Pulvers suggests there are some explanations:
In the Meiji Era (1868-1912), the West, for the most part, wanted to keep Japan quaint, picturesque - and on its knees. Virtually all Westerners allied themselves with the most reactionary social institutions and their propagators, seeing that as a sure way to arrest Japan's entry into the West's exclusive club of the Great Powers.
But what obliges film producers like Steven Spielberg to spin a sick little tale like "Memoirs of a Geisha" now that Japan is in many respects a full-fledged member of the Western club? Spielberg, who in his movies generally deals with bizarre fantasies and heroic historical figures, seems to have inadvertently mixed the two together in this film.
As an Asian American woman, I wonder how far-reaching this movie's imagery will be and how long Asian and Asian American women will be haunted by the West's nostalgic view of geisha.
There is more to Japan than the geisha and the samurai. I guess someone else, some other producer will have to bring that to the screen some day.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - [MR]Chip
Jewish and black issues are part of American society. Spielberg understands that. Apparently, Japanese culture is too big a leap for him.
2 - Luke
"I guess the PR people have found that for American audiences Asian women all do look alike or their names are just too hard to pronounce and remember."
I got pretty sick of reading this again and again, spielberg thinks all asians look alike blah blah blah blah, so what? Us white folks can't tell Japanese people from Chinese people, oooh, we're so god damn evil, I'm so fuckin sorry for not being enough of a japanophile to know the difference, y'know, it probably would seem more racist to say that you must cast a Japanese person for a Japanese role, because hollywood casts foreigners as Americans all the time, so if it's good enough to cast different nationalities of white people as though we all look alike, then why should the situation be any different for some crappy fantasy movie about geisha's.
3 - Bennett
Wonderful and deep review. What you outline here makes it plain that we don't even have to travel abroad to foist our "ugly American" attitude on the rest of the world. We can do it from SoCal, or at least Spielberg can.
What current movies would you suggest, movies that show the genuine culture of modern Japan?
Thanks for the thoughful piece!
4 - Purple Tigress
Dear Luke:
You might be surprised to learn that the action adventure movie, "Gunga Din" was once banned from India on the basis of its imperialistic attitudes.
If one wants world peace and understanding of the cultures, we need to be more sensitive to other cultures. If you want to understand Asia and Africa, you need to understand the racial and ethnic tensions there as well. There is, obviously, a lot of racial prejudice in Asia. Similarly, there is a lot of prejudice in Africa among the native Africans (as opposed to the European and Asian immigrants). If this is so, one would suppose that each ethnicity feels that they can differentiate between the other. Americans (white) were once told they could differentiate between Chinese and Japanese and now we are to believe we can't?
As I noted, although Asians and Asian Americans often feel they can tell, they can't always. There are some people who can pass for other ethnicities. I personally can pass for a number of things that are contrary to my bloodlines. So you see my particular point wasn't that I expected someone who was ethnic Japanese to be cast as Japanese. Rather, someone who looked and had the mannerisms of Japanese. That is to say, there are some Japanese that do not look very Japanese. This is slightly different from the Americans who rarely have a chance to get cast as Americans because they aren't the right color.
Historically, unlike Europe, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, Japan (like Korea) had been cut off from the world for a 200 years and was opened forcibly by Perry. So there was less mixing of Japanese with other Asians for several generations.
This problem of casting indiscriminately by Americans isn't new. It happened in "South Pacific" as well as the musical "Miss Saigon."Perhaps some people think it is progress that a Caucasian person isn't being passed as Asian (such as Mickey Rooney).
"South Pacific" is a bit of a sticky point because you actually lose some of the original meaning.
List of movies to follow later.
5 - Aaman
Have you sent the letter to Mr Spielberg yet? You might like to do so
6 - RogerMDillon
Luke, from your comments it's hard to take seriously the idea that you read. Please go back to the WWE and NASCAR threads.
7 - Luke
purple tigress, I already know all that stuff, yeah, Japanese people were closed off for a long time so it's easier for them to look different from other asians, I'm saying, even if I know they look different, I don't see what the problem is with casting a chinese person as a japanese person, it just isn't a problem for me, it's already a crap movie anyway, according to your review, so casting japanese people instead of chinese probably wouldn't have made that much difference, also, I really don't expect to understand other cultures from watching a hollywood movie, so if they fucked it up completely, it doesn't matter to me as long as it was entertaining, having said that, I am interested in Japanese culture, but only the cool stuff, I honestly don't get what's so great about geisha's, so I'm not motivated to know anything about them, therefore, don't care if they got it completely wrong.
8 - Purple Tigress
It is always a problem when people are misrepresented in a movie and the movie people attempt to pass it off as authentic. Not only Japanese, but Chinese also differentiate between different regional peoples.
I have attempted to indicate why, beyond past WWII grudges, the casting is problematic. I have also challenged the reasons given by the movie makers behind the casting.
This movie might not be a problem for you because it won't influence how people will treat you in the future. I would venture, that anytime one tells a lie or forwards a lie for financial gain, someone suffers.
The movie remains in the top 10. Some reviewers have found this movie to be authentic. I would gather this means many Americans will believe what is not true.
The arguments, the reviews, etc. will be lost in time to the late night viewers in the near and distant future. If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much more influential is a major movie?
9 - Purple Tigress
As for sending the letter to Mr. Spielberg, I was sort of interested in seeing the effectiveness of the Web and the two blogs it has been posted on.
10 - Luke
c'mon, it's not a big deal, you say chinese differentiate between different regional people, I'm like, so what? Misrepresentation Shmisrepresentation, I say asians is asian, sure, you could go to the trouble to devide them up into nicely defined little groups and be nice and careful that you cast group A as group A and group B as group B, as so on, but at the end of it all, the person watching the movie has not grouped them as such, they just see an asian on the screen who happens to be such and such a nationality, and if group A was cast as group A, such attention to detail would still be absolutely lost on the viewer, no one is going to watch this movie and think that every chinese person is japanese, and even if the cast was japanese, it still would not make joe shmoe on the street have any idea what nationality some asian guy is by looking at him.
Also, I've been misrepresented to the Nth degree, Americans may assume that I wrestle crocodiles and crack whips and use the phrase "throw another shrimp on the Barby" and drink fosters, but that doesn't trouble me one bit.
11 - Bennett
"I'm like, so what?
but that doesn't trouble me one bit."
Single-wide or double-wide?
Concrete pad or milk crates?
12 - Purple Tigress
The geographic area of Asia covers parts of Egypt to the South Pacific. Asians are Asians unless they are Persian, Arab, Indian or Muslim.
In many countries like the US, Asian remain Asian because they are not accepted as readily accepted as being a citizen.
I'm guessing that most people who saw a black person who was an ethnic Australian wouldn't easily see that person as Australian. I think most people when they think of Australians, New Zealanders and Americans think of white people. Most of the comparisons made in this case about the movie have been regarding immigrant populations that originated from Europe and spread to the US, Australia and New Zealand.
I am talking about the original ethnic population of a country. China is a large country. Their spoken language differed greatly. They make up one fifth of the world's population, but they are diverse in spoken language, religion and culture. Japan has its native ethnic population, one that wasn't subjugated and overrun by conquering invaders as was the case of the Americas, Australia and New Zealand.
What happens when people are misrepresented? What happens to a role when people of that ethnicity do not want to play that role or aren't wanted for that role?
It becomes easier, perhaps, to misrepresent people and to build upon a fantasy or stereotype.
It becomes easier to exploit the defamation of a real person.
That is the case with "Memoirs of a Geisha."
13 - Purple Tigress
I thought I should add my favorite quote from an AP article on this movie.
Of course, as a journalist, I would always be suspicious of hearsay and recalling that slight problem Sony had with quotes from non-existent film critics, I would consider this quote with a large dose of cynicism:
The quote that preceded it was probably closer to reality:
14 - Luke
Well I'll say that calling it authentic is bad, but I don't agree that steriotypes/fantasy are inherantly bad, I suppose spielberg wanted to make it a fantasy :/ I don't get why they didn't just call it what it is, generally I don't think steriotypes in movies are intended to be believable anyway.
Anyone who gave a shit about authenticity in the first place would watch movies that were made by the people it's about, I find japanese movies get Japan right, but they don't have enough explosions and expensive special effects.
What'd you think of the last samurai, I knew it completely fictional, but I thought they rendered the samurai pretty well, they certainly weren't chinese at least.
15 - Zach
Seems to me that with all the time you spent reading reviews and writing this open letter, you could have seen the movie several times over and been more educated about this thing you hate so much.
That said, a few pointers: there is an entire genre of samurai movie, the jidai-geki, which has always been HUGE in Japan, right from the dawn of cinema. At one point it was roughly half of Japan's cinema output. Kurosawa's style may not be overtly "Japanese" (a bullshit idea anyway - how can you capture an entire nation, in all its diversity, with a film?), but his subject matter was no anomaly...and neither samurai nor geisha are a specifically Western fascination.
Also, in your criticism of American ethnocentrism, you seem to be lionizing Japanese society - which tends toward racism and prejudices which rival those of the US. Sure, Japanese audience members might have been upset by the Chinese actors...but are those the audience members we really want to use as a gauge for Japanese audiences in general? You're entirely leaving out the fact that nationalism plays a huge role in this controversy: is this something we should be encouraging in the 21st century?
Finally, I'm curious: would you be upset by, say, Hotel Rwanda, which casts an African American man as a South African?
16 - Luke
That's a good one Zach, I think people are more likely to say chinese japanese korean look/behave different, because they've been industrialized for a long time, and are involved in world politics and stuff, for example, I went to Japan on holiday a few years ago, and this guy at my work a asked about it, and called them chinese, and I said, 'they're Japanese' and he said 'same thing' and so I explained to him, 'they're completely different, geologically/culturally/linguistically, for example, lots of chinese people hate the japanese because japan invaded china in WW2, saying japan and china are the same is like saying germany and poland are the same, it's just dumb for you to say that'
Having said that, I can't begin to speculate what any of the differences are between various ethnicities in Africa, and so I've become very worried that my head is being filled with misrepresentation and steriotypes about what they're like.
17 - Purple Tigress
As I noted, there are Japanese that can pass as Chinese and Korean and some that can't. This isn't something that only occurs amongst the Japanese, but also other East Asians and Asians for there is a cultural physical type.
I wouldn't say that the people upset about having Chinese actors portraying Japanese were only Japanese. This would be untrue. Some Chinese have also voiced negative views for various reasons, some political and some for the other reasons I have indicated: Asian don't all look alike.
Some of my friends who are Chinese have spoken with contempt about the whole idea because they believe that Chinese look different from Japanese. Having said that, I can say that I would never expect to be cast as Japanese by an Asian director because I would not fit the physical type.
People tend to assume that I am Chinese and to be more specific, they tend to think I am Cantonese (Southern Chinese). This is opposed to Mandarin, Taiwanese or Shanghai Chinese. This is true both in Japan, in Hong Kong, Taiwan and even in the US (Los Angeles).
So while Nationalism does play a factor, so does the physical type used and the lack of authentic dance, hairstyle and attention to cultural practices.
One film critic noted that during that period a man and a woman would not appear in public in the manner that Sayuri appears with the Chairman.
As for the movie, "The Last Samurai," that was pretty ridiculous. I would especially take exception to the portrayal of the emperor and foreign access to the emperor and the portrayal women (or in this case woman).
Samurai women and daimyo women were expected to be able to defend their homes. They were expected to know things like archery and the use of a particular kind of long sword.
I interviewed one of the actors of this film who starred in a film that we called, "Twilight Samurai." This won many awards and was hugely popular in Japan. This was not widely seen in the US. It showed what being a lower class samurai was like and the restrictions of the system. Americans tend to be more interested in the "glory" of the system.
The director of "Twilight Samurai" is better known for this "Otoko wa Tsurai" series which deals with a man living on the fringes of society. I don't particularly like those films, but they were popular in Japan. These films weren't jidai geki.
There is a difference between samurai dramas and jidai-geki. Jidai geki is probably better translated as costume/period dramas. Jidai literally means period. For this reason, things about the Kyoto court that didn't involve samurai would also come under this category. The samurai became a more dominant force in the Japanese culture during the Kamakura period and then again during the Tokugawa period. I would also note that during the Kamakura period there was an era named after a woman because she had a major impact on the governing of Japan.
So for the Heian period, the samurai would have played a much lesser role and such jidai geki would not revolve around them. The Tale of Genji does not mention battles. It is mainly abour romance. This was the period of the Fujiwara and marriage politics.
Kurosawa isn't known for his nuanced portrayals of women. He tended toward the pure, spiritual passive woman and the evil, ambitious woman. He was not hugely popular in Japan.
Not all of what is considered the best of Japanese cinema is jidai geki. The Japanese do not remain living in the past. A lot of jidai geki are equivalent to American Westerns--B-movies. They do have more contemporary dramas and comedies and anime.
Most of these do not get widespread distribution in the US because that is not what the US market is interested in. For this reason, Americans who go to popular movies get a skewed vision of what is Japanese.
I wouldn't term this attitude as American ethnocentricism because I am also an American as are some of the Asian Americans who have been critical of this movie. This term is too general.
18 - Purple Tigress
I think one of the difficulties WASP Americans face in understanding the world and the socio-political structures of other countries is that they often see people of non-white races as looking all the same.
I would guess that in Africa they do have cultural physical types that are more subtle than the difference between Northern African Arabs and the rest of the so-called dark continent. I would also guess that from country to country there is a racial hierarchy, much like the ones constructed in Japan, Korea and China or here in the US amongst Asian Americans and amongst Latinos.
I did see "Hotel Rwanda." I think because my expertise in terms of study is in Asia, I would not be the person to comment on this. I do feel it was a brave film because it pointed the finger not only at the Africans who committed slaughter but also at Europe and America because the governments stood by and did nothing.
The most enlightening thing to do would be to ask the director-writer why he, Terry George, wanted Don Cheadle to play Paul Rusesabagina. Why did he choose Don Cheadle instead of going with the Hollywood wisdom and the attendant Hollywood studio money. My understanding is that the studios to which this project it was pitched wanted Denzel Washington, Wesley Snipes, Mekhi Phifer or even Will Smith because of their bigger box office draw. George decided to produce the film independently.
If you've seen a photo of the real Paul Rusesabagina, you know he isn't a handsome man, a tall man or a physically impressive man.
That being said, Hutu and Tutsis feel, just as many Asians feel, that you can tell the difference between the two by physical appearance. This is, as I think was pointed out in the movie, not always true and not always readily apparent to Americans/Europeans.
As for asking which black American film star would work best at a physical type consistent with the ethnicity portrayed, that would be difficult to answer. Because of the history of forced immigration and the oppression of ethnic culture amongst the black Americans who are descended from slaves, the argument of who can portray what is muddied. Most black Americans whose original ancestor came to these shores as slaves would be hard pressed to tell you where their ancestors came from and because of the socio-political aspects of slavery, they often had little chance or choice to choose a mate from within the same ethnic community as do Asian Americans who immigrated here. Black Americans' ethnicity is harder to trace than that of white Americans.
The greatest common link that can be drawn from "Hotel Rwanda" and the problems surrounding "Memoirs of a Geisha" is that Asians and Africans do believe, beyond nationalism and other political-historical problems, that you can tell the difference between different ethnic types that too often these types are lumped together by other people. I wouldn't say that WASP Americans are alone in this. I have heard both Asians saying that all black Africans look alike and black Africans saying the same about Asians. The same goes for Americans of those groups as well.
However, unlike Terry George, Steven Spielberg has a lot of money and a lot of clout in the film industry. Yet instead of doing a beautiful movie of social worth as Terry George managed to do with "Hotel Rwanda," he came up with "Memoirs of a Geisha." Who is the more admirable person?
19 - RogerMDillon
"Hotel Rwanda, which casts an African American man as a South African?"
You mean an African American man as a Rwandan. Paul Rusesabagina was born in Murama-Gitarama in the Central-South region of Rwanda. The film's title was a clue.
Is anyone upset when Earthlings play aliens?
20 - Purple Tigress
I think we'll have to wait until we meet more aliens to find out if anyone is upset about earthlings playing them.
As for the South African part, I'm not sure what he was referring to as the movie was about Hutu-Tutsi conflict in Rwanda.
21 - Zach
OK, one: yeah, I get that I meant a Rwandan man. Don't everybody pee your pants with glee at once. Believe me, why I said "South African" is as much a mystery to myself as anyone else, but wouldn't you agree that what's pertinent is the idea that your nationalist logic has holes in it, not what specific country or region to which we're referring? Then again, you guys seem like the kind of people who need everything to be in a neat little box.
And two: I'm not even going to attempt to debate you on Japanese history. It's not an area of expertise. But please, spare me the condescension when it comes to Japanese cinema. I realize jidai-geki and samurai film are not mutually inclusive genres; but many jidai-geki are in fact samurai films. And many are not B-movies, unless you consider filmmakers like Kurosawa and Mizoguchi to be "B-level." I'm not an expert in the field by any means, but don't mistake me for some ignorant "American who goes to popular movies" and thinks Miike and anime are the be-all and end-all of Asian cinema.
I realize you're going to want to type one of your meandering, 600-words-plus diatribes at this point, PurpleTigress, but know that I probably will never read it. This "debate" is getting old, since it mostly consists of you dissecting my comments without addressing them and spewing out a lot of meaningless facts to prove your "expertise." It's all a bit silly.
22 - Joanne D. Kiggins
Very nice opinion piece, Purple!
As we both know, casting and stereotyping have been a problem since the beginning of film making. Along with those cultures you've already mentioned, let's not forget that in early cowboy and Indian films, Native Americans were typically casted by Italians and other dark-skinned actors, rather than Native American people. Even today, Native Americans are not always played by Native Americans and, even when they are, they don't always represent their own Nation. I agree that casting is important, as well as breaking down the "stereotype" images.
23 - Gosankiri
I would like to also add, In one of the scenes in The Memoirs of a Geisha, her kimono displayed a family crest. I am really shocked that the asian culture til this day is still the largest most stereotype nationalities of the world.
This movie as well as the Last Samurai, truly depict a fantasy world. These movies seem to made to accommodate the entertainment world only and not complete the true Japanese culture.
24 - Eli
First off, I am something of a Japanophile myself - I am well-read on the topic, have numerous books on Japanese history, and am a colossal fan of all varieties of anime and manga; in addition, my father is a foreign negotiations specialist who has visited Japan numerous times to speak with government officials concerning Japanese foreign policy.
Secondly, I find your argument, PurpleTigress, to be ridiculously over the top. While I admit that it demonstrates ignorance on the part of the film's production and staff to cast Chinese actresses in Japanese roles, I also find that you are going wild with your hefty accusations against all of American society. Believe it or not, Miss, not all Americans are white supremecists. Why it is that you insist on turning your discontent with a film you haven't even seen into a universal debate as to the value of American society, frankly, puzzles me. So Hollywood made a factually inaccurate, and perhaps slightly bigoted film about Japanese culture. Would you like an official, public apology to the Japanese people? Affirmitave action for Asian students? Or perhaps all American students should be required to take Japanese history lessons from grade school upward?
Quite frankly, your charicture of Americans as being ignorant, narrow-minded rednecks straight out of the pre-war era is barely more justifiable than the bigotry of which you accuse them. And I won't even get into Japan's own bigotry and ignorance toward America, because that would merely be playing your "blame game". Finally, I do not recall anyone ever suggesting that "Memoirs of a Geisha" was intended to be to the Japanese people as "Hotel Rwanda" was to the people of central Africa or "Schindler's List" was to the Jews. That's because it's not, and comparing "Memoirs of a Geisha" to "Schindler's List" in any way at all is, frankly, extremely ignorant and insulting to me as a Jew. So, please excuse me if I do not buy into your meaningless self-righteousness, and continue to appreciate Japanese culture without insisting that every tiniest representation of Japan in American culture be oozing with glorification - that is, if it is even possible to make any mention of another culture that someone, somewhere will not manage to construe as racist and conspiratorial. Good day.
25 - Purple Tigress
Oh, this gave me a laugh. Instead of an apology, I think someone should be encouraged to make a movie about Jewish women. This rich and powerful producer should take a European Renaissance novel about the exotic sultry redeemer who excapes her evil conniving father by converting and marrying a Christian. Or how about the sexually exotic courtesan who falls in love with some nobleman but commits suicide so that he can marry the right woman. That last one might sound like Madame Butterfly, but it is one of those themes of European literature. Maybe we should resurrect that old stereotype because it seems a lot sexier than the current one of Jewish women as someone who controls others with guilt and/or food.
Personally, I would protest out of respect for my Jewish friends because the continued exoticism is a stereotype which doesn't help people respect Jewish women and men who buy into that kind of exoticism tend to project it on other women as well.
At least, in this case, there wouldn't be a real woman protesting the betrayal of the author of the book. Do you think you'd hear any protest in the US?