Racist Rantings in China/Japan Over Geisha Movie

[Grand Moff Yenchin]

I never liked Gong Li and Zhang Ziyi is Gong Li 2.0.

However, what suprises me is that Michelle Yeoh is also in this movie. If I want an index for the ability of talent search. She's the index. Not that she's not a good actress, but she doesn't seem to fit her role in this movie.

I mean c'mon, its not that there weren't modern Japanese films in the US.

[fanboy]Nanako (Ringu) would kick ass acting as a geisha[/fanboy]

[Danny Bhoy]

I never liked Gong Li and Zhang Ziyi is Gong Li 2.0.

However, what suprises me is that Michelle Yeoh is also in this movie. If I want an index for the ability of talent search. She's the index. Not that she's not a good actress, but she doesn't seem to fit her role in this movie.

I mean c'mon, its not that there weren't modern Japanese films in the US.

[fanboy]Nanako (Ringu) would kick ass acting as a geisha[/fanboy]

Personally, I quite fancy Gong Li. She's no Maggie Cheung in the thespian category, but she's better to look at (even considering that Maggie is damn hot herself). IMO, ZZY is waaay overrated and not even comparable to Gong Li. I thought that Michelle Yeoh was miscasted for this film. I like her but I was never quite convinced of her acting talents.

The only Jap actresses I'm even remotely familiar with are in porn.

[The Kernel]

Many, you ignorant clod.

Oh Really?

African American images first appeared on the screen in 1898, only months after the first theatrical projection of moving images. At first benign in their effect, the first films showed black soldiers embarking for the Spanish-American War of 1898 and West Indians at their daily tasks. In 1903 a 14-minute Uncle Tom's Cabin appeared. Thereafter, as editing for narrative effect improved, black figures fell more in line with the racial stereotypes of the day, appearing as chicken thieves, venal preachers, and the like. They only rarely turned up in marginally authentic roles in films such as The Fights of Nations (1907), which at least depicted black culture, albeit in a warped form. As the 50th anniversary of the Civil War approached in 1910, the collective nostalgia for the war inspired maudlin tales of fraternity. Black slaves, once the focus of the combat, were reduced to sentimental figures who often sided with their Southern masters against their Northern liberators. The most renowned and artistically the most compelling of the genre was D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915).

The first steps toward a specifically black cinema arose out of these rituals of white chauvinism. Bill Foster, an African American whose work has been lost, made such films as The Railroad Porter, probably a light comedy set in a particularly black milieu in 1912. The Birth of a Race (1918), two years in the making and perhaps three hours in length, began as a response to Griffith's film. But its succession of producers and backers, including Booker T. Washington's Tuskegee circle, Universal Pictures, and Julius Rosenwald of Sears, Roebuck, lost touch with the original concept. Nonetheless, it inspired George P. Johnson and his brother, Noble, to found the Lincoln Motion Picture Company to carry forward the quest for a black
cinema, only to fail because of a nationwide influenza epidemic that shuttered theaters.

After World War I, the American movie industry gradually moved to California-to Hollywood. The ensuing so-called Jazz Age offered little new to African Americans. Few movies offered blacks parts with any authenticity. Such parts included the grizzled hobo in Jim Tully's tale of the lowly, Beggars of Life (1928); the seaman boldly played by the boxer George Godfrey in James Cruze's Old Ironsides (1926); the faithful renderings of blacks in Showboat (1927) and Uncle Tom's Cabin (1927); and those in early sound films such as Dudley Murphy's St. Louis Blues (1929). However, blacks generally played out conventional roles as chorus girls, convicts, racetrack grooms, boxing trainers, and flippant servants.

The sameness of the images surely led to the first boom of so-called race movies that were made by black, and often white, producers specifically for black audiences. George and Noble Johnson made as many as four such films that were black versions of already defined Hollywood genres-success stories, adventures, and the like-all of them since lost. In Philadelphia the Colored Players crafted a canon, most of which survived in the late 1990s, that included a Paul Laurence Dunbar story, a black Ten Nights in a Bar Room (1926), and their masterpiece, The Scar of Shame (1927), a melodrama about caste and class in black circles.

Of all African American filmmakers of the era, Oscar Micheaux dominated his age. A sometime Pullman porter, homesteader, and novelist who sold his books door to door, he was also a legendary entrepreneur who both broke with and built on Hollywood genres. More than any other known figure, Micheaux took
up themes that Hollywood left untouched: lynching, black success myths, and color-based caste. For years there was scant access to his work: there was only Body and Soul (1924), starring the black athlete, singer, and activist, Paul Robeson. But his recently rediscovered films of equal stature, among them Within Our Gates (1920) and The Symbol of the Unconquered (1921), have allowed fuller study.

Hollywood began to use blacks in film as early as the 20's all right, but not in the way you think. And if you'll read the rest of the article I linked, you'll notice that Hollywood held back most of the progress of blacks in cinema, it was the presence of strong black filmmakers and supporters that kept them moving forward. Which fits exactly with what I said.

Probably a lot, just as still occurs today but which you seemed to accept earlier in the thread.

That's not the kind of racial stereotyping I'm referring to. I'm talking about choosing actors that physically embody "black" traits.

Really? What would "adequate representation" mean to you, then. Define your terms.

Adaquate representation in the historical sense would be a combination of leading black actors/actresses and a strong group of mainstream films that don't rely on outright racism. I don't think that point was reached until the 1950's, although there were limited inroads as early as the mid 20's.

As for your claims that Hollywood ignores Japanese and Chinese films, I call bullshit. Hollywood trips over itself to lavish praise on every Japanese and Chinese film that comes over to the US (even if it's considered a piece of shit in the country that it's from, ala Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon).

Sure, it had praised lavished on it after it was a huge commercial success. The only people ringing its praises before it was released were the critics. Or don't you recall that it wasn't supposed to be a hit at all?

Crouching Tiger was perhaps the first film to open up Hollywood to Chinese cinema for the mainstream US market, and so far its been good, but not great as far as a followup on that success. They've pushed a handful of movies (Hero and Kung-fu Hustle for example), but not beyond a certain genre and they certainly haven't brought any serious talent over aside from a handful of actors.

And do you know why Hollywood pays attention at all? Almost every asian film that makes it over here does so because an influential Hollywood director takes notice and pulls strings to get it an American release. For Hero it was Quentin Tarrantino, for Spirited Away it was John Lassater, etc.

Kurasawa is easily considered one of the greatest directors of all time, and his film-making is constantly mimicked by other directors and film-makers.

Almost right. Kurasawa is considered a genius by the directors in Hollywood, but the money men don't give two shits about him. He made some of the most powerful and influential movies of all time and yet they are relegated to cult status at best. Ikiru in particular could have found a huge American audience had it been pushed.

There are many reasons why Hollywood generally does not import actors from abroad, with language difficulties being high on the list (which also helps explain the comparative ease with which British actors make it in Hollywood). Asian Americans as a whole are actually pretty well represented in Hollywood: perhaps SLIGHTLY underrepresented as a fraction of the populace, but certainly nothing that you could hang a racism charge on.

Before I address this point directly, also remember that southern California has an extremely high percentage of asians compared to the rest of the country. So if it's just a matter of playing to local percentages, asians should be a lot more prevalent. This is actually important since Hollywood tends to be rather localized about the images it projects.

You make a good point about language difficulties, but considering that Hollywood doesn't seem to consider language too much in the actors it DOES choose to bring in (Jackie Chan, Ziyi Zhang and Jet Li for example all had extremely low levels of fluency when they started working in Hollywood) I'm dubious about how much this really matters, especially given the greater degree of English fluency among the Japanese and Chinese.

As to your claims that US films commonly share talent with industries in other countries I would agree provided that the other countries are ENGLISH SPEAKING. Relatively few French actors, for instance, succeed in Hollywood despite France's considerable domestic film-industry.

I can certainly think of a lot more French actors that succeeded in Hollywood than Chinese or Japanese. But to be fair, I imagine most of them spoke more English than their Asian counterparts at first.

[The Kernel]

Whoops, messed up the URL. Here it is:

Link

[Master of Ossus]

And how many of these roles were leading?

Many, you ignorant clod.

Can you give a few examples?

You mean like Bill Robinson? Oscar-winner Hattie McDaniel (Gone with the Wind)? Oscar Micheaux?

[Master of Ossus]

[snip]

I now see what the issue is. Your arguments are consistently based on a re-definition of Hollywood as an industry that excludes directors, critics, writers, and film-makers. IMO, Hollywood refers to the mainstream American film industry in general and includes all of these groups even if they are not always physically based in Hollywood (ie. I consider Roger Ebert to be a part of Hollywood even though he lives and writes far from it).

Before I address this point directly, also remember that southern California has an extremely high percentage of asians compared to the rest of the country.

I live in Southern California for a substantial fraction of the year.

So if it's just a matter of playing to local percentages, asians should be a lot more prevalent. This is actually important since Hollywood tends to be rather localized about the images it projects.

Except that, as you claimed, Hollywood is an international industry and pulls actors from across the US and Europe. While films that shoot in other locations commonly draw from local actors for bit-roles, the lead roles are almost always cast from actors in Hollywood itself.

You make a good point about language difficulties, but considering that Hollywood doesn't seem to consider language too much in the actors it DOES choose to bring in (Jackie Chan, Ziyi Zhang and Jet Li for example all had extremely low levels of fluency when they started working in Hollywood) I'm dubious about how much this really matters, especially given the greater degree of English fluency among the Japanese and Chinese.

Jackie Chan in particular is a good example because he gets type-cast for one specific type of role in which his language fluency is not considered as much of a detriment and that emphasizes his physical talents and skills. Actors like Lucy Liu and Keanu Reeves, who DO speak fluent and non-accented English, are much more main-stream and play a wider variety of roles. People with strong accents like Jackie Chan are consistently shoe-horned into roles of recent immigrants, kung-fu superstuds, and films that are actually set in Asia even if shot elsewhere like because of their difficulties.

I can certainly think of a lot more French actors that succeeded in Hollywood than Chinese or Japanese. But to be fair, I imagine most of them spoke more English than their Asian counterparts at first.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of many French actors who worked in French cinema before succeeding in Hollywood.

[LordShaithis]

Gerard Depardieu used to been seen every now and then. Both he and Anne Parrilaud were in that Three Musketeers flick with Leonardo DiCaprio years ago. And Jean Reno turns up in stuff over here every once in a while, though not nearly as often as I would like. None of them have the clout or get work as consistently as Jackie Chan or Jet Li.

Let's split the difference: Everyone go out and rent Wasabi. Reno plays what is in essence the French version of Dirty Harry, who travels to Japan to solve his old lover's murder. IMDB lists it's tagline as "Quite Possibly The Greatest French-Language, English-Subtitled, Japanese Action-Comedy Of All Time."

[The Kernel]

I now see what the issue is. Your arguments are consistently based on a re-definition of Hollywood as an industry that excludes directors, critics, writers, and film-makers. IMO, Hollywood refers to the mainstream American film industry in general and includes all of these groups even if they are not always physically based in Hollywood (ie. I consider Roger Ebert to be a part of Hollywood even though he lives and writes far from it).

Yes, when I say Hollywood, I'm referring to the moneymen that greenlight the films. The reason I do that is that they are responsible for 99% of the crap that is produced on film because they don't give a shit about quality, just making money.

I don't think the directors, critics or actors in Hollywood are racist/biased against asians, but then I don't think they are the ones that make many of these decisions. It's like the liberal media myth; sure most reporters are liberal, but most of their bosses who edit the papers and decide on content are conservative.

Except that, as you claimed, Hollywood is an international industry and pulls actors from across the US and Europe. While films that shoot in other locations commonly draw from local actors for bit-roles, the lead roles are almost always cast from actors in Hollywood itself.

It's a chicken and egg problem. There won't be popular leading asian actors until there are asian films that are mainstream. The problem is that Hollywood studios don't seem interested in pushing these films that hard, despite the fact that they a number of them are of very high quality.

Jackie Chan in particular is a good example because he gets type-cast for one specific type of role in which his language fluency is not considered as much of a detriment and that emphasizes his physical talents and skills. Actors like Lucy Liu and Keanu Reeves, who DO speak fluent and non-accented English, are much more main-stream and play a wider variety of roles. People with strong accents like Jackie Chan are consistently shoe-horned into roles of recent immigrants, kung-fu superstuds, and films that are actually set in Asia even if shot elsewhere like because of their difficulties.

That's more of a consistent Hollywood trend regarding actors that are already popular doing one thing. Jackie Chan is typecast because he has a following that expects him to appear in a certain type of role, and this happens to plenty of American actors.

As for them always giving him the background of a non-American, it would be hard to explain him away as born in the United States given his broken english.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of many French actors who worked in French cinema before succeeding in Hollywood.

Off the top of my head, Gerard Depardieu, Christopher Lambert, Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoce are all French actors that succeeded in Hollywood.

[Grasscutter]

Sure, it had praised lavished on it after it was a huge commercial success. The only people ringing its praises before it was released were the critics. Or don't you recall that it wasn't supposed to be a hit at all?

Crouching Tiger was perhaps the first film to open up Hollywood to Chinese cinema for the mainstream US market, and so far its been good, but not great as far as a followup on that success. They've pushed a handful of movies (Hero and Kung-fu Hustle for example), but not beyond a certain genre and they certainly haven't brought any serious talent over aside from a handful of actors.

It's sad when Hero is a relatively postive example of Hollywood pushing an Asian film. Hero got stuck in distribution purgatory for close to a year, and rumors were that Miramax was burying it to ensure the film didn't distract from its home-grown Oscar hopefuls like Chicago. As you said, it took Quentin Tarrantino attaching his name to it to finally get it released.

Same thing happened with Shaolin Soccer: Miramax snatched up the American distrubtion rights then sat on the film for months. They finally released it with 13 minutes cut, dubbed dialogue, and an "Americanized" soundtrack.

Miramax is NOTORIOUS for doing this through its Dimension subsidiary. They snatch up Hong Kong films, edit the crap out of them to make them "more accessible" to Western audiences, and slap on a substandard dub without keeping the original audio intact with a subtitle option. What's especially frustrating is that Miramax blocks all other forms of distribution of the films inside the U.S., including import DVDs, so fans are forced to buy from foreign companies directly (expensive) or settle for Miramax's offerings.

[Netko]

The general problem in Hollywood, and the one that started this whole mess, is that all movies are very American-audience centic even tho they are distributed worldwide. Thus we get Chinese geishas (which isn't much of a problem for most people, except of course the tiny country of China), American subs taking credit for Brit success, Rade Šerbedjija in many roles as a Russian, the movie about a US fighter pilot being downed in Bosnia with Polish speaking Serbs, etc.

In the US it doesnt matter much since nobody gives a shit about those characters except that they should conform to certain stereotypes. I'm honestly surprised tho that after all the flak they have been getting for such screwups from "overseas", where a good chunk of their profits are made, that they haven't become more sensitive to the issue.

There is an ocasional movie or tv show which gets it mostly (but certanly not fully) right however those are rare in my expirience. For the whole all Slavs are the same thing which is most familar to me the examples would be The Peacemaker, ER with the Luka Kovac character (however flawed), Death Train (an early Pierce Brosnan flick).

[Edward Yee]

mmar, count me in as one of those audiences who doesn't care.

Grasscutter, is it me or did Miramax release Hero just to stop bleeding money from all the import DVDs that were being bought or pirated (over the Internet) of Hero?

The Samurai in "The Last Samurai" looked like Samurai from the Warring States period, the height of medieval Japanese society, 400 years before. The real "Samurai" of the civil war, then, represented the feudal system, not a fighting style. They used guns, though not guns as good their enemies with Civil War equipment.

If they'd been historically accurate, some of the armor would have consisted of Western breastplates. One remark I've heard was that the only difference between the Imperial army and the rebels were that one side was ordering the riflemen on with sabers and the other with katanas.

Unfortunately, instead of the "tragic" feeling I think I was supposed to get as the Imperial commander wondered "what have we done with this destructive weapon?" after the samurai defeat, I was too busy laughing in my head because the Battle of Nagashino* was more or less that, also in Japan, by Japanese against Japanese... but almost 300 years earlier, in a supposed golden age of samurai as warfighters.

* Combined arms (musket + spear) + barricades + musket volleys + river with rice paddies + commander sending waves of cavalry to their demise = you know what.

[Edward Yee]

I stand corrected then. I've only seen the trailers for Last Samurai and those turned me off enough not to see the film. From what you're saying, it seems I made a good decision .

Sadly, a perfectly good decision. Why did they turn you off?