Hachiko the Dog: Please Help Us To Entangle Cultural Appropriation in American Films
By Special Correspondent Thea Lim
A few days ago reader Elton Joe sent us an irritated email with a newsflash that Hollywood and Richard Gere have remade Hachiko, a 1987 Japanese film about a real-life dog beloved in Japanese culture.
A little about this celebrity dog:
In 1924, Hachikō was brought to Tokyo by his owner, Hidesaburō Ueno, a professor in the agriculture department at the University of Tokyo. During his owner’s life Hachikō saw him off from the front door and greeted him at the end of the day at the nearby Shibuya Station. The pair continued their daily routine until May 1925, when Professor Ueno didn’t return on the usual train one evening. The professor had suffered a stroke at the university that day. He died and never returned to the train station where his friend was waiting.
Hachikō was given away after his master’s death, but he routinely escaped…he went to look for his master at the train station where he had accompanied him so many times before. Each day, Hachikō waited for Professor Ueno to return…
The permanent fixture at the train station that was Hachikō attracted the attention of other commuters…[one of] Professor Ueno’s former student[s] returned frequently to visit the dog and over the years published several articles about Hachikō’s remarkable loyalty. In 1932 one of these articles, published in Tokyo’s largest newspaper, threw the dog into the national spotlight. Hachikō became a national sensation. His faithfulness to his master’s memory impressed the people of Japan as a spirit of family loyalty all should strive to achieve…
Eventually, Hachiko’s legendary faithfulness became a national symbol of loyalty…In April 1934, a bronze statue in his likeness was erected at Shibuya Station…Each year on April 8[6], Hachikō’s devotion is honored with a solemn ceremony of remembrance at Tokyo’s Shibuya railroad station. Hundreds of dog lovers often turn out to honor his memory and loyalty.
In other words, Hachiko is an important cultural symbol in Japan. Hence Elton Joe’s irritation at Hollywood’s dognapping: from the credits we can see that nary a Japanese person has a starring role, plus the story has been relocated to Rhode Island. How can the American version possibly express the cultural importance little Hachi has? And, if it cannot express that cultural importance, is the film simply mining a revered Japanese legend for entertainment dollars?
And let’s not forget about you, Richard Gere. This is the second time Ricky has starred in an American remake of a Japanese film: in 2004 with the help of J-Lo and Susan Sarandon, Gere remade the thoughtful and moving 1996 film Shall We Dance? into a shlockfest. (Well, that’s just my opinion of course.)
However. Maybe we need to hold our horses here before we scream appropriation. Remaking films from other countries is a pretty common practice in the movie industry, and goes both ways. Bollywood is rife with Hindi remakes of American films. And often non-American directors happily go along with American remakes: movies like The Departed and Vanilla Sky brought in oodles of dollars in rentals and DVD sales for Infernal Affairs and Open Your Eyes.
And while the American Shall We Dance? definitely lost the delicacy and sweetness of the original in its translation, I can’t really say anything about it struck me as racist. And here’s another question: if America remakes a film from another country, is it important to have nationals (or simply Americans with ethnic ties to that country) working on the film?
Take a look at the horribly failed American remake of Thai film Bangkok Dangerous. The directors chose to completely rearrange the storyline in order to accomodate Nicolas Cage. Was that American-centric? Yes! Clumsy? Yes! Did it destroy the original film? Yes! Was it racist? Aha. Here’s your catch: it was the Pang Brothers – the Thai version’s original directors – themselves who directed the American version and did the script mutilating.
So cultural appropriation in the context of movie remakes is murky. But ponder this. One thing differentiates Hachi from Shall We Dance, Infernal Affairs, Open Your Eyes or many other non-American films that have been Hollywoodized: usually, they are not about a cultural hero who has great significance to their countries of origin – a significance that may or may not be properly handled by Hollywood’s hammy paws.
The blog Tartar Sauce feels the same way as Elton Joe:
Hachiko is obviously an important symbol in Japan. And his story is being turned into an American movie that takes the story completely out of context. While there is Japanese writing on this poster, that’s because this is a poster for the Japanese release of it, not because the movie mentions Japan at all. It’s set in Rhode Island, and stars Richard Gere, Joan Allen, and Jason Alexander. All white actors. In Japan, the story of Hachiko is one about loyalty, and it’s a story that has great cultural significance. From the looks of this poster, the movie will be much more sappy, and from everything I’ve heard about it, all of the its cultural significance will be stripped away. This is a Japanese story. It’s being sold in America as an American one. And there aren’t even any Asian lead actors. This is based on a story about Asian people, and none are present. The only remotely Japanese character is the dog, who happens to be an Akita, and has a Japanese name. Everything else is changed, and Asian countries, Asian cultures, and Asian people are still being ignored.
So is Hachiko starring Richard Gere a racist remake?
Before you answer, consider this. In writing this post I did a little sneaking around messageboards, and from that very poor sample, I found multiple Japanese people who expressed excitement about the American remake. I didn’t find a single Japanese person who raised objection.
I do not speak Japanese and like I said, it’s a poor sample of what folks are really thinking. But notice the poster on this here post is from Japan. All the posters and promotion that I found for the American film are in Japanese; it seems like the big advertising push for this film is starting in Japan long before it starts here. The film clearly is anticipating a huge audience in Japan.
If many Japanese people have no problem with a Hachi remake, do we as Americans have reason to cry foul on their behalf?
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
CDF wrote:
Nothing new. Sort of like the evolution of American rock ‘n roll…notice anything?
Posted 13 Jul 2009 at 9:36 am ¶
Caito wrote:
I actually live in Akita prefecture, Japan, the birthplace of Hachiko and presumably the entire Akita breed. (I’m not Japanese.) Since this movie was announced, my impression is that people here hoped it would raise interest in Akita dogs and in Akita tourism. But if the only Japanese elements are the dog breed and dog’s name, I doubt people would make the connection between a famous dog, a Hollywood movie, and a part of Japan that people rarely visit. Rather than anger, I feel deep disappointment; had they included more Japanese elements, people with a closer connection to the story may have stood to benefit from positive attention.
Posted 13 Jul 2009 at 9:59 am ¶
atlasien wrote:
“Yes” to the last sentence, and the fact that the question is even asked so much really irritates me (I’m not blaming Thea, rather the question itself). The same question came up in the Sandip Roy post, and spawned a rather insulting argument that if Indians in India don’t care about white people wearing saris, then Indian-Americans have no right to complain.
It’s important to establish that “native” people (e.g. people who live in a country where they are the majority) are going to have a much different point of view than their offshoots who live as minorities in different countries. And vice versa. I’m a Japanese-American; Japanese nationals don’t get to tell me what I should and shouldn’t complain about when it comes to my life in America as an American. Then, as someone who doesn’t live in Japan, I can’t dictate to a Japanese national what they should and shouldn’t feel about these sorts of issues in their country.
There are going to be places where our experiences intersect, of course. But I refuse to be held to the ideal of a Japanese national and expected to feel the way they do…
All that being said, I don’t have a problem with the movie. I’m familiar with the story and the statue at Shibuya station, by the way, ever since I was a young kid.
It’s hard to explain, but many Japanese themes and stories are sentimental in a way that’s difficult to translate. What comes across as “touching” in Japan can so easily become “schlocky tearjerker” when it’s redone over here. It sounds like this movie is going to turn out to be a schlocky tearjerker, so even as a dog-lover I don’t have any interest in going to see it. But it doesn’t strike me as cultural appropriation.
The standard I use for appropriation is to ask if it harms the target culture in some way, for example by reinforcing stereotypes, or supports the idea that the dominant culture has more right to the target culture than the target culture does. I don’t see how this movie does that.
Of course, who knows, when the movie comes out, maybe Richard Gere is fighting to rescue Hachiko from evil yakuza who eat dog-meat sushi off the bodies of naked massage parlor girls while hatching plots to steal American autoworker jobs.
But as long as they stick to the simple story — man loves dog, dog loves man, man dies, dog stays faithful to memory of man — I don’t see the harm.
Posted 13 Jul 2009 at 10:00 am ¶
Talulah wrote:
Racist or no, that’s gonna be one giant schlockfest.
Posted 13 Jul 2009 at 10:17 am ¶
prvlgd cdn wrote:
From my point of view (noted up there in my alias) the only possible damage this movie could do, aside from just being bad, is if this version of the story becomes the dominant iteration in Japan–which I don’t see happening, or if it attempts, poorly to make some point about Japan through the story, which also doesn’t look like it’s happening.
Posted 13 Jul 2009 at 10:28 am ¶
cocolamala wrote:
“is the film simply mining a revered Japanese legend for entertainment dollars”
yes, but that’s what film companies do (Disney mined German folk tales and mutilated the Little Mermaid).
i guess, in this case, all they’re stealing is the story/plotline. it’s not a specifically Japanese trait that dogs are uber loyal and might greet their masters at the train station.
it would be different to me if they retained Japanese cultural markers but refused to use actual Japanese people, like setting the remake in Japan, but with non-Japanese actors.
but they aren’t making money off the Japanese-ness of the story. if it’s more about the dog’s loyalty, then it’s not the cultural cache that’s being sold.
Posted 13 Jul 2009 at 10:37 am ¶
Britta wrote:
Interesting post. I guess there are several reasons why I don’t find this remake problematic.
First, like you pointed out, remakes are generally adapted to the country the movie is being remade in, and it might be odder to have incongruent Japanese elements thrown in if the story is indeed being set in America (a remake like the Grudge was problematic in that it was set in Japan but had white actors as stars). Now, the main actor could easily be Japanese-American because there are plenty of people of Japanese ancestry who are American, and, aside from underrepresentation of Asian-Americans in film (a large problem), I don’t see why Hachi’s owner necessarily needs to be Japanese-American for the plot of loyal dog warms hearts of small community.
Second, the idea that because it’s based on a story that happened in Japan, any possible problem would be solved by throwing in “Asian” American actors is actually more offensive–this is a Japanese story, and to have other Asians act in it merely because they are Asian merely to add some Asianness is kind of…off, and imho, far more culturally insensitive than a total lack. My guess many Japanese people would be more offended by an attempt to represent the Japanese origins of the story by throwing in some, say, Chinese-American actors than by keeping it mostly white (which of course touches back on the issue of representation of POC in media, but again, I think that’s a slightly different issue). I was living in China at the time and remember vividly when memoirs of a Geisha came out, since a film that managed to offend lots of Chinese and Japanese people for blithely ignoring huge cultural and ethnic differences and casting actresses under the umbrella category “Asian.”
Third, while this particular movie is based on a Japanese dog, tropes of dogs and loyalty are far from culturally specific, and indeed, seem to be close to universal, at least in cultures that raise dogs as pets. I mean, we’re not exactly lacking in the “pet’s loyalty knows no bounds” category in America, and my guess is the cross cultural similarities is why people thought the movie would be a success in America. Finally, while Hachiko might be fondly remembered/somewhat of a national icon, it doesn’t sound like he is sacred or that this film is in any way profaning him or doing a disservice to his memory.
Posted 13 Jul 2009 at 10:40 am ¶
trooper6 wrote:
What is preferable? That there never is any cultural dialogue or exchange? I don’t think cultural isolationism is the way to go.
I also don’t think cultural importance necessarily makes a difference. Hatchiko is a story about a loyal dog. Yes, the story has important cultural significance to Japan, but a story about a loyal dog translates pretty well across borders. Shakespeare is really culturally important to the British…and culturally specific…so should Kurosawa not have done Ran? Should he have been obligated to cast British actors in his version of Lear?
And to go back to CDF’s comment, we can look at the evolution of American Rock’n'Roll. It started as a recognized genre (not counting it’s precursors in the 1940s) with a number of figures who were all bound up in cultural exchange and dialogue–Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley both grew up in Pentecostal Churches, which was founded as an integrated church. Black gospel was the music they grew up with. Chuck Berry started off doing country music and could play all tunes of Jimmy Rodgers. The dialogue between black and white southerners is what brought us rock’n'roll. Then that music caught the attention of non-Southerners who didn’t have that cultural background but loved the music, and they started making their own versions. Should rock’n'roll have only stayed in the Southern States? Jimi Hendrix would be a regional appropriator is we took that stance. Then that music went all around the world. British Invasion, Ska (which leads to Reggae), oppositional rockers in Prague during the Soviet time, and countless others.
Or take the international impact of Jazz, from The Jazz Epistles blowing jazz in South Africa during the time of Apartheid, to German youth dancing swing as resistance in WW2, to Afro-Canadian mourning of the destruction of Africville.
Or the spread of Hip Hop globally. Hip Life in Africa, Turkish German youth, African and Arab youth in France. Innercity kids in London, Reggaeton.
What sort of global community do you want to live in? A world where Asia is not allowed to play Western Classical music because that would be appropriation, a world where straight people have to give up electronic DJ crafted dance music because that was created by black and Latino gay men?
Do you want to live in a world where we can encounter art created by other people, but we can not be inspired to incorporate that art into our own lives and creative process? Where on a basic level our sense of self remains racially and culturally removed from any influences from anyone who isn’t just like us?
That isn’t the world I want to live in. And that isn’t the world that anybody does live in. Heck, the Western numeric system is Arabic.
More connections. Not fewer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cI_0Hyn57Lk
Posted 13 Jul 2009 at 11:03 am ¶
Mary wrote:
Doesn’t this tradition go back way farther than Richard Gere? Some classic Westerns are re-makes of Japanese films (Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven and Yojimbo/A Fistful of Dollars).
On the rare occasion that a re-make of a foreign film is good, I think it can be a respectful tribute to the universality of some values/concepts/ideas. Sometimes, I think it is a greater sign of respect if the filmmaker takes the approach of “I am going to tell your story in my culture because these are the concepts that resonate with me,” instead of, “I am going to do a half-assed job aping your culture.”
Basically, I compare A Fistful of Dollars to The Last Samurai. The former was not set in Japan and did not reference Japanese culture at all, but it clearly attempted to respect the philosophical and psychological underpinnings of Kurosawa’s Yojimbo. The latter was set in Japan and was supposedly about how awesome the samurai were, but it still had Tom Cruise as the alpha dog. I admit it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it, but I think Leone’s film was more respectful to the culture it borrowed from.
Of course, there is still the problem that a) the good ones are the exception and not the rule, b) the bad ones seem to be going on the attitude that it’s unthinkable people might actually like a foreign film, so let’s put some Americans in it. :/
I’m not sure any of this is going to apply to Hachiko, though. Because… it looks like there’s some serious potential for suck. And the Japanese tagline on the poster, assuming that is a poster intended for Western consumption, kind of reeks of a “Japanese but not TOO Japanese” attitude.
Posted 13 Jul 2009 at 11:30 am ¶
macon d wrote:
If many Japanese people have no problem with a Hachi remake, do we as Americans have reason to cry foul on their behalf?
How many is “many”? Are we talking percentages here, or ? When do we know we’ve reached some sort of quorum?
Posted 13 Jul 2009 at 12:19 pm ¶
method wrote:
“Shall We Dance” did well internationally, apparently: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=1557&p=.htm. So this is just trying to follow a formula using Gere.
Also, as a broad generalization the Japanese are extremely flattered and amused by cultural borrowing from the West. They have this thing about Japanese culture being impossibly eccentric and unreproducible even though they do so much borrowing of their own. In addition, they love Western actors but they especially like having them *to themselves*, performing in commercials, etc. So instead of cultural appropriation we might be talking about something like *cultural importation*, where a culture is commissioned to produce a product that is actually intended for consumption by another culture. I mean, does anyone expect a movie like this to do well in the US? Yet it can be sold abroad as a movie “from” the US.
Has Racialicious ever done anything with the movie “Brother”, starring Beat Takeshi and Omar Epps? It’s a movie set in the US with mostly English dialogue that is only comprehensible in a Japanese context.
Posted 13 Jul 2009 at 12:35 pm ¶
Julia wrote:
“If many Japanese people have no problem with a Hachi remake, do we as Americans have reason to cry foul on their behalf? ”
But is this just a variation on the “it must not be racist because a black person said it” sort of logic?
On another note, as someone who lived in Japan, the popularity of the film there seems predictable–nostalgia and cuteness figure prominently in mass media (or, at least, they did ten years ago, when I was there). I think, actually, that Japan is a country that is pretty comfortable with appropriation. This may be because “being Japanese” is thought to be a matter of blood; therefore, fundamental “Japaneseness” is not appropriate-able.
Posted 13 Jul 2009 at 1:09 pm ¶
N wrote:
Its a good story about a loyal dog. If it had been made with a few Japanese actors or in Japan with American actors I’d have a problem. But I don’t see that there is an attempt to appropriate or use Japanese culture, I see it as a “translation” of a respected work of art.
Posted 13 Jul 2009 at 1:31 pm ¶
prvlgd cdn wrote:
Control item, for reference:
Similar story, different culture:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greyfriars_Bobby
Posted 13 Jul 2009 at 1:41 pm ¶
Persia wrote:
Just to note– Kurosawa said he saw Seven Samurai and Yojimbo as “Westerns” moved to a Japanese setting. So Westerners then borrowed them back.
Posted 13 Jul 2009 at 2:42 pm ¶
Danny wrote:
This movie might be ok. Some remakes are pretty decent. The main problematic issue I think is if those who remake it try to get credit for it’s creation. I dont’ know how much this happens but quite a lot of people are aware of the Japanese origins for a lot of those remakes to begin with.
I’m in large agreement with trooper6. So many ideas flow around the globe, it happen so much in the past and is happening quite a lot in the present. Like I said, sometimes it can get a little problematic when those people who attempt to get credit for it’s creativity use it to put down others. Even those who supposedly created it or had strong connections to those ideas will use it to put down others as well.
The US is an interesting place to talk about. While I don’t have a problem with remakes, at times some people do wonder why there needs to be one in the first place. So many people still haven’t open their eyes to see just how cosmopolitan the States have been in the past, are right now and will be in the future. I understand the frustration with the media and demographics though.
On a side note, it would have been interesting instead of Richard Gere of light Caucasian actors they use other people of color. Would this article be different or people see this differently?
Posted 13 Jul 2009 at 3:01 pm ¶
Leila wrote:
Julia’s (12) analysis makes a lot of sense. I also lived in Japan, and like a good number of people I know from similarly homogeneous cultures (I know my personal experiences don’t make for an exhaustive list, but there does seem to be a pattern), many Japanese are more amused at foreign imitations than offended. They often don’t interpret White hegemony the way minority populations in hetergenous societies do. So, let’s not confuse Japanese sentiment with Japanese-American sentiment; each has a right to interpret appropriation as it sees and experiences it.
And let’s not forget that Futurama already did a much, much superior version of this story:
http://www.gametrailers.com/user-movie/futurama-frys-dog-waiting/60038
Posted 13 Jul 2009 at 3:15 pm ¶
vcious wrote:
While I don’t like adaptations because I’d much prefer people just see more foreign cinema and widen their perspectives like that, I’m okay with them, as dreadful as they can be.
I guess it all depends on how you see a story. A story of a national hero or a historical period in some country’s past can’t really be adapted to fit that of another culture – or if you try, it might cause a big fuss. On the other hand, some stories are universal or at least have enough of that quality to them that they can be adapted. The results are not necessarily good but they can be (Shakespeare’s plays are a good example).
So in other words, if Hachiko’s story feels uniquely Japanese to the Japanese people, this might not be so cool in their eyes but if not, I could see why they’d be keen on seeing the adaptation.
Posted 13 Jul 2009 at 3:20 pm ¶
Manju wrote:
well cultural appropriation, specifically taking something foreign and make it better, is the Japanese way…as anyone whose ever eaten a kobe steak knows.
so, maybe this is a meta-tribute to japenese culture.
Posted 13 Jul 2009 at 3:54 pm ¶
atlasien wrote:
“well cultural appropriation, specifically taking something foreign and make it better, is the Japanese way…”
What garbage! That moldy old cliche is part and parcel of a racist stereotype: “Japanese are CLEVER at IMITATING but they’re not as smart as WHITE PEOPLE who invent really ORIGINAL things.”
How are Japanese better at borrowing from other cultures than, say, the English, who didn’t even invent their own alphabet? While the Japanese invented not one, but two? I could come up with a gazillion counterexamples but I’m frankly too disgusted to continue.
Posted 13 Jul 2009 at 4:10 pm ¶
RJG wrote:
Doesn’t appropriation normally involve a certain level of unwillingness or disregard to the culture that originally created the work? I don’t know much about the remake of this movie so I can’t say anything about if it is appropriation or not.
That said, I’m not sure if showing that other countries remake American movies (in a manner that counts as appropriation or otherwise) would really excuse anyone of their own appropriation. If I steal from you, that doesn’t mean it’s okay for you to steal back from me. There may be a level of “justice” in it, but perpetuating a cycle isn’t exactly going to help anything.
Posted 13 Jul 2009 at 4:21 pm ¶
Jorge wrote:
I don’t think there is anything racist in remaking a story which seems to have been stripped of the cultural background of the original, basically making it another Marley & Me, but with an Akita. Blech. If you grew up in the U.S., or around U.S. culture, you know there’s nothing uniquely Japanese about a “man and his dog” type of story (and they are mostly men, aren’t they?).
The film would be objectionable if they play up the Japanese origin of the breed and somehow try to tie that into why the dog is so loyal, or go they try to play up some kind of “Asian mysticism” mumbo jumbo (the dog disappears at the end of the movie amid a shower of cherry blossoms and the plucking of koto strings).
Otherwise, I don’t see anything wrong with borrowing stories from other countries. If a movie sucks, it falls on its face and that’s the end of the story.
Posted 13 Jul 2009 at 4:24 pm ¶
Manju wrote:
“The same question came up in the Sandip Roy post, and spawned a rather insulting argument that if Indians in India don’t care about white people wearing saris, then Indian-Americans have no right to complain.”
but that certainly does probelmatize things, doesn’t it atlasien? after all, it is them, not us, who are being approprated from.
thats the problem i have with this and the whole orietalism/exoticism thing. i can’t get any confirmation from the natives, and i have access to them. i mean, if i show stuff like this to my mom or grandmother they almost always think its wonderful. in order for somethng to be considered offensive along ethnic lines don’t we need a consensus among the alleged exoticized, arientalized, or approprated? but do we even have a majority here? i need a poll.
Posted 13 Jul 2009 at 4:41 pm ¶
johnjihoonchang wrote:
Agreed with atlasien (#3).
Posted 13 Jul 2009 at 5:34 pm ¶
Jay wrote:
However. Maybe we need to hold our horses here before we scream appropriation. Remaking films from other countries is a pretty common practice in the movie industry, and goes both ways. Bollywood is rife with Hindi remakes of American films. And often non-American directors happily go along with American remakes: movies like The Departed and Vanilla Sky brought in oodles of dollars in rentals and DVD sales for Infernal Affairs and Open Your Eyes.
However, the image control and the majority of distribution is still almost all American, which means that you’re seeing what American executives want you to see.
This is the main problem I have with the cultural flow/exchange. If the main control/distribution channels weren’t so laced with the mainstream white American viewpoint, then I’d probably be okay with things being appropriated all over the place.
Posted 13 Jul 2009 at 7:47 pm ¶
Wendy Tokunaga wrote:
Yes, Hachiko is a cultural symbol in Japan, but I have heard that even that story is rather exaggerated. For example, it has been said that one reason why the dog went to the train station every day was because the shopkeepers in the area fed him.
And for more racial trivia, Richard Gere also had a small part in a Japanese movie called “Rhapsody in August,” directed by Akira Kurosawa, where he played a half-Japanese, half-Caucasian character. Another falsehood.
As for “Hachi,” it sounds like it could be as ghastly but profitable as “Marley and Me.”
Posted 13 Jul 2009 at 7:59 pm ¶
Reiter wrote:
The Departed irked me because it spat in the face of its Chinese origins by 1) making any Asians in the movie inept, spineless gangsters or shady underworld types, 2) had Jack Nicholson’s character insult the Chinese with his, “No tickee, no washee,” line, and 3) the announcer during the awards mistakenly announced it as being based on a Japanese film because, you know, Asians all look alike according to Hollywood.
That and Departed was heavy-handed in its execution of the script (Oh look, a rat at the end to represent Matt Damon’s character! How subtle!); Infernal Affairs was definitely the superior of the two movies. So yea, I was no fan of the Departed with the way it disrespected its creators and the source material.
And that’s the thing with these international remakes. Is there respect shown toward the originators? In the case of Departed, there was none. Last Samurai, you could make the argument that there was at least but it was more a vehicle to showcase Tom Cruise playing samurai more than anything else (as opposed to Kevin Costner’s character in Dances With Wolves, a movie I loved because it showed much respect toward the First Nation peoples).
So it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if Richard Gere in the Hachi movie fights off evil Yakuza gangsters who kidnap dogs for canine sushi and eat them off the naked bodies of geisha strippers, as atlasien wrote (the mere imagery makes me laugh but at the same time I wouldn’t put it past Hollywood to make something like this; I can easily see this as the plot of Crank 3).
As for Brother, oh wow, I do remember seeing that movie on cable once years ago. At the time I thought it was such a weird movie but the themes of loyalty were there too. And seeing Beat Takeshi being Beat Takeshi is always entertaining.
And with some movies the subtle nuances are just lost in translation (the horrible remake of My Sassy Girl, anyone?) or dumbed down (a remake of the horror monster movie The Host, for example, would lose its original impact as an allegory for American occupation of Korea, the break down of the traditional Asian nuclear family, and growing unease on the issues of pollution and threat of nuclear war given the climate with North Korea).
That said, I’m definitely not looking forward to the American remakes of Akira and Old Boy. Why mess with the classics when the originals are so good to begin with?
Posted 13 Jul 2009 at 8:25 pm ¶
napthia9 wrote:
I think we can complain the need for these remakes stems not from the need to add anything new to the story or even from inspiration drawn from common themes, but from a belief that the new audience can’t relate or won’t care about the story if it’s not about them. And the ‘them’ movie makers are catering to is pretty problematic anyway. (How is it any harder to relate to the original Japanese character than to Gere’s American incarnation if you’re not male, academic, racially privileged in your society, etc, etc?) . If this movie’s producers had wanted to remake Hachiko for an American audience, they could have done so and still set it in Japan with Japanese characters. If the original had merely inspired them, as it probably inspired other fictional tales, why not make a new movie? Or if they just really liked the original, why not promote an American re-release?
With thousands of other scripts and ideas floating around out there, why do this one? It’s not as if these sorts of remakes aren’t widely panned as inferior, anyway.
Posted 13 Jul 2009 at 9:05 pm ¶
Ruchama wrote:
Interesting. This seems like a pretty common story across cultures — there was a nearly identical story as a minor subplot of Rilla of Ingleside, the last sequel to Anne of Green Gables. I wonder why the filmmakers decided on the Japanese story in particular, rather than any of the quite a few other similar stories, and why they decided to keep the name if they were changing the location. Unless there’s much more to the plot than what’s outlined here, there doesn’t seem to be much that’s specifically Japanese about this story — change the man from a professor to a soldier and the location from Japan to Canada, and you have the Rilla of Ingleside story almost exactly. Change the professor and location again, and I’m sure you could find at least a dozen other similar stories.
So I guess what I’m wondering is, of all the very similar stories with this plot, why did they decide on the Japanese one, and then change all the details that identify that story as Hachiko’s story in particular, rather than some other dog’s story?
Posted 13 Jul 2009 at 11:00 pm ¶
Joy wrote:
Wow, I’ve heard numerous versions of this dog waiting for master story in all sorts of settings and locations. So, are all those stories really based off Hachiko? Anyway, glad I read this post. I definitely won’t be paying $8 to probably cry. Nope! Won’t be going to see this one.
Posted 13 Jul 2009 at 11:02 pm ¶
BSK wrote:
Is there much evidence of movie themes moving the other way? Where American films are remade in other countries?
In general, I would not consider this “racist”. Don’t they say that “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”? I would say that this movie is probably more problematic than the other ones mentioned, because it is a specific situation/character that is unique to Japan and Japanese culture that is being exported and re-packaged in a very non-Japanese way. However, overall, I think this is just the way that art works nowadays, even if that “art” is crappy remakes of originally good movies.
Posted 13 Jul 2009 at 11:21 pm ¶
Erika wrote:
It’s odd that they named it Hachiko if it’s set in Rhode Island o_O Okaaaay.
I don’t know if I’m the only Japanese (I was born there) person on this board or not, but at first when I thought it was set in Japan and Richard Gere was starring in it, I was pissed off. If this is just an interpretation of the storyline and set in the US, I don’t think it’s as problematic. It is a really nice story, after all.
As for reception, well…I went around various Japanese blogs, and most people are happy that it’s becoming a movie. There were some cynics, though, here are some translated comments:
“It’s Hollywood, they made ‘Nankyoku Monogatari’ (8 Below) into a happy ending, no doubt they’re going to do the same with this”
“They have no sense of originality”
“I don’t get why they use a foreigner for this…if I was the director and adapting something, I probably wouldn’t change the main character’s race”
The best comment on there which made me lol heartily was:
“Next movie they make is going to be KOIZUMI: Starring Richard Gere”
However, the reactions were way less negative than when Dragonball Z came out. I’m not surprised.
Posted 14 Jul 2009 at 12:53 am ¶
little mixed girl wrote:
well, i didn’t know that this film was a re-make.
i saw a few posters for the film, but didn’t look at the title, and i only recently knew that it was about that hachi.
i guess i would have more of an issue if this film was a “my sassy girl” or “juon” remake, because those films were just great the way they were in the original language.
if they wanted to tell the story of a loyal dog, which is what it looks like they are doing, then saying “based on the true story of”, and that would be fine with me.
the dog is famous, i learned about it in my japanese classes.
but, i highly doubt that the average person has a hachi statue in their homes.
it seems just that there was a dog that did something seemingly “human”, humans were moved by it and that’s it.
i’m not saying it’s not a touching story, but, it doesn’t seem to be something uniquely japanese in the way that some other movies were.
Posted 14 Jul 2009 at 1:56 am ¶
Miyuki wrote:
I’m Japanese and have no problem with “Hachi” and “Shall We Dance.” Obviously that doesn’t mean much but here’s what I think: Hachiko is definitely a Japanese “symbol” of loyalty, but moving the dog to a movie that while it might be sappy, isn’t actually insulting the symbol. What I absolutely can’t tolerate is movies like “Pearl Harbor.” I cringed through nearly the entire movie because of the exaggeration of many awful stereotypes there are of what Japanese people look like, sound like, act like etc. To promote that movie in Japan is even more unbelievable…and of course because Japan lovvves America, Japanese and Japanese American youth supposedly loved every minute of it.
While I think the Japanese text on the movie poster doesn’t really fit because it’s set in Rhode Island, all in all I think this movie is pretty harmless.
Posted 14 Jul 2009 at 2:37 am ¶
maus wrote:
“It’s hard to explain, but many Japanese themes and stories are sentimental in a way that’s difficult to translate. What comes across as “touching” in Japan can so easily become “schlocky tearjerker” when it’s redone over here.”
I feel that speaks more of American cinema than it does about the American experience, though.
Posted 14 Jul 2009 at 4:38 am ¶
Pheagan wrote:
What’s interesting to me about this article is the subtext of “if a person of color has no problem with the racist/potentially racist matter at hand, is it racist?”. So much so that I feel like it could be a blog post in and of itself.
I guess what the question comes down to is, is racism an objective thing? If so, it should be something recognizable by everyone, no matter what race they are. On the other hand, many, many people will talk about instances of racism that are invisible to people who don’t have to deal with it. There have been many blog posts concerned with educating white people about diversity or subtle racial blunders. So clearly there is a subjective experience of racism.
But if we label racism as a completely subjective thing and yield authority over what constitutes racism to the people that have that race, you get things like– “Hey, what about that Asian guy in the Miley Cyrus slant-eye photo? He didn’t have a problem with it. Therefore, it’s not racist.” Or, “M. Night Shyamalan is directing Avatar and Dev Patel is in it. Therefore, this movie has no problems with race.” And those are conclusions I can’t stand by.
And this is an argument particularly galling to anti-racist white people like myself, because it is the favorite argument used against us when we notice racism. And yes, it’s usually a white person saying, “hey, look at this token person of color, they don’t have a problem, why do you have a problem?” Or, more properly, what right do you have to have a problem with it? But I have been in situations where I think something is racist and I’m talking with a person of color who doesn’t think it’s racist, and that’s a very interesting situation to be in.
I don’t have an answer, but my feeling is, as subjective as experiences of racial dynamics can me, you can call out things that are racially problematic. And the general co-opting of Asian cinema by Hollywood, including this movie, is definitely in that territory.
Posted 14 Jul 2009 at 6:31 am ¶
Persia wrote:
The best comment on there which made me lol heartily was:
“Next movie they make is going to be KOIZUMI: Starring Richard Gere”
That’s awesome. Ha!
Posted 14 Jul 2009 at 8:46 am ¶
Sarah wrote:
I agree, there are all sorts of versions of this same story in different cultures. There is even one in this country from Montana about Shep the dog.
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/4367
Maybe the difference is that these stories don’t continue to be well known in other cultures or carry significance in the culture like the story of Hachi does in Japan. The only reason I know about Shep is because I lived in Montana and he was featured in a children’s book there.
Posted 14 Jul 2009 at 8:54 am ¶
method wrote:
Why not just say, most but not all remakes suck, and, average Americans will not watch a movie with subtitles and “foreign” characters. That’s your racism, but also your American parochialism and subtitle illiteracy (I’ve heard that the world can be divided into subtitle and dubbing cultures). This appropriation thing is a red herring.
Posted 14 Jul 2009 at 12:45 pm ¶
supern00b wrote:
I thought it was a bit racist at first, but, like it’s been said, if the story is done right, the fact that it originated from japan shouldn’t matter. the part that irks me a little is that they decided to use the name hachiko. that’s an obvious link to the original story. if it is supposed to be the story in a different context, did they have to use an obviously japanese name? while not unheard of, it is highly unlikely that a white dude from rhode island with no apparent connection to japan would give his dog an obviously japanese sounding name.
That leads me to two possibilities. given that Hachiko is an abandoned dog adopted by Gere’s character: A: man finds dog with some sort of indication that it’s name is Hachiko, or B: man somehow determines that Hachiko is a good name.
Either way it seems just like a way for Hollywood to capitalize on the original story and sell it to the Japanese market. It might be nit-picky, but it seems somewhat disingenuous to say that it’s a reinterpretation of the original done in a seemingly completely different setting and changing all the names and leads to the original except for the dog’s name, which is the part which is meant to connect the new story to the old. You don’t see any guys, even minor guys, in The Departed named after any characters in Infernal Affairs.
I get that it’s a “tribute” to the original, but there have been stories done in this vein that had similar sentiments and ideas that supposedly had not been influenced by the story of Hachiko, or if they had been, they did not feel the need to exploit the name. They stayed true to the themes of the story.
The episode “Jurassic Bark” from the show Futurama is my favorite telling of a similar story. The ending montage is almost too sad for an animated show. Whether or not it is influenced by the story of Hachiko is never mentioned, nor is it necessary to mention. So stories like this can resonate outside of specific cultures. That they would try to connect this story with Japan’s story and not deal with it’s impact on the country of origin just seems wrong to me.
Posted 14 Jul 2009 at 12:47 pm ¶
Elton wrote:
It’s not the remixing, it’s the representation (or lack thereof).
My contention with this movie is not so much about Japanese culture being remixed or appropriated (since, arguably, all culture is remixed from other culture) as it is about the presumptuous, greedy, narrow-minded “we know what audiences want” attitude of Hollywood executives yet again replacing and “whitewashing” a story which originally featured Asian people, and was about a historically significant slice of Asian culture
with a “safe” version featuring white people in Rhode Island. Presumably because non-stereotyped Asian faces and stories on the big screen would be too unbelievable for “mainstream” American audiences to handle. Kinda like how the blues was ignored by those in power until Elvis made a white version called rock and roll.
Remember “21″? http://www.racialicious.com/2008/03/14/trans-racialization-in-%E2%80%9C21%E2%80%B3/
Now, I believe this story of canine loyalty can be told effectively without any hint of cultural appropriation or whitewashing. Futurama did it, in one of its most heartfelt, tear-jerking, and fan-beloved episodes: http://theinfosphere.org/Jurassic_Bark
What they didn’t do in “Jurassic Bark” was have the dog keep its Japanese name and stand as a disembodied reference to the original story while awkwardly pasting in white American faces and settings. If you’re going to tell a story about a dog, tell a story about a dog. If you’re going to tell a story about an Asian dog, don’t decide that Asianness is unpalatable and replace it with whiteness.
My contention is about a philosophical distinction regarding art and creativity: There is a difference between remixing, reinventing, and reinterpreting on the one hand, and corrupting, perverting, and stealing on the other.
Posted 14 Jul 2009 at 1:15 pm ¶
Matt wrote:
atlasien, I’m a bit confused by your lingo. Not to argue (I’ll do that in the next graf), but just to point out the difference, I think there’s a lot of things that can fall under the same rubric. “Cultural appropriation” is, to me, something I’ve always understood as quite separate from the sort of reinforcing of stereotypes that often accompanies it. Instead, I’ve always understood it to refer to the way that cultural exchange always occurs in the context of power relationships. And so “appropriating” has always had a positive connotation, as opposed to “co-optation,” as I’ve come across them — but that’s separate from the sort of racism that you describe as crossing the line. When Austrailian (I think I recall Australian) aborigines watch American Westerns without the endings (changing the meanings radically, so that they depict Native Americans killing their would-be colonial conquerors) that’s appropriation that’s really neat. On the other hand, a “straight” appropriation in the other direction becomes co-optation. So the question for me is, “how does this remake enact the relationship between Japan and Hollywood (or, more generally, the US)?”
I’m sympathetic to your point – especially as regards the different perspectives of Japanese Americans and Japanese nationals – but ultimately, this seems to come down to the fact that films are “always already” (I’m not sure if that’s the best phrase, but I’m taking it from here) something beyond what anyone owns.
Posted 14 Jul 2009 at 1:42 pm ¶
Matt wrote:
(er. wrong link, sorta. That one give the background to this one, in which is written: “Although Thomas Frank was right to note the rise of ‘hip consumerism,’ therefore, it was something of a mistake to characterize it as corporate America’s ‘conquest of cool.’ ‘Cool’ was always already marketable, and the assumptions of the counterculture were always as American as McDonald’s apple pie.” My point being that the sort of film being remade here is always already.. well, not “cool” as here, which is much more cutting, but.. commercialized expression. Even with the story itself, before it was ever made into a movie, people tell it because they hope it will touch others. No fair saying, “hey, the wrong people got touched.” Or even (unless we take exception to making money on artistic expression) “hey, they’re making money off someone else’s commercialization.” On the other hand, I think it would be a problem if Japanese filmmakers just didn’t have the resources Japanese filmmakers do. Then, whether Hollywood did a “sound” remake or an explicitly racist one, we could talk about how Hollywood is stealing intellectual property.)
Posted 14 Jul 2009 at 2:01 pm ¶
trooper6 wrote:
“Kinda like how the blues was ignored by those in power until Elvis made a white version called rock and roll.”
That is a really false view of the history of rock’n'roll. This presumes a whole bunch of false conditions:
1) That those in power ignored the blues. Which they didn’t. The blues craze of the 1920s would be evidence of that.
2) That the blues is an uncomplicated non-white music. That also doesn’t work out. Elvis’s big hit “Hound Dog” was first sung by the black Blues shouter Big Mama Thornton…but do you know who wrote that song? Jewish songwriters Lieber and Stoller. So where does authenticity lie in that song?
3) That rock’n'roll is white. Rock’n'roll is as much Chuck Berry and Little Richard as it is Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis.
4) That all whiteness is culturally the same. Elvis Presley, growing up in the integrated pentecostal churches, who got beat up by white kids for spending too much time on Beale Street and wearing clothes from Lansky’s which catered to African-Americans, was not the same figure as the Canadian group The Crew Cuts who did covers without clearance of Doo Wop groups.
5) That the powers that be found Elvis comforting as a white person. The powers that be found Elvis supremely threatening. They saw in him a symbol of race mixture, confusing gender markers, flaunting of Southern and working class-ness, and relationship to sexuality that made them profoundly uneasy. The many protests against him are evidence of that.
Rock’n'roll is not the blues whitened up. It is a mixture of Rhythm & Blues and Hillbilly music aimed at a teen (mostly white) rather than adult (mostly black) audience. And black artists had been doing that as well as white artists. It is also important to note that there have been white Rhythm & Bluesers (which Elvis would count as) as well as black Hillbilies. One of the really important things about rock’n'roll was its marker of the ascendancy of the teen marketing demographic…that was what the powers that be stood up and embraced…the new market. The rock’n'rollers themselves they weren’t all that excited by. Rock’n'roll…that particular southern racially mixed raucous genre bursts into teen consciousness in 1955 and about three years later the assault on that genre is well underway. The genre of rock’n'roll–linked especially as it was to independent labels–was pretty much dead by 1960. Elvis drafted, Chuck Berry in prison, Little Richard quit rock’n'roll for Jesus, Jerry Lee Lewis shunned, Big Bopper & Ritchie Valens & Buddy Holly dead in a plane crash…and the payola scandal. The government used the payola scandal to drive out the number one DJ proponent of an integrated racially mixed vision of rock’n'roll Alan Freed. Not surprisingly they didn’t prosecute Dick Clark, whose American Bandstand was not racially integrated and did not feature the southern brand of music we call rock’n'roll.
There was other music out there at the time that was also called rock’n'roll–none of it coming from the south..that we now call Doo Wop and Girl Group music…and that continued on after rock’n'roll ceased to be. And those musics also have interesting and complicated racial stories. But they are about urban Northern industrial youth drawing on different religious musical backgrounds. They were also about a push toward middle class respectability rather than reveling in working class defiance. They were doing a political sort of work that was subversive…but in a very different sort of way…and the powers that be, not getting the subversivism in to, just comforted by its smoothness felt better promoting those styles.
Posted 14 Jul 2009 at 2:26 pm ¶
cocolamala wrote:
on Elvis:
ppls contention with Elvis is nothing personal, it’s that when black artists couldn’t get airplay or distribution or concerts, a white artist with the same rhythm and blues could sell sell sell —
…and live on after death…and let Elvis be the King of rock and roll, but dubbed James Brown the Godfather of soul (who’s the daddy then?) — the same phenomenon let Benny Goodman be the the King of Swing, but why not Duke Ellington or Count Basie?
Posted 14 Jul 2009 at 3:24 pm ¶
Elton wrote:
trooper6,
Thank you for correcting me. You really know your music history. I have expressed a similar argument about the origins of jazz. In response to a statement that jazz was not American music because the people who invented jazz were descendants of slaves brought to the United States against their will, I argued that
1. Those African-Americans who helped create jazz were culturally distinct from their African ancestors. We’re talking hundreds of years since the slave trade began in America.
2. White Americans of European ancestry and European musical traditions/instruments were integral to the creation of jazz.
3. This is really an argument about who is a “real” American. Was George Washington a “real” American?
So yes, the creation of rock and roll, jazz, and other genres of music are complex and don’t “belong” to any one person or group.
Elvis is shorthand for cultural appropriation, but that was probably a bad example. A more related example to my original point would be the casting of the movie “21,” and I’ve included a link to an article about that controversy in my original comment.
Posted 14 Jul 2009 at 3:52 pm ¶
Elton wrote:
cocolamala,
Ha, because Duke was the Duke and Count was the Count.
But yeah, it’s hard to see because you see these guys’ albums side by side on the shelf now, but back in the day, music entertainment as a business and a cornerstone of culture was segregated even if the music they were playing freely took inspiration from black and white traditions. It’s that marketing and packaging, made by greedy, closed-minded executives, and consumed by an ignorant public, that stifles the appreciation of art and I see this particularly in Hollywood’s segregated, stereotype-based casting and writing even and especially today.
From my perspective as an Asian-American, knowing that my people have been an integral part of the United States for at least 160 years (if you count the 1849 Gold Rush as the origin of massive Chinese immigration), yet, apparently, haven’t been integral enough to the arts and entertainment to be more than stereotypes like the perpetual foreigner and the model minority in many cases, is just disappointing.
trooper6, have Asian-Americans made any contributions to American music? As an Asian-American in the South it’s especially alienating to love so much of this music (rock, jazz, the blues, soul, etc.) that has come out of my homeland but has apparently not been affected by Asians.
Posted 14 Jul 2009 at 4:12 pm ¶
method wrote:
@Matt ha, that guy didn’t coin the phrase “always already”. Always already is an annoying phrase that gets thrown around all the time in certain corners of academia. I think of it as coming from Heidegger.
Posted 14 Jul 2009 at 5:22 pm ¶
Keith wrote:
Futurama actually did a sort of homage to Hachiko.
Posted 14 Jul 2009 at 7:16 pm ¶
Mary wrote:
Time to nerd out… supposedly, the first draft of the Futurama episode in question was written about Fry’s MOTHER. Apparently when the actors did the table read they realized it was way too upsetting, so they changed it to the dog. Which still made me cry.
Posted 14 Jul 2009 at 11:32 pm ¶
trooper6 wrote:
@cocolamala
James Brown is the Godfather of Soul, the Father of Soul is Ray Charles. There is a lot of Soul Royalty…and almost none of them are white. King of Pop (a fairly white coded genre)? Michael Jackson. Blues royalty? Mostly black as well.
Elvis sold a lot. But so did Louis Jordan (King of Rhythm and Blues), Chuck Berry, and Little Richard. And issues of touring are tricky because of segregation, but black artists toured, not only on the chitlin curcuit, but also with Alan Freed’s touring rock’n'roll shows…which featured black and white artists. And quite a few of those black artists also played to white as well as black audiences. The truth of the matter is that the biggest rock’n'roll stars, white and black, got airplay and got to tour, and sold records…that is why so many people were freaked out about rock’n'roll. As for making money? Almost all of those artists got royally screwed….even Elvis.
Elvis is convenient shorthand for cultural appropriation, but using him as an example erases a lot of the actual history of racial injustice in this country. And I don’t think that serves anyone. If we are going to make an argument, is has be grounded in realism and sensitivity and nuance. We have to recognize the complexity in the term white as well as black…and we have to recognize that the country is not just black and white…but also a bunch of other colors.
I think that it is proper that Elvis is the King of Rock’n'Roll when you look at his historical importance. Some people back in the day referred to Little Richard as the Queen of Rock’n'Roll…both to emphasize his importance in the genre as well as the fact that he is a fabulously flaming…um…guy who has a complicated relationship to his sexuality. And no one has forgotten Little Richard.
As for Swing…the Duke is the Duke, and the Count is the Count. The person who should really be the King of Swing is Fletcher Henderson…but he was a terrible manager of finances and his band folded really, really quickly…even though he is the one who really developed the sound that we think of when we think of swing. And who did he sell his arrangements to? Benny Goodman. Now it is easy to shake our fist at Benny Goodman, but Benny Goodman ended up hiring Fletcher Henderson to be his arranger and helped force the integration of the airwaves and the bandstands when he insisted that he be allowed to hire and play with talented black musicians.
Life is complicated. Is there injustice? Oh yeah! There is a lot of injustice. But I think we serve the cause of social justice better when we are more complete, detailed, and nuanced in our analyses. Is Elvis a white guy? Yes. But he is also a dirt poor Southerner of Pentacostal religious background who represents race mixing and dangerous sexuality. He isn’t Pat Boone.
Now, Pat Boone, he is an example of the appropriative white guy you are thinking of. But here is the tricky thing about Pat Boone–his music, while popular initially in white suburbia, quickly lost popularity once white teenagers started getting access to the real thing: Chuck Berry, Elvis, Little Richard, etc (most often through the radio show of white DJ Alan Freed). Heck there is a really good argument to be made that the King of Rock’n'Roll isn’t Elvis but Alan Freed.
You want to know what is supremely creepy? The transition from Rock’n'Roll to Rock with the British Invasion. That is when we went from a genre that was about racial complexity to music that was white only. And based on a bunch of British guys full of creepy romantic attachments to blackness who also used that attachment to avoid the racial diversity of their own country while we preferred the to imagine that rock is not a mixed racial genre but an Anglo only genre.
Matt, I’ll answer you in my next post.
Posted 15 Jul 2009 at 12:03 am ¶
x0x wrote:
@atlasien
How are Japanese better at borrowing from other cultures than, say, the English, who didn’t even invent their own alphabet? While the Japanese invented not one, but two? I could come up with a gazillion counterexamples but I’m frankly too disgusted to continue.
Technically, they didn’t invent their own, they just use simplified and stylized versions of Chinese characters. A good look at Japanese and English history will reveal a great deal of borrowing and appropriation, in stark contrast to ideas about the “uniqueness” of a certain population. It’s all been done, just make sure you give credit where due.
Posted 15 Jul 2009 at 12:17 am ¶
trooper6 wrote:
@Elton
Yeah, I know my music history some. I’m a professor of musicology focusing on popular music and cultural identity issues (race, class, region, gender, sexuality).
As for Asian-American music…that is a tricky one because of the way that black/white tension dominates US history. But there is a tradition of Asian-American music making within the popular realm going back to the beginning of US popular music. The first national popular music was black face minstrelsy (really coming into popularity in the 1840s) –which was a means for initially Irish, who were not considered white, to attain whiteness through stereotyping of black people as a distancing maneuver. Then blackface ends up getting taking up by black people after the Civil War especially. But the tradition that comes out of minstrelsy is vaudeville supported by Tin Pan Alley songwriters (among others). Vaudeville was very involved in working through racial/ethnic stereotyping–of all sorts. So there were sketchy songs full of ethnic stereotypes trying to evoke ethnic caricature…including asian (mostly Chinese) caricatures…but there were were also Asian-American artists in vaudeville like Lee Tung Foo, the Chung Hwa Comedy Four, and Lady Tsen Mei.
For more on that check out, “Yellowface: Creating the Chinese in American Popular Music and Performance, 1850s-1920s” by Krystyn R. Moon.
The legacy of those tunes end up in jazz–things like all the versions of a song called “Japanese Sandman” among others. Which, by the way…as a side note…one of the first major massive jazz hits was Paul Whiteman’s “Wispering” –which was recorded in the same session as “Japanese Sandman” …I think 1919.
During WW2, a number of Swing Bands cropped up in the Japanese internment camps…as a form of protest of their internment (Jazz at this time was often associated with freedom and the fight against tyranny in Germany, so making a swing band while interned in the US was quite a bold statement).
Since there there have been a number of interesting Asian-American artists, especially in Jazz like Glenn Horiuchi, Fred Ho, and the Asian American Orchestra.
There are also art music composers like Cinary Ung and Chou Wen Chung. And a good friend of mine, Chris Wong, is an up and coming Asian-American film music composer.
Jake. E. Lee is half Japanese and was Ozzy Osbourne’s guitar player in the early 80s. There are some rock/pop artists here and there.
But I think one of the more significant contributions from Asian Americans is in Turntabilism. Some of the most important pioineering turntabilists have been Asian-Americans: Invisibl Skrtach Piklz, DJ Q-Bert, The Beat Junkies, Kid Koala. There they have been major.
And of course if you want to think about Hawaiian Americans…they brought the steel guitar slide style of playing to the mainland. That gives us all that bottleneck slide that is foundational in blues and country music.
And we are not even talking about Anglo-Asian musical contributions (UK Bhangra, Jungle, etc).
So the influences are there…they just aren’t brought enough to the forefront.
Here’s an interesting link…it isn’t super historical…mostly contemporary…but it is good:
http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:n4fR1lNEs_EJ:www-personal.umich.edu/~akstill/CyberGuides/AsAm_CyberGuide/Musical_Cyberguide.doc+%22Asian+American+Music%22+syllabus&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari
Posted 15 Jul 2009 at 12:39 am ¶
RJG wrote:
@Mary Oh good lord is there any source online to verify that?
Posted 15 Jul 2009 at 1:49 pm ¶
InJM wrote:
@Miyuki (#34)
That’s because the poster is for the Japanese release. It says that in the post and was rather clear from the poster itself I think. But the Japanese movie poster isn’t what’s important.
I will bet dollars to dog bones that they don’t let Richard Gere die though.
@Mary(#50)
His mother? That would be pretty upsetting. Understandable but upsetting.
Posted 15 Jul 2009 at 6:40 pm ¶
Christie wrote:
I am just so sick of seeing soppy old Richard Gere in these rolls. Why, why, why??!! I might have accepted this movie with a different actor, but I never, never want to see this version with Richard Gere…
I live in Japan, too, and am not Japanese. I really liked the original Japanese movie version of this story. The concept itself bothers me less than the concept behind a movie like the Last Samurai, with the lone white actor taking a starring roll IN Japan. But the choice of actors just totally puts me off… I have to try and put this out of my mind.
BTW, I just LOVED the Futurama version.
Re: the issue of Indians not minding white people wearing saris, but Indian-Americans viewing it as appropriation/inappropriate…
I had a slightly uncomfortable experience a couple of times in England. My husband is Indian (born and raised in England), and his mother & aunties always like for me to wear saris or salwar kameez to parties. There is also the issue that I don’t have any really nice Western clothes, anyway (just a few tired old skirts and blouses), so it is nice for me to borrow a beautiful royal blue salwar kameez for a nice party. Anyway, all the older generation love to see me dressed this way, and the younger generation of my husband’s family all know me (and they know how I ended up dressed that way) and don’t think anything of it.
But a couple of times I have ended up wearing saris or salwar kameez to “outside” parties (parties of other families), and as usual all the older people (who are from India) were very happy with me, but a couple of times I found myself on a sofa or in a room with several young, hip people (all born and raised in England), who I had never met before, and for those few minutes I always felt like, “Oh no, how must it look to them for me, an American, to be sitting here in this salwar kameez… and I am getting a bit of a cold vibe, too… oh dear.”
But what can I do when to refuse to wear a sari or salwar kameez would hurt the elder people in my own family, and probably embarrass them, too, since my Western clothes are not nice enough! It is only a few minutes of uncomfortableness, so I don’t mind, but I wish I could tell those young strangers that I had no real choice and that I am embarrassed about how I must look from their point of view… but because of my personal situation I have to give higher priority to the elder people’s point of view.
Posted 16 Jul 2009 at 7:45 am ¶
bdsista wrote:
The lack of objection by many Japanese polled on this issue does not surprise me. I mean look at Manga, I buy it for the students in my middle school, but do not know why the Japanese draw themselves as white people. In the rare event there is a Black character, they are also drawn as white with brown skin. Why don’t Asian depict themselves in manga they way they look? Is it me or does anyone else feel like its indicative of being brainwashed to accept a Euro/US beauty standard?
Posted 16 Jul 2009 at 4:21 pm ¶
Reiter wrote:
@ bdsista
Now that’s another whole can of worms. I could get into the history of manga (which predates WWII and has its origins in ukiyo-e prints) and how the American occupation/reconstruction following WWII has a huge impact on Japanese culture and self-identity, but let’s just say that anime/manga is merely another medium through which stories are told, like comic books or TV. There’s a lot of varying styles out there, and anime/manga aren’t limited to just a specific one. I wouldn’t generalize all anime/manga being as you described since the styles are so broad. There are more realistic depictions of Asian people out there in anime/manga, it’s just a matter of where to look.
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 9:26 am ¶
cocolamala wrote:
@christie
i am an outsider to Indian culture, but it seems like wearing saris to parties at the invitation of your hosts is the opposite of approptiation.
seems like you are being enculturated in the same way that they would encourage their own children to practice Indian culture.
as for getting the cold shoulder from younger folk, you might actually admit you’re being pressured to conform by your “aunties.” they might be able to relate to that, maybe having been forced to do the same thing themselves.
if i am off the mark, in the light of more experienced eyes, please correct me
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 1:42 pm ¶
Anonymous wrote:
Futurama already made an episode about this called “Jurassic Bark”
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 2:50 pm ¶
trooper6 wrote:
@bdsista
I think we have to be careful when judging other cultures. We may read it as they draw themselves to look white, but they may not read it that way.
Case in point: I video game came out recently called Mirror’s Edge. The protagonist was an Asian parkour running woman named Faith. A number of people from Japan were irritated by the rendering and a Japanese fan did a make-over for her to appeal to Easter beauty aesthetics rather than Western. Her eyes were rounder, her boobs bigger, she looked younger, more frightened. Etc. I did not like the makeover at all.
Here are the two images:
http://kotaku.com/5062933/faith-from-mirrors-edge-fan+designed-for-asian-tastes
What is interesting is that in the fallout that was part of the discussion, a number of Japanese posters commented that they thought the Western depiction was racist. They felt the slanted eyes were the same as drawing black people with really big lips. I still don’t like the fan made version…but the debate was really interesting. The Japanese posters didn’t feel their Faith looked more white, they felt she looked less like a racist depiction by Westerners.
Something to think about.
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 3:50 pm ¶
Christie wrote:
In Japan, at least where I live, looking around me I can see about equal numbers of people with straight eyes, eyes that are somewhat tilted upwards and eyes that are somewhat tilted downwards. Also, as in the West, there is a variety of people with narrower eyes or bigger eyes. People with eyes that are very tilted upwards or very tilted downwards are more rare, and famous people with eyes that are very tilted upwards, for example like Hitchori Morimoto (the team captain of my local pro baseball team), are often depicted as such when they are drawn in cartoon form, etc.
The Western preoccupation with “marking” Japanese characters with eyes that are very tilted upwards is not really accepted here in Japan, where there are a variety of different eye shapes. In fact, when I have shown elementary-school-age kids a book I have from the U.S., which happens to have a Japanese character (drawn by a U.S. artist), I mentioned, “Oh, here is a Japanese character”, and the kids wouldn’t accept it, insisting that he was Korean or Chinese (despite other obvious markers like a view of Mt. Fuji out the character’s window). Later they noticed a character from a European country, a boy with dark brown hair and “unmarked” eye-shape, and said, “This boy is Japanese”.
In the same way, Western characters in Japan are usually “marked” with very exaggeratedly large noses and light blue eyes, and to me it is very irritating to see this same goofy-looking stereotype every time a Western character happens to appear in cartoon form, here in Japan.
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 10:34 pm ¶