When it comes to all the whitewashing controversies, as an Asian American, I’ve been pretty staunch in just not supporting any of it. I know it sounds small, like using a reusable cup when you go buy coffee, does my one small choice do that much? Probably not a huge thing, but representation matters a lot to me so it’s become a matter of personal principle and voting with my dollar. Besides, it’s been pretty easy. There was already a great film adaption of Ghost in The Shell; I can live on without seeing Scarlett Johansson do stunts in a black wig. I love a good Marvel movie, but I would never pay to see Tilda Swinton play a “Celtic” Ancient One. Death Note and Iron Fist can stay far away from Netflix queue.
Isle of Dogs though, falls into kind of a gray area. It’s the same gray area Travis Knight used as a defense back in 2016 with his film Kubo and the Two Strings. In an interview with Complex about the largely white cast in his Asian animated story, Knight circled around in his answer. He mentioned the big cultural discussions about race and diversity, the big point of his answer though was, “For Kubo, most of our characters are not even human.” Knight went on about how the humans, with the exception of the titular Kubo, are voiced by Asian actors. Isle of Dogs falls in a similar boat with its leading dogs and humans voiced by big-name white actors, including Swinton and Johansson. It does have some Japanese actors voicing important secondary characters, including Yoko Ono. Yet, because they’ve decided to go without subtitles, the lines in Japanese are watered down.
There were also points in the story where Isle of Dogs’ whiteness just didn’t sit right or make total sense. Why did it have to be Greta Gerwig’s white exchange student who stands up against the mayor? It could’ve easily have been one of the other Japanese teenagers writing the paper. At one point, while Atari rambles on, one of the dogs says how he wishes someone could understand the kid’s language. It’s played as a small line about dogs not understanding their masters. But given the long history of Asians played as hard to understand foreigners in Hollywood – hearing a white American voice say that about a Japanese boy, just didn’t land well for me.
I don’t think Wes Anderson or Travis Knight actively used animals in Asian stories as some kind of loophole to whitewash them. Nor do I think what these two animated films did is the same as Emma Stone, blonde hair and big green eyes, claiming to be part Hawaiian and Chinese. And unlike Aloha – Isle of Dogs and Kubo are good films. They’re beautifully animated and their stories are touching.
Though, when I caved and decided to see Isle of Dogs before writing it off, I couldn’t help but think of who was benefiting from it all. Neither Wes Anderson nor Travis Knight were trying to depict a truly authentic Japan and the lead animal roles in their respective films are not explicitly Asian. But still, two white directors borrowed heavily from an Asian culture, gave the opportunity of telling these Asian stories to mostly white actors, and got a bunch of critical acclaims.
In the same Complex interview, Knight also talked about how Matthew McConaughey made for a great lead as a beetle in Kubo. “He’s an extraordinary actor; he doesn’t really look like a four-eyed armored beetle, but he’s a great actor.” Whitewashing is a complicated issue that I think, with even joking statements like that, gets lost in nonsensical technicalities. I’m not here to debate over the race of a stop-motion pug, animated beetle, or futuristic cyborg – because the consequences of the issue go beyond whether a character is canonically white or not. It’s mainly an issue of representation and opportunity. There are not a lot of Asian stories that get told in Hollywood, hence, not a lot of opportunity for Asian-American actors. So when stories so influenced by Asian culture or aesthetics go to Tilda, Scarlett, Bryan Cranston, or whoever – it’s an issue. White Americans get to hear and see themselves on screen all the time. They don’t need to be taking up space in Asian stories as the lead humans, dogs, beetles, or any other form.
All in all, I liked Isle of Dogs. Like with most Wes Anderson movies, it was a very touching and symmetrical fun time. Still, I think we have a ways to go before a film like this can be seen solely as a cultural homage. There’s simply too much whitewashing today for a white cast list like that to just be something benign or coincidental. The cultural conversation continues though, and maybe one day I can pay to see a movie about dogs without paying into a toxic industry.