By: Jordan Hopkins
An excerpt from our latest issue, The Fake News Issue!
The “Ghost in the Shell” remake starring Scarlett Johansson comes out in two weeks, and expectations are high. The Rupert Sanders-directed film is set to be the biggest anime live-action adaptation since “Aeon Flux”. However, with fame has come controversy; many people are up in arms concerning the film’s Asian protagonist being played by a white Hollywood actress. Always at the forefront of both art and clickable public debate with a high potential for shareability, we, here at Nonsense Humor, are just as excited as you are, and so to gain some insight on the upcoming release we went to our resident culture expert: a weathered old man who lives by the sea.
Howard Daniels is a seventy-six year old lighthouse owner from a nondescript but somewhat disarming town somewhere in Maine (maybe around the place where Stephen King lives or something). We spoke to him about the film – well, he shouted at us from the top of his decrepit, slightly menacing watchtower, the light pointing out to sea through the haze like a ghost.
“Yeah, I’m dumb fucking stoked, my dude,” Daniels was quoted as shouting at our reporter from the parapet. “I read every issue of the manga when I was living in Japan after The War, and I loved the 1995 Mamoru Oshii-directed film. Artificial intelligence, man. That’s some heavy shit.” As huge waves battered the spire from the east, spraying our reporter with their scenic brutality and throwing him several meters into the air, Daniels admitted that he did understand the problem with Johansson’s role in the film.
“Yeah, I can understand why people are upset,” he roared above the surf, his voice the ocean itself. “It kind of feels like they’re taking roles away from Asian actors, which I can understand is broke as fuck. I don’t want to support that kind of behavior, you know?”
Daniels admitted that he will likely not see the movie in theatres for this reason, and revealed that he would “probably end up torrenting it or something, I dunno”.