Did you know;
In the 90s, people got bad because Simba from the Lion King was played by a white kid

She only needs to believe.... 

Yeah, I remember that. It was Jonathan Taylor Thomas from Home Improvement. After Robin Williams did the genie in Aladdin, star power became a more prominent thing for animated Disney films even though movies before that rarely had big stars as lead voice actor roles.

Funny thing was a black kid did Simba's singing voice (Jason Weaver from Thea and Smart Guy).

Haha I can only laugh when stuff like this happens now. Just absurd..

Spin it any way you want it, this is tribalistic thinking and bigotry pure and simple. It's identity politics obsession, and it's a primitive way of thinking.

Don't get me wrong, I don't necessary feel Johansson should have played the role IF there was a trans actor who played the part better, but she was CAST as the role, she didn't force herself onto it, which means to me that she was the absolute best choice to play the part. And call me crazy, but I believe that whoever is best for the job gets the part, END of story.

You've never heard of a movie doing poorly because of bad casting? I'm not even talking identity politics. I am talking about movies were certain roles were so poorly casted that it ruined the movie. Jake Lloyd from the Phantom Menace is a prime example of this. Poor kid's life was ruined, and he ticks all the boxes that Anakin Skywalker should have. He's was a white, straight, male child. He was just a terrible actor (yes, even compared to other kids). Hayden Christensen was similarly criticized for the same role in later films of the prequel trilogy.

On the other end, we have movies that have been praised for fantastic casting. For me, that'd be something like The Brady Bunch Movie.

Either way, I don't believe at all that "whoever is best for the job gets the part, END of story". Otherwise, people wouldn't praise or condemn a movie for its casting. And I certainly doubt SJ won the part, because of merit. She was last year's most bankable female star because of the Avengers, but most other roles have led to flops, her acting has been mediocre at best, and a movie about a trans actor would likely have little box office impact from her Avengers success.

lmao

How does your non Japanese side feel about all of this? 

This

Regardless, she was ALREADY cast. Which meant the casting process was over. Time to move on. But no..

Ironically, all this caving into the social justice cultural Authoritarian bullies has done is probably set the movie back to god knows how long, and even if the movie DOES eventually get made and they do find one of the very few trans actors out there that can jump into the part, it likely won't brings in even close to the numbers it would have with Johansson. The movie's probably dead in the water with this move.

I wasn't commenting on whether it being delayed or recast was a good move. In fact, I agree with you that now this project is probably dead in the water. I was questioning your idea that whoever is best for the job gets the job. I don't agree with that sentiment and believe that the part probably should have been better cast in the first place.

If SJ didn't step down, it was going to get a lot of flack and sink like Ghost in the Shell, Exodus, Aloha and other movies in the past 5 years that have gotten shred critically and by the viewers specifically for casting. Since she is, it's probably going to sink for the reasons you stated.

It'd probably be better for producers to be more inclusive and do a better job of casting believable actors so things like this won't happen in the first place. Call me crazy.