La Cucaracha by Lalo Alcaraz for May 07, 2016

And the reason this matters is because this happens over and over and over and over and over again. It’s a repeated, sustained pattern of filling roles that were originally written (or in this case, drawn) as people of color, but Hollywood in its infinite “wisdom” decides once again that what’s really needed is a white actor. Over and over and over and over again.

Apparently, the script is going to just call her “the Major” because the name “Motoko Kusanagi” is a dead giveaway that the person is Japanese in the same way that “Victoria Excalibur” would tell you the character is very British.

I’ve gotten old movies on DVD collections where Boris Karloff plays an Asian detective. Charlie Chan was played by a guy who was of Norwegian heritage, I believe. Warner Oland. Then there is David Carradine.

There’s also the (overlooked) fact that Motoko Kusanagi is actually just a brain in a jar walking around in a man made cybernetic body. In this case it’s a Scarlet Johansson shaped body. Tomorrow it could be Marylin Manroe and the day after she could look like Idris Elba. As long as you can find someone to build the body you want, you can look like whoever you want regardless of race or gender.

And we all know, nobody can act but white people. In reality, it’s more of a “pander to white audiences who only want to see celebrities”, and most are white, because that’s who’s been cast in roles that lead to celebrity.

And Hollywood is a bastion of liberals. One can say it is the big bosses who by image must be conservative(like Michele More-don’t bother with facts) but you never see the white very liberal actors make an effort to correct this situation. It’s like the McCarthy era only in reversed.