Michelle Yeoh, Gong Li and Zhang Ziyi land roles in Spielberg's GEISHA adaptation. World gets dumber - Page 4  

Geishas don’t always wear the heavy makeup, just when they’re working.



Some people can tell the differences, and will, and are not going to be full of shit. Isn’t it high time we actually STARTED educating middle America (or “caucasian" America) about these things? I see no harm in educating people. As I said somewhere in the first page, there are people in all ethnic groups that could pass for people in the ethnic group next door. But there are also some physical appearances that are specific enough to each culture, and to make casting choices without regards to such obvious differences (like the one someone earlier mentioned about the Korean actress on the ENTERPRISE TV show), especially when the worst case scenario is a change of character (again, as in the ENTERPRISE show), only perptuates the already large body of ignorance that exists in our mixed culture.



Tim RH already addressed this more succinctly than I could, but there were, however, Asian actors available for Mickey Rooney's part. I'd bet even money that the filmmakers knew even then that the part was SO grossly stereotypical that no Asian actor, even one desperate for work, would stoop so low. In the case of Sellers, his Asian characters were sometimes disguises, which is bad enough but tolerable, except in THE FIENDISH PLOT OF DR. FU MANCHU, where he was PLAYING a Chinese character. Of course we should all be able to laugh at ourselves, but do you honestly believe all Chinese people will have a good chuckle at the sight of a British man (indeed a product of a culture known for it’s high-minded imperialistic history and, unfortunately, the widespread cultural ignorance that went along with it) taping back his eyes, sticking in buck teeth, glueing on a fu manchu moustache, tinting his skin and giving credence to the myth of the inscrutible Asian? Christ, even I felt bad for Asians when I finally saw that film, although it tanked so badly I doubt many Asians gave it so much as a glance. As a cultural artifact, it’s fascinating, but it’s not necessarily as harmless as you might think. It keeps people thinking apart. And what about Benny Hill for that matter, who used to wear thick glasses, buck teeth, a bowl-cut wig and get plenty of mileage out of the double entendres created by mixing up r’s and l’s. This material should NEVER be swept under the rug, for I think people of all cultures SHOULD be reminded of the cultural ignorance of their forebears (and one of the reasons SONG OF THE SOUTH should be released one day) and even made to feel uncomfortable about it. But that doesn’t mean everyone is going to find it funny, nor did they even then. These may just be two examples, but the entertainment world is FULL of many such examples, so this is hardly anecdotal evidence.




I think my own comments in various posts on the first page of this thread have at least something to do with what I call the “kitchen table ignorance” practised by my own forebears and those of people I’ve known (and not just white people, I might add), including my own parents, bless ‘em. The kind of ignorance perptuated at the dinner table in countless homes across North America in regards to “the others,” when we see stories about "them" on TV, in the paper, the neighbors next door. Seeminly harmless cracks that rarely, if ever, leave the confines of the family home, yet to which I often found myself playing moderator, or at least trying to suggest a more enlightened approach to viewing people from other cultures (often to my own frustration).

Again, this kind of old school ignorance is, sadly, not just the domain of the “white” majority, if such a thing even exists anymore. I can only go by what Asian acquaintances have told me over the years (and yes, I’ve come right out and asked them), but they’ve told me that their own parents, people who are themselves products of an even less enlightened time (and often a more homogenous culture) will indulge in the "tolerable" slander of races they don’t understand, or make no effort to understand. The least I can say for myself is I'm trying to move away from the thinking that bound my ancestors to their cultural imperialism and insensitivity. To do that, I need to be reminded of it, as ugly as it might be.



I don't know if we should be offended at the portrayals of Asians on MASH (a most un-Korean looking Sylvia Chang played the bartender in later episodes, for heaven's sake), but we should at least be aware that they frequently catered to the ignorance of masses by having Asians of many ethnic stripes play Koreans, even in the speaking parts. For the sake of getting a 22-minute dramedy on the air, I guess they had little choice but to choose from the available pool of Asian-American actors while knowing that few would really notice since (and according to even some of our Asian posters here) "you can't tell the difference," and those who did would most likely be a minority.

I'm reaching back a ways on these next ones, but since David Ren and Kwang Suh addressed them directly to me, I'll give them a shot:



I think if my posts were even remotely offensive to Asians this thread would not have grown to 4 pages in the two days I've been away. It probably would've been locked. Obviously, I don't think I'm Asian, nor do I believe having an Asian girlfriend gives me any special right to speak my mind on such a topic. I've had this problem with largely-white Hollywood long before I ever met her or knew about Home Theatre Forum. As others pointed out not long after you posted this remark, it's everyone's issue. Not just yours because you're Asian. "One of us" speaks to the kind of high-minded cultural superiority I've tried to address and live down within my own culture. Mind you, I was not shocked to see it come from another culture for, as I mentioned earlier in this post, virtually ALL ethinicities indulge in a certain amount of "kitchen table" cultural protectionism, no matter how much they swear they're above it.




Shooting down my admittedly anecdotal evidence with more of your own does not negate my argument. I admited my comments had only anecdotal value. You make interesting points, though, but I've already said there are many people in all cultures who could be mistaken for the culture next door, so to speak. Perhaps your mom and the Korean lady are within that group. Then again, I'll never meet them, so you can't exactly tell me I WOULDN"T be able to guess their cultural heritage.



This quote, too , was addressed by others, but the context of my early comments with regards to this issue is far from racist. There's a big difference between, and perhaps even an understanding from, recognizing physical as well as cultural differences from one country to the next and UTILIZING that knowledge to openly slander or hurt those very same people, or treat them like they're inferior to oneself. The latter I have not done. At best, the only people truly getting slandered here were the Hollywood types (regardless of race) who are putting this film into production.

Kirk Tsai and Dome Vongvises said it best:




I agree with these statements wholeheartedly, even though I'm clearly not Asian. Most of the time, I can spot differences as well. Beautiful differences. Not all the time, and I don't SPEND all my time playing guessing games over every Asian or Black or White person that I pass. And no, I'm not Asian. I'm Euro-descended white. But that makes me no less willing to at least try to see the physical, as well as cultural, differences that set us all apart.

Kirk was also one of the one's who pointed out my own ignorant mistaking of Gong Li's "last" name. I hope a mod might be able to fix that error in my thread header. The mistake was, however, an honest one. I've only seen a few Gong Li movies, and the credits listed her name in English without the Chinese script, which I often use to decipher Chinese actor names like hers where both parts COULD reasonably be the family name.

Still, all these pages later, I still think this casting was ignorant. I wouldn't be surprised if it comes out down the road that Japanese actresses weren't even auditioned for the roles. Sompeone mentioned earlier that on a big budget movie "you have to protect your investment and as of right now, there are NO recognizable Japanese actresses of name value," to which Tim RH responded that "there never will be if they don't start casting them in major Hollywood film productions." This is a BIG part of the SUBTEXT of my original argument, and it bears repeating.

Finally, I have to say that though I expected this thread to expand exponentially while I was away, I'm absolutely stunned by how intelligent the conversation has stayed. I though for sure the moderators would have to step in at some point, but to go four pages on a topic like this without such intervention is testament to the cultural diversity and intelligence-in-debate of people who use this service.



I did not know that. Should be worth a chuckle.

Nor did I believe the moderators or HTF in general particularly supported my views (or the views of those who took my side) or opposed them, just that, hopefully, they didn't find the thread overtly racist in any way, since that was never my intention. Surely at least one of the reasons the thread has remained active is because this is a sensitive, important topic that has, for the most part, been discussed in a fair and rational way, with valid arguments made on both sides of the issue.

P.S. Still any chance of changing "Li" to "Gong" in the thread title?