The Ghost Of The Movie That Was Supposed to Be Ghost In The Shell

No one is trying to claim prophecy and announce that The Ghost In The Shell the new Scarlett Johansson thriller (as I’m sure it’s is marketed somewhere) is a bad movie thinking that it’s ground breaking news. Since the announcement of Johansson starring in the film in the role of the iconic ‘Major’ Motoko Kusanagi, a White actress playing a Japanese character in its source material, there has been a lot of loud protest and resentment of the choice. Then, when we had all forgotten about it for the most part, the first image of Johansson as Major surfaced and the audible unrest of this casting choice grew all over again. The history of White performers playing the roles of previously envisioned Asian identified characters is a long and storied one, one that I myself cannot even claim to have a grasp on its full extent. But this seemed to be another notch in that bastard legacy in the run up to the movie through its marketing and eventual release. The movie is here now and those complaints regarding the white washing of this source material is not only affirmed in the final cut of the film, it is doubled down on at times. Unfortunately, while that is the most serious or consequential crime of this film, it is by no means the only failure of this mass-marketed major release. Ghost in The Shell is nothing short of an outright disaster, joining the ranks of previous anime titles that were painted over with a fresh coat of blanco to the point of being an unrecognizable mess.

The pl…