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Whitewashing the Canary
Mar. 11th, 2017 03:33 pmvia http://ift.tt/2mxeZ7f:
So I was reading about the Ghost in the Shell fuckup and it suddenly occurred to me that I was expecting this movie to suck. I know zero about it except it stars Johansson in a whitewashed role and was based on a manga but already I felt in my gut it was gonna suck.
And I thought- why? Why do I think this movie is going to suck?
Because, 99% of the time, whitewashed movies ALWAYS suck.
(Note: The Great Wall, which stars 10,000 non-white people, is an outlier and should not have been counted)
It’s actually pretty easy to explain. You see, whitewashing happens when directors want to play it safe, and appeal to the lowest common denominator. I.E. Casting a famous white person for a role rather than run the tiny risk that a non white person might sell marginally less tickets.
So if they’re going to play it safe in the casting room, why stop there? Why bother tackling a lot of deep philosophical questions that’ll just go over the audience’s head anyway? Why bother having deep conversational scenes when you can have big explosions, which is what the audience came to see? Why bother having diverse colour pallets and visual themes, when blue/orange has been doing so well lately?
Basically, whitewashing is the canary in the coalmine that a movie has been designed by committee, and is likely to suck huge hairy monkey balls.
I have no idea if Ghost in the Shell will suck, but given the original was so deep and complex, this canary is looking pretty sick.
So I was reading about the Ghost in the Shell fuckup and it suddenly occurred to me that I was expecting this movie to suck. I know zero about it except it stars Johansson in a whitewashed role and was based on a manga but already I felt in my gut it was gonna suck.
And I thought- why? Why do I think this movie is going to suck?
Because, 99% of the time, whitewashed movies ALWAYS suck.
(Note: The Great Wall, which stars 10,000 non-white people, is an outlier and should not have been counted)
It’s actually pretty easy to explain. You see, whitewashing happens when directors want to play it safe, and appeal to the lowest common denominator. I.E. Casting a famous white person for a role rather than run the tiny risk that a non white person might sell marginally less tickets.
So if they’re going to play it safe in the casting room, why stop there? Why bother tackling a lot of deep philosophical questions that’ll just go over the audience’s head anyway? Why bother having deep conversational scenes when you can have big explosions, which is what the audience came to see? Why bother having diverse colour pallets and visual themes, when blue/orange has been doing so well lately?
Basically, whitewashing is the canary in the coalmine that a movie has been designed by committee, and is likely to suck huge hairy monkey balls.
I have no idea if Ghost in the Shell will suck, but given the original was so deep and complex, this canary is looking pretty sick.
