Hollywood's images of Japan

[Faithless]

Probably could have fit in a thread on stereotypes or something:

Hollywood's Land of the Rising Cliché (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/movies/04RICH.html?ex=1073797200&en=b247e4fc11b48070&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE)
Through the same sort of Hollywood kismet that produces concurrent movies about deadly asteroids and exploding volcanoes, the theaters are suddenly overrun with images of Japan. Tom Cruise is thundering across the battlefields of Meiji Restoration Japan in "The Last Samurai," in pursuit of the doomed Bushido honor code and the enlightened spirituality of Zen Buddhism. "Lost in Translation," Sofia Coppola's portrait of alienated Americans in Tokyo, is one of the indie hits of the year. Nearly half the action in the first volume of "Kill Bill" (the second appears next month), with its rapturous, over-the-top homage to yakuza, manga and other Japanese genre films, takes place in a surreal movie-land Japan, subtitles and addled accents flying.

It's not just the setting that unites these movies. They are the objects of heated debate, particularly among Asian-Americans and Japanese, about whether Hollywood's current depictions of Japan are racist, naïve, well-intentioned, accurate — or all of the above.

[>:^|]

It's not just the setting that unites these movies. They are the objects of heated debate, particularly among Asian-Americans and Japanese, about whether Hollywood's current depictions of Japan are racist, naïve, well-intentioned, accurate — or all of the above.

I vote for "all of the above."
This is what Frank Chin calls "racist love."
These gross preconceptions
Strike me as deceptions
They're something I'd like to be free of.

[kitty]

I object to the 'well-intentioned' and 'accurate' parts...

[moJo]

Of the three films, I've seen Lost in Translation, and it left me unsettled. Here's a review that I came across the other day...sorta sums up the whole idea of the 'foreignness' of Japan, in the eyes of the americans in the film.

http://www.aamovement.net/art_culture/filmreviews/losttrans1.html

[SunWuKong]

i fell asleep watching Lost In Translation. the girl was boring and Bill Murray played the same character he played in all his other movies.

[stunninglyAsian]

I object to the 'well-intentioned' and 'accurate' parts...

Depends on your point of view. To non-Asians, they've fallen in love with the mainstream version of Asian culture and for them these portrayals of Asian culture are accurate (in their mind), respectful, and honorable. To them they are promoting something new and exiciting: Asian culture. Really, if you think about it, most of the time society isn't purposely trying to show Asians in a bad light, they're just doing it without really noticing it. Like when somebody puts their hands together, bows, and says to you, "Konnichiwa, MY... NAME... IS... BOB. YOU SPEAKIE ENGLISH?" They view their behavior as perfectly normal and don't mean any harm by it, but their ignorance is quite offensive. Which is why it makes it so hard for Asians to fight racism. It's much easier to fight racism if somebody is actively racist; like calling us slanty eyed gooks while beating us down with baseball bats. But how do you fight the casual ignorance of society when they view their behavior and attitudes toward us as respectable and with good intentions?

[Faithless]

i fell asleep watching Lost In Translation. the girl was boring and Bill Murray played the same character he played in all his other movies.

He tried blowing up "varmints"? :biggrin:

[thaite]

Yeah, but Scarlet Johanssen is HOT!

[>:^|]

I object to the 'well-intentioned' and 'accurate' parts...

Oops, I read it too fast
The writer put the "accurate" part last
To this I wouldn't agree
But I'll let "well-intentioned" be
Good intentions are often half-assed.

[kitty]

Depends on your point of view. To non-Asians, they've fallen in love with the mainstream version of Asian culture and for them these portrayals of Asian culture are accurate (in their mind), respectful, and honorable. To them they are promoting something new and exiciting: Asian culture. Really, if you think about it, most of the time society isn't purposely trying to show Asians in a bad light, they're just doing it without really noticing it. Like when somebody puts their hands together, bows, and says to you, "Konnichiwa, MY... NAME... IS... BOB. YOU SPEAKIE ENGLISH?" They view their behavior as perfectly normal and don't mean any harm by it, but their ignorance is quite offensive. Which is why it makes it so hard for Asians to fight racism. It's much easier to fight racism if somebody is actively racist; like calling us slanty eyed gooks while beating us down with baseball bats. But how do you fight the casual ignorance of society when they view their behavior and attitudes toward us as respectable and with good intentions?

my initial reaction to what you describe above is 'apologetic/excusing white ignorance'... and while I realize you're not exactly condoning that kind of behaviour, I frankly believe that if Hollywood is going to make a film that purports to be a historical epic, it should be responsible enough to research the stereotypes it is putting forth.

The fact is that it *isn't* accurate (at least if we're talking Kill Bill and some of the nitpicky stuff brought up in Last Samurai... Lost in Translation was a bit of an intentional exaggeration of Japanese culture, from what I understand)... and in only one of those movies could anyone even use the defense that they thought it was accurate (i.e. Last Samurai).

I think we as a community need to stop putting ourselves in the shoes of the whites, and allow that standpoint to cloud the real issues -- that Hollywood is appropriating the Exotic East for their own capitalistic gains, and using the term 'artistic license' to blow off any claims of racism and ignorance... and Asian Americans are hardly doing anything about it.

Furthermore, i don't think it's well-intentioned -- they're not thinking 'oh, if we show Asians in movies, it'll better them'... Hollywood is hardly that altruistic. They're making eastern cultures into the Trend of the Week -- no different than Madonna's 'buddhism' phase.

[SunWuKong]

Yeah, but Scarlet Johanssen is HOT!


disagreed

[Blue dice]

Depends on your point of view. To non-Asians, they've fallen in love with the mainstream version of Asian culture and for them these portrayals of Asian culture are accurate (in their mind), respectful, and honorable. To them they are promoting something new and exiciting: Asian culture.
They're romanticizing a culture kind of like the whole native american craze where native americans were portrayed almost unilaterally as a collection of broad based "injun" stereotypes. It's basically white people turning someone else's culture into a hobby and kitsch novelty. I don't think the latest craze in Japanophile American movies are a positive step either. It's just rehashing the same stereotypes, IMO lost in translation kind of blew. It reminded me a lot of Gung Ho that movie about Japanese autoworking in the 80's. Basically the white protagonist (in that case Michael Keaton) has to navigate himself through, in the west's eyes, a byzantine exotic culture while hijinks ensue. :rolleyes:

It's not funny because it's stupid. It's always showing asian culture as silly, backwards, or inane. The attitudes of the white characters are usually always patronizing too.

As I said before, fuck hollywood.

[xazncrazinessx]

dont say fuck hollywood say fuck mainstream american culture. as asians we have a responsibility to ourselves and not to no whites out there, as kittygirl said before we shouldn't put ourselves in the white folks shoes rather we should teach them, through physical meaNS if necessary that we wont tolerate this. apologetic whites who are ignorant should be taught and if the lesson doesn't go into their hard white skulls then it should be beaten into there, we need to make it sure that asians will not accept this crap because i dont know about you but this aint helping me any and this is doing nothing more than adding to the already rascist view of white americans against asians in this country.

[Chester]

Of the three films, I've seen Lost in Translation, and it left me unsettled. Here's a review that I came across the other day...sorta sums up the whole idea of the 'foreignness' of Japan, in the eyes of the americans in the film.
To a large extent I agree -- especially the prostitute scene, which was glaring in every way possible. But I thought I was a beautiful movie. Yes, the characters were solipsistic and self-centered as the article said, but that, to me, was pretty much the point of it. It's not a political message -- I don't think Coppola was in any way endorsing the characters' attitudes and I don't think she made them especially sympathetic either.

To me, in the end, there were so many beautiful, subtle moments...ones that felt totally unguarded and unacted. To me, movies are about offering experience by proxy...even if the experience and the proxy aren't precisely parallel to what you would want for yourself [1].

Well, I thought it was fantastic. One of my favorite movies of the year.

[1] And, frankly, when I visited Tokyo, I had a lot of "wow, it's weird here" sort of reactions myself.

[Faithless]

dont say fuck hollywood say fuck mainstream american culture. as asians we have a responsibility to ourselves and not to no whites out there, as kittygirl said before we shouldn't put ourselves in the white folks shoes rather we should teach them, through physical meaNS if necessary that we wont tolerate this. apologetic whites who are ignorant should be taught and if the lesson doesn't go into their hard white skulls then it should be beaten into there, we need to make it sure that asians will not accept this crap because i dont know about you but this aint helping me any and this is doing nothing more than adding to the already rascist view of white americans against asians in this country.

Physical means? Violence? Just because we're being stereotyped in the movies?

[kitty]

dont say fuck hollywood say fuck mainstream american culture. as asians we have a responsibility to ourselves and not to no whites out there, as kittygirl said before we shouldn't put ourselves in the white folks shoes rather we should teach them, through physical meaNS if necessary that we wont tolerate this. apologetic whites who are ignorant should be taught and if the lesson doesn't go into their hard white skulls then it should be beaten into there, we need to make it sure that asians will not accept this crap because i dont know about you but this aint helping me any and this is doing nothing more than adding to the already rascist view of white americans against asians in this country.

I'd just like to say... I don't believe in violently beating 'enlightenment' into a white guy's skull.

[xazncrazinessx]

i didn't actually mean beating into violently, this is yellowworld political /activist/ forum, i actually meant berate and beat into as tell them till they get it. i chose the wrong words and i'm sorry but at the same time violence is sometimes necessary to get one's point across. the black panthers made the civil rights movement oh so listened to after all.

[younggiftedandblack]

Lost in Translation is about two lonely people who find themselves in a country neither one wants to be. I can see how there would be a negative viewpoint. Japan is a beautiful country, but I've known people who live there and they absolutely hate it. Thus everything from their POV about it and the people is negative.

[robotic]

but then there are some people who move, and decide it's not so bad after all (laughs) i've never been to japan, but east asian metropolitan cities kind of really draw you in.