However, what happens when you make a movie about a particular culture but don't bother including members of that culture in your movie?
In one of my novels I have a Native American character. However, a fellow writer has already suggested that I should get Halle Berry to play her.
"But the character is a Native American," I pointed out.
"That's cool," said my fellow writer-friend, a black man, "but Halle Berry should play her."
On the one hand, a good actor should be able to play almost any part. I stress almost. How can a white guy play an escaped slave in Civil War-era America? In blackface? Sure, but that opens a whole new can of whupass.
Enter the new film directed by Chicago's Rob Marshall. It's called Memoirs of a Geisha and is supposed to be a look into Japanese culture of the 1930s. The problem I have, as a Japanophile is that all of the leads are being played by Chinese actresses. Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Zi Yi play the two leads and both are from China.
Don't get me wrong--I think both actors are brilliant. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is one of my all time favorite films. However, there are scores of Japanese actresses who American audiences have not seen before. Hell, even myself, as a Japanophile, could only point out the works of a handful of Japanese actresses who have been in Godzilla films or the original Japanese versions of the Ring movies.
I suppose if an ethnic background is well represented, it's cool to throw in an outsider. However, Japanese actors are nowhere in American media so swapping them out for Chinese actors seems to me to be preying on American stupidity.
"Who cares what Americans think? All Asians look alike, anyway!" one could assume Rob Marshal to have thought during the casting process. Perhaps he could have gone on to add: "Besides, I haven't seen a single Japanese actress that didn't suck. I've actually seen these Chinese women in that Crouching Tiger whatsis movie! That shit rocked!"
It turns out that I am not alone with my concerns. Last Monday, Reuters.com posted [http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=entertainmentNews&storyid=2005-11-28T142931Z_01_HO839066_RTRUKOC_0_US-LEISURE-JAPAN-GEISHA.xml&rpc=22|an article] on their site about this very issue. Here are a couple excerpts:
...a day ahead of the world premiere, some in Japan were wondering why homegrown talent was shut out of the leading roles in a film that celebrates Japan's unique culture.
Harsher comments have come from China, where bitter feelings over Japan's 1931-45 occupation of parts of the country make the idea of Chinese playing geisha unacceptable to some.
...
The cast adds up to Asia's A-list, with China's Ziyi Zhang starring as Sayuri, a poor fisherman's daughter who transforms herself into a legend of Kyoto's mysterious entertainment world in the 1930s.
The two other leading roles are played by Gong Li, also of China, and ethnic Chinese Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh, with Japanese performers relegated to secondary roles.
"Memoirs," reported to have cost its makers $85 million, can ill afford to alienate moviegoers in Japan, the second biggest market for Hollywood films.
In the article, there are quite a few good examples of a certain amount of what I would call "backwardsness" regarding the making of Geisha. Here's one sample:
"According to this film, 'geisha' dance in a bizarre fashion, as if they were in a Los Angeles strip show," one Japanese film fan complained on a Web log, or blog, adding that the lights and special effects were more reminiscent of modern Las Vegas than old Kyoto.
Nice. This reminds me of U-571 a WWII submarine film that told a completely fictionalized account of how the Allied Powers got their hands on a Nazi decoding device. They also ignored certain aspects of physics causing real-life WWII submariners to pan the film.
Here's a bit more from the article that explains the director's point of view:
Director Marshall has long emphasised that he was not trying to create an accurate picture of the Japan of the 1930s and that he felt he had chosen the best actors for each role, regardless of nationality.
"The challenge for me was to bring that world to life. For me, it is an artistic impression of that world," he said on Monday.
Right--so get the best actors? So, there's not a single actress in Japan who was better than Zhang Zi Yi? Not a one?
And what's the point of doing a period movie about a culture if you're not interested in getting it culturally and historically accruate??
I mean, really--what's the point??
Americans already think of Japan as a strange and exotic place where people look funny and talk funny in a language very hard to speak (which is isn't, btw). All this movie is going to be is a reflection of this malformed, ignorant and ultimately, racist view.
What bugs me even more is the way the Japanese seem to be taking it. According to the above-linked article, it's all about the Americans making their movie the way they want:
"It was strange, but not in a bad way," said one magazine writer, who declined to be identified. "I think because they are foreigners they have been able to create a vision of Japanese beauty that we could not, because we would be trying to recreate reality," she added.
Japan has a record of accepting Hollywood versions of itself without complaint. Industry reports said "The Last Samurai" (2003), starring Tom Cruise and set in 19th century Japan, grossed more in Japan than in the United States.
This makes me shudder because, even as a gaijin, I know how much Last Samurai lacked in accuracy (Japanese soldiers crying??). I think that maybe the Japanese people still remember a bit too well having their asses handed to them by us all those decades ago. I think they need to stand up for themselves and their culture a bit more. Sure, it's "American" to stand up for your rights, but America doesn't have the monopoly on the idea protecting one's self and one's culture.
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