Let’s get straight to it, shall we? Netflix released the trailer for their next film starring Jared Leto called The Outsider directed by Martin Zandvliet. In it Leto plays an imprisoned American soldier in post-war Japan who joins the Yakuza (Underbelly x a million tbh) to earn his freedom. Within a day of its release, the trailer has become the next problematic thing to piss people off and here’s why. It’s set in Japan with their biggest and most infamous organised crime syndicate and the main character is a white dude. Not to mention, the Yakuza have been known to be strictly Japanese but of course, anything can happen in Hollywood. Just turn your attention to the adaption of Avatar: The Last Airbender and try not to cringe at all the whitewashing.
Though you could say The Outsider isn’t explicit whitewashing like when the movie adaption of the Japanese manga, Death Note happened, the film is very The Last Samurai with its ‘white saviour’ character arc. Y’know, the whole forced into another culture followed by eat-pray-loving, self-discovery, and then the inevitable messiah-ish thing where they become the unlikely but totally probable hero and saves everyone. La-di-da-da.
The trailer itself is a bunch of violence with loads of stabbing, bullets, and Leto’s character killing a white (probably racist) guy with a typewriter after he said, “I don’t give a shit about their traditions, or whatever the fuck it is you’re here to try and explain to me. WE WON.” The Last Samurai feels are so real right now.
Here’s the trailer if you want to give it a suss. Leto is so emo in this:
And here’s Twitter getting mad about the whole thing and absolutely ripping into it.
Seriously!?! Another one of those movies where the Asian actors are props and the story–set in JAPAN–revolves around the ONE Hollywood actor?!?
— Abdul R. Siddiqui (@PakistaniPepper) February 23, 2018
And another:
STOP. WRITING. AROUND. US. @netflix https://t.co/tTZHLGukVE
— William Yu 유규호 (@its_willyu) February 23, 2018
And one more because people really are upset:
If you want to watch something on the Yakuza in post-war Japan, check out the five amazing films in the ‘Yakuza Papers’ series by Kinji Fukasaku which covers the Yakuza’s rebirth and rise from the early ’50s to the early ’70s. Leave this embarrassing mess unloved and ignored. https://t.co/rQFAxgAM57
— Chris Eng (@hoodieripper) February 23, 2018
The Outsider will be out March 9 on Netflix.
