memoirs of a geisha
Here's a letter I posted today on Salon.com in response to Stephanie Zacharek's review of the movie
I haven't seen the movie yet, although my girlfriend liked the book and wants to go, so I guess I shall get ready to grit my teeth and go (just like I did with the Passion of the Gibson).
The link to the letters section is here. The names here refer to other letter writers. Check it out, there's some good stuff here.
mainstream cluelessness and when to get mad
Part of the problem with all of this is way in which mainstream powerbrokers don't feel the need to even THINK about "getting it right".
Christina Liu's point about the "me so horny" stereotype about Asian women (thanks for the point Christina, you were right on) is also partly an indictment of the way in which guys (but particularly a certain kind of white guy) feel that they can make themselves more "manly" by invoking the "sexually submissive Asian woman available for the pleasure of her (non-Asian therefore dominant) master" trope that gets trotted out whenever some mental lepton wants to impress his so-called friends.
And of course there are equivalents for any other group of marginalized people. I don't think there's any point in getting into the "my experience is worse than your experience" game. The point is, they (the boys on the corner, the suits at the studios) don't want to get it right because they don't care and because getting it right would involve showing some respect. The way I see it, there's lack of respect a-plenty in this whole sorry situation.
The other issue is that sometimes people say things that you might agree with for reasons you totally disagree with: e.g. I can understand that Japanese people would be touchy about the issue of non-Japanese people representing Japanese culture. There IS a long history of orientalizing (fetishizing the exotic "East", by Europeans for their own benefit and pleasure).
On the other hand, it's not like Japan is in danger of being represented solely by white Hollywood directors and producers. More importantly, Japanese proprietaryness over Japanese culture can certainly be taken to racist extremes itself: see for example the way that Japanese of Korean ancestry are treated as "foreigners" both legally and socially even though many have lived in Japan for three or four generations. It's also often the case that, in Japan, the better a "foreigner's" Japanese language becomes, the more often he or she runs into hideous kinds of prejudice and discrimination from Japanese people who are offended at a gaijin "trying to 'pass' as 'really' Japanese".
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that this thing (racism, orientalism, exoticism, objectification) is all about degree and context, which is something that Hollywood doesn't want to hear.
Perhaps Rob Marshall was going with "the best actresses available", and in an ideal world, I'd be all for color/culture/gender-blind casting but in the current world, you would have to be a complete moron to not anticipate that your creative decisions are going to be viewed in the context of white stereotypes about Asians, and in terms of the historical, political and cultural hostilities that exist between China and Japan.
You CAN use casting against type to make a pointed comment about people's expectations: there are some GREAT productions of Shakespeare in Maori for example with almost all Maori casts, but I don't think Rob Marshall was trying for that.
Also, I don't think you'll find many Chinese people from China getting upset at the movie, except for the folks who are still fighting world war 2 in some way (and there are a bunch of them still, although most of the ones who do it out of conviction are in their 60s now). I think the main source of Chinese people who are uneasy about this movie (and I'm speaking from my own experience here) is mostly Chinese diasporans who have to deal with white/other privileged cluelessness about Asians in general on a more or less daily basis.
It's sometimes hard to know where genuine lack of knowledge starts and malicious orientalism begins. That's one of the reasons why language is so important particularly in cyber-space.
Without meaning to pick on Black Lady (sorry Black Lady), the phrase "stealing from each other's cultures" is an example where there are a couple of different interpretations of what she might mean. Those of us who assume that Black Lady is on the side of racial and cultural justice and mutual respect, would take this to mean that she is talking about the way in which adjacent cultures influence one another and borrow cultural ideas or sometimes express common ideas that reflect a shared historical legacy.
Others would immediately get mad because they would be thinking of situations where one group of people literally stole cultural attributes of another (for example, the Japanese repeatedly stole -read enslaved- Korean craftspeople to teach them how to make pottery for instance, and the Japanese also stole priceless artifacts from Chinese museums during WW2). This "stealing" was usually an expression of domination over others rather than respect or admiration.
A third issue would be whether "stealing" doesn't in some way suggest that one culture is somehow inferior or lacking when compared to another. This is particularly sensitive for East Asian cultures since all of them believe they are superior to everyone else, partly as a consequence of the more feudal and abusive elements of Confucianism (Chinese, "stolen" by both the Japanese and the Koreans). This is another example of passing a value judgement on a particular situation in a sensitive environment where status also involves assumptions about who has the right to power over whom.
Personally, I'm prepared to believe that Black Lady meant the first thing and not the others, but a more neutral term like "adopted" would be even better.
I know we can't all know everything there is to know about each other's histories and wounds, but there's something to be said for learning honestly from one another and being a little forgiving - Except of people like Rob Marshall who had the resources and the power to do a better job than he did, or if he _meant _ to play into the stereotypes, then most definitely he deserves to be called on it.
Thanks for the exchange of views Black Lady and AsianChick, they brought up some good points and a lot of food for thought.
I haven't seen the movie yet, although my girlfriend liked the book and wants to go, so I guess I shall get ready to grit my teeth and go (just like I did with the Passion of the Gibson).
The link to the letters section is here. The names here refer to other letter writers. Check it out, there's some good stuff here.
mainstream cluelessness and when to get mad
Part of the problem with all of this is way in which mainstream powerbrokers don't feel the need to even THINK about "getting it right".
Christina Liu's point about the "me so horny" stereotype about Asian women (thanks for the point Christina, you were right on) is also partly an indictment of the way in which guys (but particularly a certain kind of white guy) feel that they can make themselves more "manly" by invoking the "sexually submissive Asian woman available for the pleasure of her (non-Asian therefore dominant) master" trope that gets trotted out whenever some mental lepton wants to impress his so-called friends.
And of course there are equivalents for any other group of marginalized people. I don't think there's any point in getting into the "my experience is worse than your experience" game. The point is, they (the boys on the corner, the suits at the studios) don't want to get it right because they don't care and because getting it right would involve showing some respect. The way I see it, there's lack of respect a-plenty in this whole sorry situation.
The other issue is that sometimes people say things that you might agree with for reasons you totally disagree with: e.g. I can understand that Japanese people would be touchy about the issue of non-Japanese people representing Japanese culture. There IS a long history of orientalizing (fetishizing the exotic "East", by Europeans for their own benefit and pleasure).
On the other hand, it's not like Japan is in danger of being represented solely by white Hollywood directors and producers. More importantly, Japanese proprietaryness over Japanese culture can certainly be taken to racist extremes itself: see for example the way that Japanese of Korean ancestry are treated as "foreigners" both legally and socially even though many have lived in Japan for three or four generations. It's also often the case that, in Japan, the better a "foreigner's" Japanese language becomes, the more often he or she runs into hideous kinds of prejudice and discrimination from Japanese people who are offended at a gaijin "trying to 'pass' as 'really' Japanese".
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that this thing (racism, orientalism, exoticism, objectification) is all about degree and context, which is something that Hollywood doesn't want to hear.
Perhaps Rob Marshall was going with "the best actresses available", and in an ideal world, I'd be all for color/culture/gender-blind casting but in the current world, you would have to be a complete moron to not anticipate that your creative decisions are going to be viewed in the context of white stereotypes about Asians, and in terms of the historical, political and cultural hostilities that exist between China and Japan.
You CAN use casting against type to make a pointed comment about people's expectations: there are some GREAT productions of Shakespeare in Maori for example with almost all Maori casts, but I don't think Rob Marshall was trying for that.
Also, I don't think you'll find many Chinese people from China getting upset at the movie, except for the folks who are still fighting world war 2 in some way (and there are a bunch of them still, although most of the ones who do it out of conviction are in their 60s now). I think the main source of Chinese people who are uneasy about this movie (and I'm speaking from my own experience here) is mostly Chinese diasporans who have to deal with white/other privileged cluelessness about Asians in general on a more or less daily basis.
It's sometimes hard to know where genuine lack of knowledge starts and malicious orientalism begins. That's one of the reasons why language is so important particularly in cyber-space.
Without meaning to pick on Black Lady (sorry Black Lady), the phrase "stealing from each other's cultures" is an example where there are a couple of different interpretations of what she might mean. Those of us who assume that Black Lady is on the side of racial and cultural justice and mutual respect, would take this to mean that she is talking about the way in which adjacent cultures influence one another and borrow cultural ideas or sometimes express common ideas that reflect a shared historical legacy.
Others would immediately get mad because they would be thinking of situations where one group of people literally stole cultural attributes of another (for example, the Japanese repeatedly stole -read enslaved- Korean craftspeople to teach them how to make pottery for instance, and the Japanese also stole priceless artifacts from Chinese museums during WW2). This "stealing" was usually an expression of domination over others rather than respect or admiration.
A third issue would be whether "stealing" doesn't in some way suggest that one culture is somehow inferior or lacking when compared to another. This is particularly sensitive for East Asian cultures since all of them believe they are superior to everyone else, partly as a consequence of the more feudal and abusive elements of Confucianism (Chinese, "stolen" by both the Japanese and the Koreans). This is another example of passing a value judgement on a particular situation in a sensitive environment where status also involves assumptions about who has the right to power over whom.
Personally, I'm prepared to believe that Black Lady meant the first thing and not the others, but a more neutral term like "adopted" would be even better.
I know we can't all know everything there is to know about each other's histories and wounds, but there's something to be said for learning honestly from one another and being a little forgiving - Except of people like Rob Marshall who had the resources and the power to do a better job than he did, or if he _meant _ to play into the stereotypes, then most definitely he deserves to be called on it.
Thanks for the exchange of views Black Lady and AsianChick, they brought up some good points and a lot of food for thought.