Last Wednesday, Netflix released the trailer for Death Note, its live-action film adaptation of a popular manga series of the same name. The original Death Note tells the story of a Japanese high school student named Light Yagami who one day stumbles upon a "Death Note," a notebook that kills anyone whose name is written in it. Armed with the supernatural killing device and a healthy dose of self-righteousness, Light begins executing criminals in what he believes is an attempt to rid the world of evil. The manga has since been adapted into one of the most well-known anime series, four live-action Japanese films, a television drama, and even a musical among other iterations.
However, this most recent adaptation has sparked immediate controversy, labelled by many as an indication of Hollywood's massive blind spot: Asian representation in film and television. Producers of the film have cast Caucasian actor, Nat Wolff, to play the protagonist Light Turner, and an equally white Margaret Qualley to play opposite him as the female lead. Fans have likened the whitewashing to Paramount Pictures' treatment of Ghost in the Shell, another anime adaptation which sparked controversy after Scarlett Johansson was cast as the film's protagonist, a character who is Japanese in the source material. In Ghost in the Shell, Johansson plays a cyborg in charge of a counter-cyberterrorist task force in a fictional Japanese city.
However, I would compare this case more to the infamous type of cultural whitewashing perpetrated by 4Kids back in the early 2000s which claimed to "Americanize" certain animes for Western audiences by changing key elements such as the characters’ names, the types of food they are eating, or even characters’ genders or the nature of their relationships with each other. Perhaps changing random food items is harmless enough to a degree. But what happens when we change a character’s name, thus also changing their identity – and, inevitably, their race? The new Death Note adaptation changes Light's last name to "Turner" and the setting to Seattle, firmly placing him outside of Japan and outside of a Japanese context, stripping him of his race. It makes me feel as though Netflix believes that a mass American audience assumed to be watching the film cannot possibly identify with someone whose name is so vastly different from theirs. I fear that by choosing to cast all white leads for this version, Netflix is sending a message that an American version of anything must be white, when in reality Americans are more than capable of investing in Asian characters and actors. It is telling that, despite the directors explicitly championing the diversity of their cast, there are only four East Asian actors total, and none in leading roles.
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