Marvel: Man, that'd be great, but there's no way an actor of her caliber would do a superhero mov-

*Chris Evans unmasks to be Tilda Swinton*

Tilda Swinton: Sup losers *stuffs Marvel into a locker*

Marvel: ...You're in!
 
I still haven't forgiven Marvel for the way they handled the Asian guy in Thor 2. I mean, they paid actors to waste valuable screen time to write him completely out of the movie.
 
I would have thought so except:

Naruto is the first anime series I ever watched subtitled. I basically went through the cycle -> assume whiteness -> get 'Educated' that they are actually Japanese -> read that Kishi quote -> very confused.
He said, Naruto could've be played by an american child. My guess is, that Kishi doesn't really care and didn't want to throw any rocks in anyones way. Naruto is a lot of things, but not a foreigner, in-world. You know, the bullies in the series would've brought that up.

Osamu Tezuka is the father of the modern Japanese manga/anime and his style is self admittedly influenced by Walt Disney. Before him Japanese depicted themselves very differently. Look up art from the Edo period and it looks nothing like Japanese manga today
2YUKFOul.jpg
There wasn't really manga before Osamu Tezuka. It's true he was inspired by the west - mostly by their animals. He especially loved Bambi and he took it's eyes and worked with them. If you look at the time when Tezuka started drawing, you would've gotten a very VERY different image of Japanese from US perspective than the manga style he used.
 
Clearly there's a serious diversity issue in Hollywood. Clearly whitewashing is a very important issue. But Marvel is one of the better studios out there when it comes to that. In Strange you have an asian guy, a black guy, a white guy and a woman (I know all are British) but still. How is that whitewashing ? I love Ditko's comics but it had a lot of racist stereotypical undertones making Wong more like his servant and such or associating every Asian with the mystic and martial arts side (especially the character of Ancient One). Considering most movies these days (i'm looking at you Gods of Egypt) are the epitomy of whitewashing I wouldn't go as far as claiming Marvel to be guilty of that. At least they're making an effort which is more than I can about most.
Marvel hasn't been getting better at this until recently. With the new movie additions it will take them 17 movies to get to Black Panther and 21 movies before they even get to a Captain Marvel. In the Doctor Strange trailer I felt a dissonance between all of this Asian setting/environment stuff being shown when even raggedy bad guy was white. Most of the cast in previous movies were white + token black guy.

I mean, it's not hard to find an Asian lady to play Tilda Swinton's part and have the writers not write an Asian stereotype, if they want to have it all.
 
I really think it is easier for Asian American actors to leave Hollywood and try their luck making movies in Asia. Look at what happened with John Lone, brilliant actor that got barely any roles after the Last Emperor and things haven't really i proved since then.

Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan proved this to be true decades ago.

Anyhow, I'm not supporting this movie at all with my money; it wouldn't kill Hollywood to give an Asian actress a leading role for once. ScarJo could have been worked in as a prominent role aside from a whitewashed Kusanagi and things would have been gravy. But apparently Hollywood couldn't help itself.

So fuck 'em.

Many people love to use the "adaptation" angle when people question changes from the source material or how a film isn't a 1:1 adaption so it's okay to make the character white and they're simply getting the best person for the job (best person always happens to be white) But suggest a Marvel character be different from the source material and they have 101 reasons why that's not right. Suddenly it's "they should create minority characters, not make X character a minority, that's just pandering! Diversity quota!!!"

People who think like that deserve to be placed in very special mental institutions.
 
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves was a blockbuster hit for Walt Disney in 1938. Pinocchio followed in 1940.

That's not really saying anything. The anime artstyle was heavily influenced by the Disney artstyle which was used on everything from Mickey Mouse to Snow White. Saying that it was an artstyle of "how Americans drew white people" Is disingenuous as hell, when the characters being white had very little relevance on why that artstyle was used. The big expressive eyes was used on everything from animals to white people to their racist caricatures of black people. It definitely wasn't used as a signifier that a character was supposed to be white.
 
He said, Naruto could've be played by an american child. My guess is, that Kishi doesn't really care and didn't want to throw any rocks in anyones way. Naruto is a lot of things, but not a foreigner, in-world. You know, the bullies in the series would've brought that up.

There wasn't really manga before Osamu Tezuka. It's true he was inspired by the west - mostly by their animals. He especially loved Bambi and he took it's eyes and worked with them. If you look at the time when Tezuka started drawing, you would've gotten a very VERY different image of Japanese from US perspective than the manga style he used.

I didn't say he was a foreigner.

Osamu Tezuka was inspired by lots of human animated characters too. Betty Boop had those big eyes too.

That's not really saying anything. The anime artstyle was heavily influenced by the DIsney artstyle which was used on everything from Mickey Mouse to Snow White. Saying that it was an artstyle of "how Americans draw white people" Is disingenuous as hell, when the characters being white had very little relevance on why that artstyle was used. The big expressive eyes was used on everything from animals to white people to their racist caricatures of black people. It was hardly used to represent that a character was supposed to be white.

And it's disingenuous of you to imply he only got the style from animated animal characters. And p.s. even those animal character like Mickey could be presumed to be white when contrasted with racist caricatures of black characters in those early Disney cartoon films.
 
I didn't say he was a foreigner.

Osamu Tezuka was inspired by lots of human animated characters too. Betty Boop had those big eyes too.
What is your point here? What does it change about the fact that the default look in anime or manga is japanese, unless stated otherwise or shown by common traits? Especially for main characters. This is a medium that is generally made by Japanese for Japanese.
I'd love to have live action cowboy bebob
Oh, certainly. There are many anime that could be cool - but not with the mentality the majority Hollywood is currently working on adaptations.
 
Did they announce they wanted an androgynous actor prior to casting Tilda Swinton, or was that their justification after they were called out for whitewashing a role?
Hard to say, they said they had been looking for someone gender neutral when casting the ancient one in the press release starting that the ancient one would be in the Dr Strange movie and they cast Tilda Swinton for the part.
 
Not in any way defending whitewashing, or how poorly I expect Ghost in the Shell to be translated into a Hollywood film, but Kusanagi hasn't looked that Japanese in a long while. The most recent depictions of her, even within Japan, have skewed heavily more towards Westernized features than in her earlier designs.

Take a standard picture of her from Stand Alone Complex and compare her to ScarJO, and the comparison isn't as contrasted.

Again, I think she should be Japanese. I don't agree with whitewashing. But it's clear to me that Japan has even started to shift characterizations of her away from her original look, perhaps to appeal to more global audiences? I don't know why.

1960s-slide2.jpg


Is this Japanese enough?

I didn't say he was a foreigner.

Osamu Tezuka was inspired by lots of human animated characters too. Betty Boop had those big eyes too.



And it's disingenuous of you to imply he only got the style from animated animal characters. And p.s. even those animal character like Mickey could be presumed to be white when contrasted with racist caricatures of black characters in those early Disney cartoon films.

How do you know Tezuka was reading into those racial presumptions when adapting the style to his work? You do realize it's possible to selectively draw traits and aspects of influences from a work without taking everything from it wholesale, right?

So in other words, just b/c Tezuka's style may share similarities w/ Disney's stuff at that time, doesn't mean he was also loading it to be racially representative as some of Disney's stuff from that period. You have to consider that Japan simply didn't (and doesn't) have that type of cultural history like America. If anything what racial assumptions could be derived from Tezuka's early work is most likely in relation of Japanese to other Asian ethnicities, like Chinese and Koreans.

That doesn't mean he was whitewashing the appearance of Astro Boy in the original manga however.
 
And it's disingenuous of you to imply he only got the style from animated animal characters. And p.s. even those animal character like Mickey could be presumed to be white when contrasted with racist caricatures of black characters in those early Disney cartoon films.

You're missing the point completely. I wasn't litteally implying that he only got them from the anthromorphic characters. I was making fun of your assumption that he only got them from the white ones. My point is he was influenced by the artstyle itself and the fact that that artstyle was sometimes used to draw white characters had nothing to do with it, as that artstlye was used on a wide variety of characters which weren't even human most of the time.
 
What is your point here? What does it change about the fact that the default look in anime or manga is japanese, unless stated otherwise or shown by common traits? Especially for main characters. This is a medium that is generally made by Japanese for Japanese.
I already made my main point explicit earlier: Vinci raised an interesting question that the look of this main character has changed over the years and you tried to shut him down with the reductive 'but they are Japanese blah blah'. We know the characters are Japanese.
You're missing the point completely. I wasn't litteally implying that he only got them from the anthromorphic characters. I was making fun of your assumption that he only got them from the white ones. My point is he was influenced by the artstyle itself and the fact that that artstyle was sometimes used to draw white characters had nothing to do with it, as that artstlye was used on a wide variety of characters which weren't even human most of the time.
nice attempt at a backtrack. I already pointed out that walt Disney coded his ethnic characters differently and Tezuka didn't copy those depictions, he only copied the ones used for white characters. And please Snow White was Walt Disney's most successful film.
 
This discussion reminds me of A LOT of Mirror's Edge. Remember this picture
18qff6tl335psjpg.jpg


It can basically be summed up as (left) how white people see Asians (right) how Asians see Asians. It's like if they're not approaching caricature level some people see them as white

http://kotaku.com/5062933/faith-from-mirrors-edge-fan-designed-for-asian-tastes

And instead of learning in ME2 they pretty much doubled down and drew ire yet again
http://kotaku.com/once-again-some-japanese-gamers-dislike-the-look-of-mi-512420010

And as I said in the GITS thread

It's the only way to know for sure they're Asian apparently
Brock-pokemon-18232516-418-358.jpg
 
I've got a feeling Ghost in the Shell will do okay in the box office. You gotta remember the vast majority aren't internet warriors and don't know/care about this sort of thing.
Exodus: Gods and Kings didn't bomb due to the whitewashing controversy, but because the movie was trash and uninteresting to general audiences.

Scarlett Johansson has proven she can make a hit out of mediocre movies (Lucy) in a way a no-name asian actress probably can't. As unsympathetic as it may be I think it is a good financial decision by Paramount to go with ScarJo. If it works directors will do it again.

I wouldn't expect to see lots of asian actresses getting big starring roles in Hollywood even 5-10 years for now unless something radically changes.
 
I already made my main point explicit earlier: Vinci raised an interesting question that the look of this main character has changed over the years and you tried to shut him down with the reductive 'but they are Japanese blah blah'. We know the characters are Japanese.

That is also obviously down to art style simplification, something that has been going on w/ anime for years. The GITS of 2016 is not the big-budgeted extravaganza the original 1995 film was. Less budget, therefore less emphasis on certain details, including the drawings. So they had to be selective in what features to emphasize and which ones not.

That doesn't in itself lend itself to the idea that the choices were made to make the Japanese characters look more "white", especially considering how the series itself is mainly targeted at the Japanese market. If they wanted to correlate the transition to those characters being more white directly, they'd take other measures like giving them anglicized names and editing out obscure Japanese cultural references from the scripts, in addition to other things.

But that isn't the case.

This also somewhat disturbingly brings up a thought in mind as to what you consider to be "Japanese enough". It goes into the same kind of territory people use when saying someone "doesn't look black enough", for instance.
 
nice attempt at a backtrack. I already pointed out that walt Disney coded his ethnic characters differently and Tezuka didn't copy those depictions, he only copied the ones used for white characters. And please Snow White was Walt Disney's most successful film.

I'm not backtracking anything. The most notable thing he borrowed from Disney was the emotive eyes. Which is something Disney used for pretty much all of their characters. Not just the white human ones. You're talking out of your ass right now.
 
I didn't say he was a foreigner.

Osamu Tezuka was inspired by lots of human animated characters too. Betty Boop had those big eyes too.

I'm not sure you have an argument here or if you're just arguing for the sake of defending your original argument, but although you're not entirely wrong in that Tezuka was borrowing from Disney rendering white people, you're missing the point. This is something that's been brought up ad-naseum in response to you, but when you're rendering something, especially in a style, you're less likely to exaggerate features to make somebody appear a certain ethnicity unless you need to make it clear that they are that ethnicity. If everyone in your work is white and you have one Asian character, you're probably going to exaggerate their features to make them appear Asian. And vice versa. And again, when you stylize something you distill it down to its core features, and you only have so much to work with on a face.

And this is ignoring that the anime aesthetic has clearly evolved in a distinctly Japanese way, to the point where it's not really all that recognizable that it originally evolved from Western works. And this too, would be ignoring that it still doesn't mean anything that they were borrowing from Western art, else you might as well look at some of van Gogh's later works and say he looks Asian because he was borrowing stylistic attributes of Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints.

I wrote this up so I'm going to post it but:


Holy shit dude, Disney's early rendering of other ethnicities are racist as hell. If you think that's how people of different races should be represented, then I have no idea how you think this is okay.
 

What are you trying to prove by posting this? Half of those characters still do have the big eyes Disney is famous for. Also why are you only focusing on the caricatures? Characters like Mickey Mouse, Goofy, etc... all have the standard Disney eyes. And they aren't white, they aren't even human.
 
Not in any way defending whitewashing, or how poorly I expect Ghost in the Shell to be translated into a Hollywood film, but Kusanagi hasn't looked that Japanese in a long while. The most recent depictions of her, even within Japan, have skewed heavily more towards Westernized features than in her earlier designs.

Take a standard picture of her from Stand Alone Complex and compare her to ScarJO, and the comparison isn't as contrasted.

Again, I think she should be Japanese. I don't agree with whitewashing. But it's clear to me that Japan has even started to shift characterizations of her away from her original look, perhaps to appeal to more global audiences? I don't know why.

That is also obviously down to art style simplification, something that has been going on w/ anime for years. The GITS of 2016 is not the big-budgeted extravaganza the original 1995 film was. Less budget, therefore less emphasis on certain details, including the drawings. So they had to be selective in what features to emphasize and which ones not.

That doesn't in itself lend itself to the idea that the choices were made to make the Japanese characters look more "white", especially considering how the series itself is mainly targeted at the Japanese market. If they wanted to correlate the transition to those characters being more white directly, they'd take other measures like giving them anglicized names and editing out obscure Japanese cultural references from the scripts, in addition to other things.

But that isn't the case.

This is a good answer that addresses Vinci's original question. I have no issue here
This also somewhat disturbingly brings up a thought in mind as to what you consider to be "Japanese enough". It goes into the same kind of territory people use when saying someone "doesn't look black enough", for instance.
Depends on the context obviously. The recent controversy over Zoe playing Simone has already been referred to in this thread and I recall some backlash when Ziyi played a Japanese in Memoires of a Geisha. In this context I already agreed that the character is Japanese and the role would be a good opportunity for an Asian actress

I'm not sure you have an argument here or if you're just arguing for the sake of defending your original argument, but although you're not entirely wrong in that Tezuka was borrowing from Disney rendering white people, you're missing the point. This is something that's been brought up ad-naseum in response to you, but when you're rendering something, especially in a style, you're less likely to exaggerate features to make somebody appear a certain ethnicity unless you need to make it clear that they are that ethnicity. If everyone in your work is white and you have one Asian character, you're probably going to exaggerate their features to make them appear Asian. And vice versa. And again, when you stylize something you distill it down to its core features, and you only have so much to work with on a face.

And this is ignoring that the anime aesthetic has clearly evolved in a distinctly Japanese way, to the point where it's not really all that recognizable that it originally evolved from Western works. And this too, would be ignoring that it still doesn't mean anything that they were borrowing from Western art, else you might as well look at some of van Gogh's later works and say he looks Asian because he was borrowing stylistic attributes of Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints.

I wrote this up so I'm going to post it but:



Holy shit dude, Disney's early rendering of other ethnicities are racist as hell. If you think that's how people of different races should be represented, then I have no idea how you think this is okay.
wtf?! freeofgreed claimed Disney drew all characters the same way so I provided examples to the contrary.
 
wtf?! freeofgreed claimed Disney drew all characters the same way so I provided examples to the contrary.

Disney's artstyle at the time especially was fairly consistent across the board, this is not some crazy proposal I'm making here. I'm not sure why you posting pictures of their most extreme racist outliers changes that, or even contributes to the discussion at all. But do you bro...
 
This discussion reminds me of A LOT of Mirror's Edge. Remember this picture
18qff6tl335psjpg.jpg


It can basically be summed up as (left) how white people see Asians (right) how Asians see Asians. It's like if they're not approaching caricature level some people see them as white

http://kotaku.com/5062933/faith-from-mirrors-edge-fan-designed-for-asian-tastes

And instead of learning in ME2 they pretty much doubled down and drew ire yet again
http://kotaku.com/once-again-some-japanese-gamers-dislike-the-look-of-mi-512420010

And as I said in the GITS thread

I don't think that's a good summation at all.

The issue at hand in the articles was that Japanese people don't find Faith "attractive." The comments point out that she looks "homely," not "un-Asian." One of the comments in that Kotaku article even asks EA why their character faces look bad, and references Dragon Age (mostly white characters) as also having ugly faces.

The fact that the second image got a boob job says it all. That "controversy" is more about taste than realism.
 
Why did they cast Scarlett Johansson as the major in Ghost in the Shell?
Well it's simple, Scarlett Johansson is a big name who's been proven to do sci-fi material well. Just take a look at Under the Skin and Lucy.

But wait isn't the Major Japanese?
I guess. She is a character that originated in a Japanese comic.

So why didn't they cast an Asian actress?
Well mainly because there aren't a lot of if any Asian actresses in Hollywood that carry the starpower like Scarlett Johansson.

Bullshit what about movies that cast unknowns as leads.
Movies like those probably are a lot less risk averse than Ghost in the Shell. Hell I'm surprised such a movie got made in the first place.

But isn't it racist to cast a Japanese character white?
Yes, yes it is.

Are anime characters white or Japanese?
 
WISE is the only member of Teriyaki Boyz who is American, and only by birth. He was born and raised in Japan.

I have nothing else. Dean Cain was born Dean Tanaka or something. The guy who played Scorpion in the MK internet reboots is part Japanese I think. The girl that plays Kitana in Suicide Squad is Japanese American.
 
I don't think that's a good summation at all.

The issue at hand in the articles was that Japanese people don't find Faith "attractive." The comments point out that she looks "homely," not "un-Asian." One of the comments in that Kotaku article even asks EA why their character faces look bad, and references Dragon Age (mostly white characters) as also having ugly faces.

The fact that the second image got a boob job says it all. That "controversy" is more about taste than realism.

Not true. Those are the exact reasons. In the second article, it points to translated comments by Japanese gamers on the original design. Some of them point out what I mean

"Man, the Mirror's Edge protagonist is way creepy... It's like some Asian female stereotype."

"The eyes are way too Asian."

"Slant eyes for Asians is the same as big lips for black people."

"Well, Japanese people have the stereotype that Americans are fat, bald and clumsy. It's the same."

The boob job is irrelevant. I'm mostly talking about the face
 
I didnt want to say this in the Teaser Trailer since everyone there is all so positive.

But to me Dr. Strange looks like cinematic equivalent of a California mom doing 'yoga' in her front yard then gaining Mr. Fantastic's powers.

Magic is not real. But the "chakras and energies" and all that are real. Its based off believes of real religions. Of course, white/western supremacy means you can equate different religious beliefs with magic and fantasy while having Tilda Swinton and Benedict Britishman styled like an Asians and running around Nepal.

Its a deculturing/dehumanizing effort really. Theres no post-cultural hidden society of monks in Asia that practices magic; there are real-life people in 2016 that use (or believe they use) chakra and energies to influence their bodies as well as other people.

Its not paying any respect to have a white man seek out Asian culture for enlightenment, finds a real life religion in Nepal, then steps behind the veil of those beliefs to find a hidden society (lead by white people) having mastered the level beyond the Asian peons.

The Fu Manchu Ancient One was really the only racist part they were worried about?
 
Sure! I say Rinko Kikuchi from Pacific Rim could work. Who do you like?
Yeah I love that film. How about Tao Okamoto? I honestly don't have many suggestions
Japanese Americans are more likely to go into music and modeling.
Hmm ok so, referring back to the original discussion, do you think the best way for Asian-American actors is to go to Asia first and build a base?
 
I have nothing else. Dean Cain was born Dean Tanaka or something. The guy who played Scorpion in the MK internet reboots is part Japanese I think. The girl that plays Kitana in Suicide Squad is Japanese American.

Utada Hikaru is the biggest one.

There are others, mostly from Hawaii, but many of them have fallen off the map.

Hmm ok so, referring back to the original discussion, do you think the best way for Asian-American actors is to go to Asia first and build a base?

I wouldn't call it the best, more like the only way. The problem is if you do that, you'll have a lot of trouble shaking the image that you're a foreigner.
 
I still haven't forgiven Marvel for the way they handled the Asian guy in Thor 2. I mean, they paid actors to waste valuable screen time to write him completely out of the movie.

Yeah, I noticed that the first time I watched the movie. I just laughed at how ridiculous that was.
 
I still haven't forgiven Marvel for the way they handled the Asian guy in Thor 2. I mean, they paid actors to waste valuable screen time to write him completely out of the movie.
Holy shit, you just reminded me that in Thor Dark World, there's a planet where all the Asians live segregated from the rest of Asgard. It's been a while since I've watched the movie and I have no intention of ever seeing it again, so please correct me if I'm wrong.
 
wtf?! freeofgreed claimed Disney drew all characters the same way so I provided examples to the contrary.

You said Disney coded ethnicities differently and that Tezuka only copied the white ones. You then post the differently coded ethnicities, which are wildly stereotyped and racist to prove that Disney didn't draw characters the same way. Are you implying Tezuka should have copied the exaggerated and racist versions of other ethnicities, including his own, instead of just the default face used by every other character, including the animals? It's suspect that you would try to use that to prove your point.
 
Not true. Those are the exact reasons. In the second article, it points to translated comments by Japanese gamers on the original design. Some of them point out what I mean



The boob job is irrelevant. I'm mostly talking about the face

I mean, one of the comments you pasted there says "too Asian" not "not Asian." Though otoh we are taking a few comments as though they're gospel either way, which I generally don't like to do because you could translate some of NeoGAF and use it to say westerners all think one way or another.

And I don't think the boob job is irrelevant because the genesis of that picture in the first place was to show what would be attractive too Asian gamers, not merely "acceptable."
 
I mean, one of the comments you pasted there says "too Asian" not "not Asian." Though otoh we are taking a few comments as though they're gospel either way, which I generally don't like to do because you could translate some of NeoGAF and use it to say westerners all think one way or another.

And I don't think the boob job is irrelevant because the genesis of that picture in the first place was to show what would be attractive too Asian gamers, not merely "acceptable."

Yeah, but this is a discussion of what races anime character look like, and how that perception differs between westerners and Asians, so in this context the boob job isn't relevant at all (big boobs aren't exactly unique to a particular race)
 
Holy shit, you just reminded me that in Thor Dark World, there's a planet where all the Asians live segregated from the rest of Asgard. It's been a while since I've watched the movie and I have no intention of ever seeing it again, so please correct me if I'm wrong.
Actually they're the Vanir, natives of Vanaheim. They're pretty much like Asgardians in terms of longevity and such.
 
You said Disney coded ethnicities differently and that Tezuka only copied the white ones. You then post the differently coded ethnicities, which are wildly stereotyped and racist to prove that Disney didn't draw characters the same way. Are you implying Tezuka should have copied the exaggerated and racist versions of other ethnicities, including his own, instead of just the default face used by every other character, including the animals? It's suspect that you would try to use that to prove your point.
... No? I have no idea where you getting that I think he should have copied the racist caricatures. My point is that he didn't.
 
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