Have you been following any of the news about Scarlett Johansson’s new movie, Ghost in the Shell? If not, in short: It’s a live-action update of a Japanese manga classic, and Scarlett is playing a character who is Japanese in the original. In April, Joan Chen, Constance Wu, and Ming-Na Wen had an interesting exchange about the whitewashing of the part at a panel discussion; later, there was a rumor that the studio tried visual effects on Scarlett’s face to make her appear more Asian (!!); Scarlett recently gave a circuitous Marie Claire interview where she tried to sell that she always thought the film was about gender rather than race (which is definitely the line the studio’s PR folks told her to tell everyone); now, the producer claims it’s really “an international story,” anyway. I haven’t seen the film, and I’m not familiar with the source material, but two things are clear: (a) Paramount made the decision to cast a white actress in a role that was originally portrayed as a Japanese woman, presumably because they thought Scarlett would make them more money than a Japanese actress would, and (b) that choice has been creating a mountain of bad press for them for over a year. And now everyone has to go out and promote it. (Scarlett is also going through a divorce right now, and it seems like a messy one. This may not the best junket she’s ever gone on.)
And in addition to all the looks in the slideshow, this Balmain thing wasn’t in our subscription but I would have been REMISS not to share:
Dude. What. No. You did not need a hybrid of a Mother-of-the-Bride gown and a jumpsuit. You just did not. In fact, it pains me to tell you, but Scarlett made A LOT of pant-related missteps over the past two weeks. Brace yourselves.
[Photos: Getty]
