Ghost in Translation, 2019
two-channel video, sound, 6 minutes 50 seconds
Edit: Kate Blackmore
Audio Mix: Jonathan Hochman

Commissioned for the 2019 NSW Visual Arts Emerging Fellowship, 16 November – 15 December 2019, curated by Alexie Glass-Kantor and Elyse Goldfinch, Artspace, Sydney

Ghost in Translation, 2019, juxtaposes scenes from two films, Ghost in the Shell, 2017 (Dir. Rupert Sanders), and Lost in Translation, 2003 (Dir. Sofia Coppola), each set in fictionalised versions of Japan.

The protagonist in both is played by the American actress Scarlett Johansson. Johansson controversially stated in a 2019 interview, apparently in defence of her casting as a trans actor in the then in-production film Rub & Tug, that, “… as an actor I should be able to play any person, or any tree, or any animal, because that's my job and the requirements of my job.” Her comments ignited media and cultural debate about the legacy of whitewashing while casting in relief the chasm between visibility and respresentation in Hollywood.

In this work, Reforma has edited together a supercut of sequences from both films; scenes that establish each heroine against their respective representations of Japan e.g. the bright, neon lights of Tokyo; austere manicured gardens; and flashing video game arcades. Without dialogue, and set only to an audio track mixed from the diegetic scores of each film, we witness the curious and quieted Scarletts as they encounter and make sense of the the city.

Ghost in Translation reflects on a number of narrative and real world tensions: the casting – or miscasting – of white actors in non-white roles, and the parts that film, art and industry continue to play in advancing the Western gaze through the privileging of Eurocentric concepts of beauty, characterisation and storytelling.