Yeah, better than my idea of asking Gackt to cross-dress for the role. 
I still like my idea too though. Although it would either add another layer of drama to the tale or change it to a more comedic tone, of course.
@Ramidel
I’d agree, if it were the fact that this is western film in general and Hollywood in particular doing a movie primarily for American audiences. In that context, a character isn’t normally seen as “believable” as being of a certain ethnicity unless they’re cast as an actor of an ethnicity that at least carries a rough resemblance.
When this was first announced months ago, I flippantly compared the idea of ScarJo’s casting as like casting John Cho as Uhtred Uhtredson in The Last Kingdom: perhaps that would have flown in Japan with its tradition of mukokuseki, but not in the west, where a work like this is undoubtedly directed towards.
In other news, this guy did a tweet chain the other day kinda outlining what I was trying to get across with regards to the “Japanese-ness” of GitS, but in a more concise manner.
Gackt would never agree to it. He’s a hypermasculine actor here. Like Clint Eastwood or something.
@cascat07
Knowing what I do of the (world-wide) tradition of androgyny as hyper-masculinity, this does not surprise me in the least.
His affectation of androgyny I think is more from a western eye. A Japanese person would never mistake him for a woman. He is a bit like Prince or Bowie I suppose though in terms of why he is considered attractive.
@cascat07
I was thinking less Prince, and more Louis XIV.
Haha of course… I should have known better.
Yet I’ve never seen (a younger) Clint Eastwood dress up as a rather cute and sexy nurse.
The only film Eastwood his I’ve ever seen where crossdressing is even a factor was Thunderbolt and Lightfoot and in that one he lets a much younger and blonder Jeff Bridges do all the crossdressing.
Still he’s too much of a superstar already (which very likely makes him too expensive), better to go with a younger and less established actor. They’re much more willing to do crazy stuff for money anyway and their English is also usually better (as in flawless and better than mine and probably that of most 'Muricans too).
You must come at it from a different perspective than I then. I’ve met quite a few androgynous guys since I got active in the gay rights movement and while some do seem to want to overcompensate and attempt to radiate their masculinity by growing a beard and dressing up like they’re Canadian woodsmen and seal clubbers, most are relatively normal guys, a very few use it to their advantage as drag queens and the most intriguing few consider themselves to be outside of binary gender classification altogether.
I just wanted to note that many movies bar people of color for auditioning for the role. For example, Katniss Everdeen, who is described as having olive skin, was only open to white actresses. I can’t prove it but I believe that GITS was the same way.
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As far as Japanese treatment of minorities goes:
One thing is that the Russians in Japan, of which there are quite a number, are treated significantly better then the Koreans.
But well, law enforcement is an area where even well integrated minorities in Japan dont end up (Russians do things in science etc., in Japan), and is pretty much exclusively Yamato.
You do have Russians in “private security services”, but these arent that much of a thing in current Japan. Given the permutations from current Japan to Ghost in the Shell Japan, well, I could buy a modifcation in which the Japanese system increasingly uses foreigners to do the repression (akin to Athens using Skythians). But well, Kusanagi is Japanese. Batou as a white actor (I generally thought he is non-Yamato in the Animes) is ok, but Kusanagi?
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SO I’m in the very, very, EXTREMELY early stages of a game–@Fiogan linked me here for my question:
if I were to include the ability for your character’s appearance (hair/eye/skin colors) to affect your family’s appearance, what would be the best way to go about including skin tones?
In the world, there aren’t really racial divides in the same sense–considering elves, dragons, goblins, and dwarves (amongst others) all exist, nobody really cares much about skintone. So how would I go about giving the player the ability to control their skintone without coming off as racially insensitive?
Would I just say light, medium, dark skin?
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Having a Japanese family name doesn’t mean you’ll be Japanese looking. There are lots of mixed race Japanese that take their mother’s family name.
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There are also Zainichi Koreans who have Japanese surnames as well (while being fully Korean; one example would be famous model Kiko Mizuhara and her mother) as a result of assimilation
You don’t even have to be Japanese to have a Japanese last name! I have had two classmates whose ancestors changed their names, either for security reasons or for the sake that it’s easier for other people to pronounce.
My question would be, if it doesn’t matter, why are you making it a choice? If you’re doing it for the sake of being inclusive, it would probably be best to write around the idea all together.
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Personally, I think Fawkes did a great job in Heirs of Ophaesia by adding different skin tones while making it sound poetic. What I do, and I’m not saying YOU have to go by this rule since it’s your choice as the author, is I avoid comparing skin tones to food.
I’ve seen comments from POC readers don’t like the descriptions that correspond to food when describing skin tone. If you want it to sound more aesthetically pleasing, I would maybe suggest words that correlate with precious stones? Onyx, amber, tawny (not a gem, but still a nice word), and bronze are common terms I’ve come across when describing darker skin tones. Here are some pretty words for darker tones. Also, if you ever compare brown eyes to gemstones and don’t want to use amber and topaz, here’s another great place.
And if you wanted the character to have the option of skin tone without it correlating to the story, I’d say just add it along with character customization. Customization shouldn’t have to be optional, but if you want to I say go for it! I thought The Burden did a really good job in character customization.
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I suggested it because in the game, you choose your hair colour and texture and eye colour, and it affects the way your MC’s family is described - which I thought was quite a neat use for the often solely cosmetic appearance options.
I’ve seen lots of people on the forums and elsewhere be a tad frustrated because when a family member shows up in games, that family member looks nothing like the player’s imagined view of the MC. So I thought it’d be nice, given that hair and eyes were already an option, to add skin and let the family’s description be that much more rounded out.
Does it still seem like an unreasonable suggestion? I’m really quite interested in your reasoning, not only about this, but in part with a mind to a future possible WiP of my own as well.
@TruMaknae Have you heard people specifically comment about disliking ‘olive’? I’d thought that was fairly commonly accepted. Or is it more once we get into the territory of words like ‘chocolate’, ‘coffee’, and so forth? I’m curious because olive has always been quite a common descriptor with theatre friends of mine for a certain range of skin tones, on a few different continents where I’ve lived (well, in the appropriate languages.)
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Generally (and this is just IMO) I think it’s for the best to just skip things like skin/hair/eye color for the PC/relatives. There’s a lot more interesting characteristics you can add that don’t narrow the field when talking about relatives of the PC (short fingers, bright eyes, long hair, nervous ticks, wrinkles, limps, lopsided smiles, garish fingernails, missing teeth, scars, and so on).
Of course that may be a little self serving in that my skin color is the one that always gets left off, because no one wants to bother adding in such a small percent of the population.
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That is more than fair. As @Fiogan said, I’m adding in skintone, because the MC’s family (or at least one of their parents) has a large role in the plot.
Personally, I like having the written characteristics for my PC, because I very rarely ever make the characters look like me, since I think I’m pretty boring looking 
But I definitely appreciate your input on the necessity of descriptors–and I certainly appreciate the additional descriptors; makes me think of Zombie Exodus: Safe Haven! 
Also @TruMaknae FELLOW KPOPPER. 너는 한국어를 말합니까? What are your favorite groups? asd;flkjas;lkfdaskl;f i’m so excited to see someone on here who likes kpop. ;u;
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I’ve heard olive skin being used before, not just in writing circles but when talking about beauty or just describing different tans. I’m not sure if other people would find it offensive, but that really raises a good question. As a young’un, I used to be super tan and had olive skin, and that’s exactly how my mom described it. Honestly, I think it’s more of a general term when differentiating different shades. I never quite found that stuff offensive, so I’m not sure how other people feel about it.
But I think that ‘chocolate’ is too much since I’ve seen a lot of people use it to fetishize/exoticize black people. When you’re using it to describe hair or eyes, I think it’s fine since it’s more ambiguous but when describing as a skin tone, it can get controversial.
I’m glad you appreciate it!
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You know, when I was in elementary school (in the late 90s-early 2000s, to be fair), my classmates and I used to give ourselves food descriptors for our skintones. Caramel, chocolate, vanilla, toffee. I couldn’t imagine doing that now. It feels wrong.
Does this come off as insensitive or awkward, at all? :T
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