(Untitled)

[ursako]

... there are reasons I'm not going to see the upcoming Memoir of a Geisha. For one, the book was mediocre. For another, the book was written by a white man. For a third, the movie is being directed by a white man. The cinematographer is a white man. The writers are all white men. The costumer is a white woman. Most of the Japanese characters are

Comments

[lobsterbox]

I admit to being moderately curious about the film, but I was reading about the costume production and the woman doing them (argh, I forget her name) was talking about a kimono with a fur collar and an enlarged, simplified desing on it, and she said something like "Of course no real geisha would ever wear this, but I just thought it was fun and lovely so I went ahead and did it." Something to that effect. I found that kind of irritating since the book, for all it's othering, at least seemed to try and be as authentic as possible.
I also get irked seeing print ads for it over-using words like "exotic", just because it's about geisha.
I might just see it because I kind of like looking at Ken Watanabe. ANd because it might be fun to make fun of. We shall see.

[ursako]

Yeah... that's Colleen Atwood for you. She hits, she misses, but somebody always ends up bruised.
I don't want it to be funny-bad, though, because then it would be Gong Li, Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Ziyi being ridiculed, and I love all three of them dearly. So I'm just going to pretend that it doesn't exist.
*fingers in ears* nananananananananananaaaaaaaa....

[lobsterbox]

I like them too, which is why I hope it's good for them, but maybe ridiculous in a distant sort of way for folks like Ms. Atwood and the ceerazy white people producing it.
But fingers in ears is a good strategy as well.

[str1]

These are a lot of the same reasons that I never bothered to watch The Last Samurai. OK, so Tom Cruise goes to Japan and reteaches the principles of bushido to the Japanese (who taught it to him in the first place). Swordfighting and bastardization of eastern culture ensues.

Sorry if I didn't get that synopsis right, but hey, that's about as much attention I'm going to give a white guy samurai and his white director, writers and what have you in their ludicrous attempts to make Japanese culture translate to a western audience. Even something as ludicrous as Urusei Yatsura is more educational in that regard.

Oh, and as for Memoirs of a Geisha, I'm not planning on seeing it, either. Maybe if we're lucky, it'll get killed at the theaters by King Kong and Narnia, and then disappear until Oscar time, where it will inevitably get nominated a few times for being so exotic. (Oooh, Asians!) And then it will get shut out by far more deserving productions.

[ursako]

Thing is, as excited as I am for King Kong (and yes, it was intensely humiliating to write that phrase) I think it has its own cultural issues- look at the utter blackness of savages on Skull Island, the WASP-ness of Ann Darrow, King Kong as symbol of the 'uncontrollable' sexuality of black men. Maybe Narnia will be issue-free.
(Dear Hollywood. Please start subverting ethnic stereotypes, and not in a Crash-style "OMIGOD-WE'RE-ALL-RACIST!!!" kind of way. Thank you.)

[str1]

Well, Narnia will be issue-free, if you don't mind the film remaining faithful to the obvious Christian influences that C.S. Lewis used in writing the original novels and Disney's over-the-top efforts to court religious groups into seeing the movie. I'm sure that it won't be as blatant as say, The Passion of the Christ and that due to some of the content (children wielding bladed weapons) some of the more fundamentalist groups will have their complaints, but there is still a very strong possibility for some of the content to be philosophically disagreeable

[sanmiguelmalo]

hi, i found this entry via melodica and

A) i think this great response and wanted to ask if it was okay if i linked/quoted it?

B) wanted to link you to two pertinent ABB blog entries about king kong:

why ABB hates the king kong story

and the follow up intent perception and sensitivity

[rakugo_report]

Preach on, sister!

[patzerhabiba]

WAIT. Koreans aren't the same as Japanese???

[ursako]

No, wait, they are. Never mind.

(OMGJKJK)

[knish]

my question is: why are they all in accents? doesn't it make them all look like they're just learning japanese? they have to speak perfectly to each other, or it makes everyone look stupid.

my other question is: can a movie be a memoir?
-jpz

[ursako]

Because the accents show us that they're speaking a foreign languages. Like in costume dramas set in France, where everyone speaks with an English accent. (e.g. Charlotte Gray etc. etc.) Also, Asian people with perfect, nonaccented English are not credible to the American public to this day.

I couldn't tell you about the memoir question, though. I wonder what the OED has to say.

[knish]

hollywood thinks that we're idiots in so many ways, and one of them is that we would think... "if this movie is set in prewar japan, how come everybody speaks english?"
i have a ton of objections to this movie, most of which you're elucidated eloquently, but i am still going to see it i think because 1. it looks pretty and 2. it will get oscar noms and i have to see all the oscar movies for reasons that have never been made entirely clear to me.
-jpz

[ursako]

You know, it's funny, because I actually WOULD think that.
Also, Hollywood has clearly bought your soul. I'm sorry.