Is Whitewashing A Big Deal?

Next year, we’ll actually be getting not one, but two major Hollywood productions based on anime series – “Ghost in the Shell”, starring Scarlett Johansson, and “Death Note”, starring Nat Wolff. Both adaptations have been trying to get off the ground for a really long time now (“The Matrix” was originally supposed to be a “Ghost in the Shell” adaptation, but the Wachowskis didn’t think they’d get the rights, so they took some main themes and styles and presented them in their own way, while “Death Note” had a failed adaptation with Zac Efron, which was a real shame because Zac Efron is literally Kira), so I’m actually really excited to see how they turn out! You already know that most anime adaptations are terrible, so if those two also suck, at least they’ll provide us with an entertaining experience, and maybe a fresh perspective on some beloved characters. And, of course, there’s always the chance that they might surprise us and turn out to be pretty damn awesome, which is what I’m rooting for! In any case, that’s not what I’m here to talk about. Instead, there’s another, more interesting topic that these movies touched on – the topic of whitewashing.

You see, “Death Note” is about a Japanese high school student who finds a notebook with the ability to kill people whose names are written within and decides to use it to ascend to godhood, and his struggle against the British detective of Japanese descent who is dispatched to catch him. “Ghost in the Shell”, while set in the future, stars Major Motoko Kusanagi – a cyborg heading a law enforcement division in a cyberpunk future. As you may have noticed, both of those characters are Japanese, and yet the actors who will be playing them in their live action adaptations, Nat Wolff and ScarJo, are very much not Japanese, or even Asian. That led to numerous news sources denouncing the movies, calling the practice of casting white actors to play Japanese characters “whitewashing” and saying that it stays in the way of diversity. Well, I’m here to tell you that whitewashing isn’t actually a big deal, and it actually helps diversity. Crazy, right? Keep reading!

First of all, it’s important to note that certain characters and settings really do require characters of a certain ethnicity to play the part. Iconic characters such as Luke Cage, Shaft, Storm and Black Panther must absolutely be black, otherwise they simply don’t work. Similarly, when a movie is very deeply entrenched in a certain culture and mythology, it’s generally a good idea to have actors that belong to the same culture. This is one of the biggest problems of “The Last Airbender”, which is already a terrible movie in many ways – its four nations were inspired by Tibet, China, Japan and the Inupiat tribes… So, naturally, the movie is mostly full of white people and Indians. Huh?

But let me ask you this – is the Japanese setting truly integral to the plot and themes of “Death Note”? Is anything lost by changing the setting from Japan to America? Similarly, is the character of Light Yagami (or Light Turner as he’ll be known in the Western adaptation) truly dependent on his ethnicity? The answer, of course, is no. The things that define “Death Note” are the gradual transformation of its protagonist from a well-intentioned extremist into a murderous psychopath, and the elaborate cat and mouse game between him and the detective sent to catch him in which they both lay out plans over plans over plans. “Death Note” is NOT entrenched in Japanese culture, nor does it rely on its characters being a certain race to tell its story. So all of the accusations that the movie doesn’t have diversity because of whitewashing are stupid, especially because L – the detective in charge of catching Light – has been changed from a Brit with Japanese ancestry to a black man. Considering the fact that I have personally seen forum posts of black cosplayers who wanted to cosplay L, but were afraid that their skin color wouldn’t enable them to, this is actually pretty huge and a much better choice in my opinion than just making him Asian. You know what movie REALLY doesn’t have diversity, though? The Japanese version of “Death Note”, which is great, I admit, but it casts Japanese actors in every single role. Including the people who, in the manga and anime, are Brits. Everyone is Japanese. But wait! It gets WORSE! In the “Attack on Titan” manga and anime, all the characters are Western – the fact that people no longer have distinct races (because there’s so few of them) and a certain character is the last Asian (and she’s only half-Asian to boot) is a plot point. Come the movie, and every single one of the characters is once again played by a Japanese actor. Why did no one accuse those movies of yellow-washing or something? Oh, that’s right – because Japanese people actually don’t care about this sort of thing whatsoever.

That’s probably the funniest part of this whole charade. Many Westerners go on this anti-whitewashing crusade thinking that they’re representing Asian people (as if Asians are some kind of oppressed minority that doesn’t have a voice of its own and needs the mighty whitey to speak for it), when in reality most Japanese people aren’t really all that bothered by it. If you look at a Japanese message boards, the people who are actually disturbed by the casting in any capacity are in the minority, and a lot of them are bothered because of reasons other than the actress’ race (one commenter points that ScarJo looks too kind to be Major Kusanagi, which I can kind of see). The majority of comments actually defend the casting, citing reasons such as the lack of high-profile Japanese actresses in Hollywood (at least none that have the star power that rivals that of Scarlet Johansson) and the fact that putting a particular race on a machine (which is what the character is) is ridiculous. The bottom line is that, nine times out of ten, there’s absolutely no reason to get outraged at whitewashing. In most cases, it’s really not a bad practice, and it can sometimes be good! Just ask any black L cosplayer you see from next year onwards!