A Preview of Hollywood Whitewashing

The live action adaptation of Japanese anime, Ghost in the Shell, recently released the first official image of Scarlett Johansson, who plays the lead character believed to be inspired by Motoko Kusanagi. The online reaction hasn't been pleasant:

You can "Westernize" the story if you want, but at that point it is no longer Ghost In The Shell because the story is simply not Western.
— Jon Tsuei (@jontsuei) April 15, 2016

I love scarlet johanson but i hate how she's gonna play motoko in the ghost in the shell movi :(((((Come on,Its too iconic for that?
— luka fallback sabbat (@whoisluka) April 14, 2016

I REALLY like Scarlett Johansson. She'll do great in Ghost in the Shell. But it bothers me Hollywood STILL overlooks a lot of Asian actors.
— Meghan Sullivan (@Meghan_IGN) April 14, 2016

Ghost in the Shell was one of the most important movies to my brother and me growing up. It really does hurt to see it get this treatment.
— Jimmy Wong (@jfwong) April 14, 2016

The term to describe this move is "whitewashing" (casting white actors in non-white character roles) and there has been many calls for Hollywood to stop overlooking actors based on their race.

Sadly, this isn’t the first time that Asian characters are completely Westernised and replaced by white actors and actresses. Take a look at some below:

Avatar: The Last Airbender movie cast white actors for its main leads

The lead characters were originally people of colour, but were played by white actors. (Image: www.the-artiface.com)

Emma Stone as Allison Ng in Aloha, who's supposed to be of Chinese and Hawaiian descent

Which part of Emma Stone is Asian...? (Image: www.popsugar.com)

Justin Chatwin as Goku in Dragonball: Evolution

We doubt any Dragon Ball fans would acknowledge this movie's existence. (Image: www.wikipedia.com)

Rooney Mara as Tiger Lily in Pan

The original Tiger Lily (Image: www.themarysue.com)

Image: www.usatoday.com

Jim Sturgess as Hae-Joo Chang in Cloud Atlas

Hollywood tried some bomoh magic to turn Jim Sturgess into an Asian (Image: www.complex.com)

Anyway, we hope that this ridiculous tradition goes away for good, and that the movie industry stop turning the other way when it comes to representing actors of colour.

We recommend watching John Oliver's commentary on whitewashing to understand more about the issue (and get some laughs from it).