Are you already mad about the whitewashing of the Ghost in the Shell movie? Well, I’ve got more bad news for you: producers attempted to make irrefutably white actress Scarlett Johansson more Asian with CGI.
According to multiple independent sources close to the project, Paramount and Dreamworks commissioned special effects company Lola VFX (the same company that made Brad Pitt age backwards in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) to run visual effects tests that would have subtly race changed Johansson in post-production to look more ‘ethnically appropriate’. You know, instead of hiring a Japanese actress.
The production companies weren’t entirely tone-deaf and racially insensitive though because they scrapped the idea after testing it. When confronted with this information, Paramount tried to cover their tracks, claiming the CGI was for a background character. Insiders insist it was for Johansson.
For those that don’t know, Ghost in the Shell is a cyberpunk anime of a possible future where computer technology has advanced to the point that many members of the public possess cyberbrains, a technology that allows them to interface their biological brain with various networks.
It’s an allegory that revolves around the Japanese technological boom after their military was taken away from them. Because of this, it’s not a universal sci-fi story. It’s a Japanese story through and through that Western media has no right trying to Westernize and whitewash.
Stay tuned to Rogues Portal for continuing coverage of this train wreck Ghost in the Shell.
