What do you think of Ghost in the Shell's opening words, in relation to Oshii Mamoru's seeming denial of whitewashing in the live-action 2017 film?

These are the first words of Ghost in the Shell:

In the near future, electrons and light flow freely, and corporate computer networks eclipse the stars. Despite great advances in computerization, countries and races are not yet obsolete…

Politics are near the core of Ghost in the Shell. Its first words are explicitly political.

Oshii was quoted in the video as saying: "I can only sense a political motive from the people opposing it, and I believe artistic expression must be free from politics."

"Art without politics" -- even in the context of GitS itself -- is a naive, toothless fantasy of a world without distinct groups of humans grappling with conflicting motivations.

Politics build the function and dysfunction of society itself. There are no stories told between humans without "political motivations" of one sort or another. Art is never isolated from the world in which we live, unless you've turned your back on reality.

From its very first words, Ghost in the Shell is an international, sociopolitical story. It's amusing that so many people seem to ignore those first words. (Perhaps because they're written in Japanese.)

Whitewashing is not a question of an anime character's cyborg body. It's an issue of real people dealing with racism -- and denial of their cultural existence -- every single day. These are the politics that matter, and these are issues that not everyone has the privilege to ignore.

Note also that whitewashing isn't a problem in Japan. It's a problem in the socially, ethnically, and politically diverse environment known as "Hollywood."

Does anyone have a link to the full interview? It would be great to hear what Oshii Mamoru thinks about the issues surrounding the film, beyond the second-hand translation of a fifteen-second soundbyte.