Dream Report: Problematic Cult Fave
In my last dream before waking, I stumbled across a movie or tv episode, from the late '70s or early '80s -- it had that I, Claudius look of the designer doing their best on a low budget, and mostly succeeding. The plot involved a minor official in Edo Japan who oversteps his authority to save a mysterious woman from execution, only to realize she's a yokai because of course she is.
Thing is, all the actors were pretty obviously white people in makeup, and even allowing for the time and place it had been made I found this somewhat creepy and embarrassing, and frustrating, because it was still a good story -- the yokai was some sort of shark mermaid; I think she sometimes also appeared as a large cat as well. At any rate she was the kind of supernatural being where it's almost as dangerous to be on their good side as their bad one, because their attempts to show friendship and gratitude aren't grounded in any understanding of how humans actually work. The official was the type who in most stories would be comedy relief, or a minor obstacle -- a hapless pettifogger who suddenly has to deal with the social repercussions of being conspicuously followed about by an enigmatic beauty, while things go his way and very much not his enemies' way with suspicious regularity.
I kept trying to look up the history of the production, wondering if it was based on a Japanese original, but had trouble finding any reference to it -- it had apparently come out of nowhere and sunk without trace. Just before waking up I learnt it had been based on an opera.
Thing is, all the actors were pretty obviously white people in makeup, and even allowing for the time and place it had been made I found this somewhat creepy and embarrassing, and frustrating, because it was still a good story -- the yokai was some sort of shark mermaid; I think she sometimes also appeared as a large cat as well. At any rate she was the kind of supernatural being where it's almost as dangerous to be on their good side as their bad one, because their attempts to show friendship and gratitude aren't grounded in any understanding of how humans actually work. The official was the type who in most stories would be comedy relief, or a minor obstacle -- a hapless pettifogger who suddenly has to deal with the social repercussions of being conspicuously followed about by an enigmatic beauty, while things go his way and very much not his enemies' way with suspicious regularity.
I kept trying to look up the history of the production, wondering if it was based on a Japanese original, but had trouble finding any reference to it -- it had apparently come out of nowhere and sunk without trace. Just before waking up I learnt it had been based on an opera.