HOLLYWOOD – Ghost in the Shell and Lost in Translation star Scarlett Johansson is not actually Japanese, we learned today.
Shocking news hit the internet that Scarlettt Johansson – star of Ghost in the Shell – is not in fact Japanese. Internet Sleuth Abercromby Mitch told the Studio Exec:
The first thing I did was look at the name. It doesn’t look very Japanese if you ask me. Norwegian and like Old Southy is more likely. Then I sleuthed my way over to the Wikipedia page and I found this little nugget buried under the deceptively simple looking subheading ‘Early Life’. And I quote:
Scarlett Johansson was born in Manhattan.[5] Her father, Karsten Johansson, is an architect originally from Copenhagen, Denmark,[6] and her paternal grandfather, Ejner Johansson, was an art historian, screenwriter, and director. Her mother, Melanie Sloan, a producer, comes from an Ashkenazi Jewish family from the Bronx.
So you see. Not Japanese at all.
Rupert Sanders reacted to the news with dismay:
I thought she was Japanese. I mean Lost in Translation was set in Tokyo right. And I think that’s in Japan.
A spokesperson for the Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA) – who had been critical of the casting of Johansson in the role of Motoku Kusanagi – had this to say:
Well, yeah, that’s what we were… Haven’t you been paying attention?
She’s Japanese about as much as my grandfather, from Germany, is Japanese.