I think expecting movies to cast progressively makes movies into something they are not. While art can act as an engine for change, that is not what art is. I might applaud a movie for casting progressively but I don't expect it or demand it. My primary concern for a film is "is it any good? Does it work?"
The issue of whitewashing or cultural appropriation feels very forced to me. I get *some* arguments RE casting but I am infinitely frustrated that the "cultural appropriation" street seems to go one way only. No country or culture is an island, and specifically when it comes to art everyone borrows from EVERYONE. It feels specifically disingenuous to make any appropriation argument in regards to Japanese art/culture when you consider how heavily they've borrowed from western culture. GITS may be Japanese but you'd be blind to watch it (and indeed most similar creations) and say you do not find a huge western influence. And that's part of the appeal to me, much like many American films/creations: the mixture of different familiar and foreign elements that can create a more interesting or novel piece of entertainment.
There's been a lot of discussion in this thread already about this issue. Cultures borrow from each other, yes, but you have to consider the history of the cultures involved. Has one of those cultures subjugated the other culture for hundreds of years? Do they have a history of taking whatever cultural artifacts they want, while denying those affected the ability to express their own culture?
Sometimes the street really does only go one way.
I disagree with the entire idea that taking cultural artifacts is wrong. Cultures have no inherent right to their culture. If they wanted it all to themselves they shouldn't have been so damn cool, than we no one would want it.
Making it forbidden will only make people fetishize it.
Taking cultural artifacts can be wrong, though. As an example, let's talk about Native American headdresses. White people love wearing Native American headdresses. They look cool. In fact, white people love appropriating Native American culture so much that they often claim Native American ancestry via the "Cherokee Princess" myth.
But white people have also systemically oppressed Native Americans for centuries, to the point of outright genocide. White people have also tried to prevent Native Americans from practicing their culture - as late as the 1990s there were government programs in place in North America meant to dismantle Native American culture. Native Americans do have an inherent right to their culture, the right to practice it as they see fit, and for most of our history this right has been denied.
In this context, taking cultural artifacts is wrong. You can't divorce "Native American headdresses are cool" from systemic attempts to destroy Native American culture. You can't ignore the fact that white people have taken what they want from Native American culture while also trying to wipe that culture out. If you are a white person wearing a Native American headdress, you're perpetuating centuries of cultural imperialism whether that was your intention or not.
Obviously not every situation is as clear-cut as this. What is or isn't cultural appropriation can change a lot when you consider the histories of the cultures involved. But you have to consider those histories. You can't just do what you want because you think it's cool.
You're talking about two very different things. Taking from a culture is not the same as destroying it. You're putting the two together and calling it wrong as a whole.
No one owns their own culture. No one gets to dictate what parts or used or liked or left behind. I'd say in the Native American case this has been particularly damaging, in that in a well-intentioned attempt to atone for the sins of our fathers, we've put them off limits to the point of exoticizing them. A one way culture flow is not healthy, as they continue to imbibe our culture pieces of their own are lost. And because we've made it sacrosanct their own culture isn't absorbed anywhere, it doesn't become a part of ours and live on. It just dies a little bit at a time.
To me, though, it's all semantics. No one can lay claim to their culture and say "no, this is mine." I absolutely stand by that statement.
I think you're misunderstanding the problem of systemic cultural appropriation. (In fact, a lot of people misunderstand the problem of systemic cultural appropriation.) There is a problem of taking important cultural artifacts and treating them with disrespect, such as taking holy relics and using them as Halloween costumes. That's one thing, but it's not really cultural appropriation; it's more just stupid-ass insensitivity.
What really makes cultural appropriation what it is is when it becomes a systemic erasure of the culture that generated these art-forms. In close-quarters, like for African-Americans, this results in more tangible economic harms, but even broadly, what results is that a society's cultural achievements are eliminated and replaced with an implied inferiority. When American movie-makers take Chinese stories and myths, and retell them as purely American stories, while Chinese stories and myths themselves are not visible in American media, this results in a degradation in people's perceptions of Chinese culture. "You see, nothing culturally valuable has come out of China! Americans are the best at culture! We have the best story tellers and authors and artists!!" (Admittedly, this hasn't happened with China. Instead, American perceptions of Chinese culture are probably tainted the other way, with an overbearing need to perceive them as mythical and fantastic, but....)
It's not about a single piece of art or "claiming their culture". It's about what happens when one culture shoves another to the side. It's like if a famous researcher took an obscure scientist's research and claimed it as their own; the problem is that the other person doesn't get credit for their work! You don't have to go destroy the obscure scientist's work, smash their lab, and get their papers retracted; reputation/culture are not physical objects; erasure is the same as elimination. The same problem still resonates on the level of entire societies.
These complaints about Japan's cultural appropriation seem stupid to me. I don't know what the hell relevance what Japanese people have done has to with what affects East Asian-Americans. It's not people living in Japan right now who have an issue with American white-washing. It's not even on their radar.
I also don't know why some people are intent on separating out Japanese-Americans from East Asian-Americans; there are distinctions, yes, but generally, the East Asian-American subpopulation moves largely in concert, because their experiential similarities greatly outweigh their differences and traditional societal animosity. Like shit, go online, and look at the East Asian-American commentators who are speaking out about this; most of them are not Japanese, but it's still an issue for them.
There is a separation between asian-americans and asians that is hard to define. And GitS is an Asian property, so somehow it kind of feels like even asian-americans would be appropriating a foreign culture.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I grit my teeth slightly at the way cultural appropriation tends to turn into a discussion of how it's totally acceptable if you don't include the societal problems that accompany it while whitewashing tends to turn into a discussion of how it's totally acceptable if you include the societal problems that accompany it.
Agreed. In all cases, context should be considered, not just when it favors your argument.
I feel in casting cases people definitely attempt to ignore all mitigating factors/alternate explanations in favor of the one that supports their narrative. In the case of appropriation, it's also wrong to ignore context but considering I think the entire argument has a flawed premise "culture as property" it's not really a necessary hill to die on.
You are doing the very thing I'm gritting my teeth at in this very post.
Rather than trying to push back in some tiny fashion against the societal problems involved in either case, you're choosing the course of action that accepts their continued existence in both cases.
It doesn't just work when you want it to. If you want everyone to include context than you must do the same.
You seem to be frustrated I disagree with you, because you're not attacking my argument you're lamenting I'm not on your side.
These complaints about Japan's cultural appropriation seem stupid to me. I don't know what the hell relevance what Japanese people have done has to with what affects East Asian-Americans. It's not people living in Japan right now who have an issue with American white-washing. It's not even on their radar.
I also don't know why some people are intent on separating out Japanese-Americans from East Asian-Americans; there are distinctions, yes, but generally, the East Asian-American subpopulation moves largely in concert, because their experiential similarities greatly outweigh their differences and traditional societal animosity. Like shit, go online, and look at the East Asian-American commentators who are speaking out about this; most of them are not Japanese, but it's still an issue for them.
There is a separation between asian-americans and asians that is hard to define. And GitS is an Asian property, so somehow it kind of feels like even asian-americans would be appropriating a foreign culture.
Wow.
Okay.
So. My only real response is, "No, and fuck you white person for telling me that I'm too white to be a 'real Asian' when y'all love nothing more than to treat me like a 'real Asian' when it suits you."
I think expecting movies to cast progressively makes movies into something they are not. While art can act as an engine for change, that is not what art is. I might applaud a movie for casting progressively but I don't expect it or demand it. My primary concern for a film is "is it any good? Does it work?"
The issue of whitewashing or cultural appropriation feels very forced to me. I get *some* arguments RE casting but I am infinitely frustrated that the "cultural appropriation" street seems to go one way only. No country or culture is an island, and specifically when it comes to art everyone borrows from EVERYONE. It feels specifically disingenuous to make any appropriation argument in regards to Japanese art/culture when you consider how heavily they've borrowed from western culture. GITS may be Japanese but you'd be blind to watch it (and indeed most similar creations) and say you do not find a huge western influence. And that's part of the appeal to me, much like many American films/creations: the mixture of different familiar and foreign elements that can create a more interesting or novel piece of entertainment.
There's been a lot of discussion in this thread already about this issue. Cultures borrow from each other, yes, but you have to consider the history of the cultures involved. Has one of those cultures subjugated the other culture for hundreds of years? Do they have a history of taking whatever cultural artifacts they want, while denying those affected the ability to express their own culture?
Sometimes the street really does only go one way.
I disagree with the entire idea that taking cultural artifacts is wrong. Cultures have no inherent right to their culture. If they wanted it all to themselves they shouldn't have been so damn cool, than we no one would want it.
Making it forbidden will only make people fetishize it.
Taking cultural artifacts can be wrong, though. As an example, let's talk about Native American headdresses. White people love wearing Native American headdresses. They look cool. In fact, white people love appropriating Native American culture so much that they often claim Native American ancestry via the "Cherokee Princess" myth.
But white people have also systemically oppressed Native Americans for centuries, to the point of outright genocide. White people have also tried to prevent Native Americans from practicing their culture - as late as the 1990s there were government programs in place in North America meant to dismantle Native American culture. Native Americans do have an inherent right to their culture, the right to practice it as they see fit, and for most of our history this right has been denied.
In this context, taking cultural artifacts is wrong. You can't divorce "Native American headdresses are cool" from systemic attempts to destroy Native American culture. You can't ignore the fact that white people have taken what they want from Native American culture while also trying to wipe that culture out. If you are a white person wearing a Native American headdress, you're perpetuating centuries of cultural imperialism whether that was your intention or not.
Obviously not every situation is as clear-cut as this. What is or isn't cultural appropriation can change a lot when you consider the histories of the cultures involved. But you have to consider those histories. You can't just do what you want because you think it's cool.
You're talking about two very different things. Taking from a culture is not the same as destroying it. You're putting the two together and calling it wrong as a whole.
No one owns their own culture. No one gets to dictate what parts or used or liked or left behind. I'd say in the Native American case this has been particularly damaging, in that in a well-intentioned attempt to atone for the sins of our fathers, we've put them off limits to the point of exoticizing them. A one way culture flow is not healthy, as they continue to imbibe our culture pieces of their own are lost. And because we've made it sacrosanct their own culture isn't absorbed anywhere, it doesn't become a part of ours and live on. It just dies a little bit at a time.
To me, though, it's all semantics. No one can lay claim to their culture and say "no, this is mine." I absolutely stand by that statement.
I agree that they are two different things. "Taking from a culture" in a cultural exchange between equals is different than "taking from a culture" in an exchange between oppressors and the oppressed. What I've been trying to argue throughout this thread is that it's important to consider the context of the exchange, and that some exchanges can be wrong because of that context. Tying this back to the main topic, I consider whitewashing to be wrong because it exists in a cultural context where white people have historically denied work and representation to other cultural groups.
I think whether an exchange is good or bad is kinda pointless and ultimately extremely arbitrary. I still think you're considering culture the wrong way. It's not something you're holding in your hands that someone is taking.
The second bit is a tougher one. I'm strongly against "sins of the father" arguments, but I also understand why ethnic groups want to be represented. It's also a difficult one for me to parse having lived mostly abroad and seeing most every country primarily represent their main ethnic/racial group.
I'd say it's a collective vs singular issue. I think it's fair to to use this as an example of a larger issue without condemning this individual example. As much as we want everything to be our idea of perfect, it's unfair to dump on individual instances that in isolation are quite harmless. Essentially, the eternal quandary of collective action problems.
It should also be pointed out that cultural transfer will happen. It cannot be stopped short of going full North Korea and building a great big Donald Trump wall around everything (and even then that probably won't work).
And cultural transfer isn't going to be some sort of perfect platonic form of another culture that is perfectly represented in its original packaging for everyone to gaze at as if in a museum without transforming it or changing it. That will never happen.
If this is the goal, then we may as well skip ahead to "OK we completely failed to achieve that, what's next?"
I grit my teeth slightly at the way cultural appropriation tends to turn into a discussion of how it's totally acceptable if you don't include the societal problems that accompany it while whitewashing tends to turn into a discussion of how it's totally acceptable if you include the societal problems that accompany it.
Agreed. In all cases, context should be considered, not just when it favors your argument.
I feel in casting cases people definitely attempt to ignore all mitigating factors/alternate explanations in favor of the one that supports their narrative. In the case of appropriation, it's also wrong to ignore context but considering I think the entire argument has a flawed premise "culture as property" it's not really a necessary hill to die on.
You are doing the very thing I'm gritting my teeth at in this very post.
Rather than trying to push back in some tiny fashion against the societal problems involved in either case, you're choosing the course of action that accepts their continued existence in both cases.
It doesn't just work when you want it to. If you want everyone to include context than you must do the same.
You seem to be frustrated I disagree with you, because you're not attacking my argument you're lamenting I'm not on your side.
My point is that in the case of casting, you are saying that ideally we would cast whomever, but it's easier to cast white actors therefore we should continue to do so. You accept the problem to justify your course of action.
In the case of cultural appropriation, you are saying that ideally all cultures should borrow from each other, and so we should do so even though people feel that by doing so in the current social environment you are contributing to the inequality between various groups. You refuse to accept the problem to justify your course of action.
And as you point out, these things are very much collective action problems. I think I largely agree with your ideals, I just also think that acting on them in the way you're suggesting (given the context of the world as it is) will only serve to entrench the problems we have.
(To be honest I'm more interested in the casting discussion because it is, I think, better defined. The cultural appropriation discussion is really more of a level 3-sigma liberal SJW classified topic because below that nobody ever agrees on what it actually is, never mind whether it's a problem.)
]Oldboy's remake lost all of the meaning, the original was an allegory for the Greek tradegy but they fiddled with it until was a generic action film with Josh Brolin.
I will say this as someone who enjoyed the new Oldboy but couldn't really get into the old one (but understand it's critical popularity and cultural importance)
The Spike Lee Oldboy was a lot of fun.
"A new take on the epic fantasy genre... Darkly comic, relatable characters... twisted storyline."
"Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, I’ll give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor My new novel: Maledictions: The Offering. Now in Paperback!
I think expecting movies to cast progressively makes movies into something they are not. While art can act as an engine for change, that is not what art is. I might applaud a movie for casting progressively but I don't expect it or demand it. My primary concern for a film is "is it any good? Does it work?"
The issue of whitewashing or cultural appropriation feels very forced to me. I get *some* arguments RE casting but I am infinitely frustrated that the "cultural appropriation" street seems to go one way only. No country or culture is an island, and specifically when it comes to art everyone borrows from EVERYONE. It feels specifically disingenuous to make any appropriation argument in regards to Japanese art/culture when you consider how heavily they've borrowed from western culture. GITS may be Japanese but you'd be blind to watch it (and indeed most similar creations) and say you do not find a huge western influence. And that's part of the appeal to me, much like many American films/creations: the mixture of different familiar and foreign elements that can create a more interesting or novel piece of entertainment.
There's been a lot of discussion in this thread already about this issue. Cultures borrow from each other, yes, but you have to consider the history of the cultures involved. Has one of those cultures subjugated the other culture for hundreds of years? Do they have a history of taking whatever cultural artifacts they want, while denying those affected the ability to express their own culture?
Sometimes the street really does only go one way.
I disagree with the entire idea that taking cultural artifacts is wrong. Cultures have no inherent right to their culture. If they wanted it all to themselves they shouldn't have been so damn cool, than we no one would want it.
Making it forbidden will only make people fetishize it.
Taking cultural artifacts can be wrong, though. As an example, let's talk about Native American headdresses. White people love wearing Native American headdresses. They look cool. In fact, white people love appropriating Native American culture so much that they often claim Native American ancestry via the "Cherokee Princess" myth.
But white people have also systemically oppressed Native Americans for centuries, to the point of outright genocide. White people have also tried to prevent Native Americans from practicing their culture - as late as the 1990s there were government programs in place in North America meant to dismantle Native American culture. Native Americans do have an inherent right to their culture, the right to practice it as they see fit, and for most of our history this right has been denied.
In this context, taking cultural artifacts is wrong. You can't divorce "Native American headdresses are cool" from systemic attempts to destroy Native American culture. You can't ignore the fact that white people have taken what they want from Native American culture while also trying to wipe that culture out. If you are a white person wearing a Native American headdress, you're perpetuating centuries of cultural imperialism whether that was your intention or not.
Obviously not every situation is as clear-cut as this. What is or isn't cultural appropriation can change a lot when you consider the histories of the cultures involved. But you have to consider those histories. You can't just do what you want because you think it's cool.
You're talking about two very different things. Taking from a culture is not the same as destroying it. You're putting the two together and calling it wrong as a whole.
No one owns their own culture. No one gets to dictate what parts or used or liked or left behind. I'd say in the Native American case this has been particularly damaging, in that in a well-intentioned attempt to atone for the sins of our fathers, we've put them off limits to the point of exoticizing them. A one way culture flow is not healthy, as they continue to imbibe our culture pieces of their own are lost. And because we've made it sacrosanct their own culture isn't absorbed anywhere, it doesn't become a part of ours and live on. It just dies a little bit at a time.
To me, though, it's all semantics. No one can lay claim to their culture and say "no, this is mine." I absolutely stand by that statement.
I think you're misunderstanding the problem of systemic cultural appropriation. (In fact, a lot of people misunderstand the problem of systemic cultural appropriation.) There is a problem of taking important cultural artifacts and treating them with disrespect, such as taking holy relics and using them as Halloween costumes. That's one thing, but it's not really cultural appropriation; it's more just stupid-ass insensitivity.
What really makes cultural appropriation what it is is when it becomes a systemic erasure of the culture that generated these art-forms. In close-quarters, like for African-Americans, this results in more tangible economic harms, but even broadly, what results is that a society's cultural achievements are eliminated and replaced with an implied inferiority. When American movie-makers take Chinese stories and myths, and retell them as purely American stories, while Chinese stories and myths themselves are not visible in American media, this results in a degradation in people's perceptions of Chinese culture. "You see, nothing culturally valuable has come out of China! Americans are the best at culture! We have the best story tellers and authors and artists!!" (Admittedly, this hasn't happened with China. Instead, American perceptions of Chinese culture are probably tainted the other way, with an overbearing need to perceive them as mythical and fantastic, but....)
It's not about a single piece of art or "claiming their culture". It's about what happens when one culture shoves another to the side. It's like if a famous researcher took an obscure scientist's research and claimed it as their own; the problem is that the other person doesn't get credit for their work! You don't have to go destroy the obscure scientist's work, smash their lab, and get their papers retracted; reputation/culture are not physical objects; erasure is the same as elimination. The same problem still resonates on the level of entire societies.
I disagree with a lot of that.
I don't see where you get erasure from. The basic logic of humans entails that we copy, replicate, combine. I'd say it's a large part of why we've done as well as we have. I contend that you can't just shut this down when it comes to cultural exchange. It has happened, does happen, will. Always. Happen. And that's a good thing, it ensures we will continue to learn and not be shut off in our little bubble.
That's the surprising thing to me about this issue. It's an attempt to close off ethnic groups and races from the main flow of culture. I'm surprised you see nothing alarming about that idea. History traditionally hasn't been kind to groups that tried to divorce themselves from the rest of the world. To the contrary, long term the successful groups and nations were those that learned from their neighbors, spread their own culture. That's how you learn, how you learn to understand and how you in turn allow others to understand you. You mention China and that's a great example of how cutting yourself off from the works can breed stagnation, and eventually hostility and exoticism.
In the end, culture is not zero sum. When I "take" from a culture they have not been erased or lessened. They have exactly the same "amount" of culture. But now the world has something new, something maybe not better but slightly different. And we keep doing this and we keep evolving. This is a Good Thing.
These complaints about Japan's cultural appropriation seem stupid to me. I don't know what the hell relevance what Japanese people have done has to with what affects East Asian-Americans. It's not people living in Japan right now who have an issue with American white-washing. It's not even on their radar.
I also don't know why some people are intent on separating out Japanese-Americans from East Asian-Americans; there are distinctions, yes, but generally, the East Asian-American subpopulation moves largely in concert, because their experiential similarities greatly outweigh their differences and traditional societal animosity. Like shit, go online, and look at the East Asian-American commentators who are speaking out about this; most of them are not Japanese, but it's still an issue for them.
There is a separation between asian-americans and asians that is hard to define. And GitS is an Asian property, so somehow it kind of feels like even asian-americans would be appropriating a foreign culture.
Wow.
Okay.
So. My only real response is, "No, and fuck you white person for telling me that I'm too white to be a 'real Asian' when y'all love nothing more than to treat me like a 'real Asian' when it suits you."
Who do you think you're talking to?
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I think expecting movies to cast progressively makes movies into something they are not. While art can act as an engine for change, that is not what art is. I might applaud a movie for casting progressively but I don't expect it or demand it. My primary concern for a film is "is it any good? Does it work?"
The issue of whitewashing or cultural appropriation feels very forced to me. I get *some* arguments RE casting but I am infinitely frustrated that the "cultural appropriation" street seems to go one way only. No country or culture is an island, and specifically when it comes to art everyone borrows from EVERYONE. It feels specifically disingenuous to make any appropriation argument in regards to Japanese art/culture when you consider how heavily they've borrowed from western culture. GITS may be Japanese but you'd be blind to watch it (and indeed most similar creations) and say you do not find a huge western influence. And that's part of the appeal to me, much like many American films/creations: the mixture of different familiar and foreign elements that can create a more interesting or novel piece of entertainment.
There's been a lot of discussion in this thread already about this issue. Cultures borrow from each other, yes, but you have to consider the history of the cultures involved. Has one of those cultures subjugated the other culture for hundreds of years? Do they have a history of taking whatever cultural artifacts they want, while denying those affected the ability to express their own culture?
Sometimes the street really does only go one way.
I disagree with the entire idea that taking cultural artifacts is wrong. Cultures have no inherent right to their culture. If they wanted it all to themselves they shouldn't have been so damn cool, than we no one would want it.
Making it forbidden will only make people fetishize it.
Taking cultural artifacts can be wrong, though. As an example, let's talk about Native American headdresses. White people love wearing Native American headdresses. They look cool. In fact, white people love appropriating Native American culture so much that they often claim Native American ancestry via the "Cherokee Princess" myth.
But white people have also systemically oppressed Native Americans for centuries, to the point of outright genocide. White people have also tried to prevent Native Americans from practicing their culture - as late as the 1990s there were government programs in place in North America meant to dismantle Native American culture. Native Americans do have an inherent right to their culture, the right to practice it as they see fit, and for most of our history this right has been denied.
In this context, taking cultural artifacts is wrong. You can't divorce "Native American headdresses are cool" from systemic attempts to destroy Native American culture. You can't ignore the fact that white people have taken what they want from Native American culture while also trying to wipe that culture out. If you are a white person wearing a Native American headdress, you're perpetuating centuries of cultural imperialism whether that was your intention or not.
Obviously not every situation is as clear-cut as this. What is or isn't cultural appropriation can change a lot when you consider the histories of the cultures involved. But you have to consider those histories. You can't just do what you want because you think it's cool.
You're talking about two very different things. Taking from a culture is not the same as destroying it. You're putting the two together and calling it wrong as a whole.
No one owns their own culture. No one gets to dictate what parts or used or liked or left behind. I'd say in the Native American case this has been particularly damaging, in that in a well-intentioned attempt to atone for the sins of our fathers, we've put them off limits to the point of exoticizing them. A one way culture flow is not healthy, as they continue to imbibe our culture pieces of their own are lost. And because we've made it sacrosanct their own culture isn't absorbed anywhere, it doesn't become a part of ours and live on. It just dies a little bit at a time.
To me, though, it's all semantics. No one can lay claim to their culture and say "no, this is mine." I absolutely stand by that statement.
I think you're misunderstanding the problem of systemic cultural appropriation. (In fact, a lot of people misunderstand the problem of systemic cultural appropriation.) There is a problem of taking important cultural artifacts and treating them with disrespect, such as taking holy relics and using them as Halloween costumes. That's one thing, but it's not really cultural appropriation; it's more just stupid-ass insensitivity.
What really makes cultural appropriation what it is is when it becomes a systemic erasure of the culture that generated these art-forms. In close-quarters, like for African-Americans, this results in more tangible economic harms, but even broadly, what results is that a society's cultural achievements are eliminated and replaced with an implied inferiority. When American movie-makers take Chinese stories and myths, and retell them as purely American stories, while Chinese stories and myths themselves are not visible in American media, this results in a degradation in people's perceptions of Chinese culture. "You see, nothing culturally valuable has come out of China! Americans are the best at culture! We have the best story tellers and authors and artists!!" (Admittedly, this hasn't happened with China. Instead, American perceptions of Chinese culture are probably tainted the other way, with an overbearing need to perceive them as mythical and fantastic, but....)
It's not about a single piece of art or "claiming their culture". It's about what happens when one culture shoves another to the side. It's like if a famous researcher took an obscure scientist's research and claimed it as their own; the problem is that the other person doesn't get credit for their work! You don't have to go destroy the obscure scientist's work, smash their lab, and get their papers retracted; reputation/culture are not physical objects; erasure is the same as elimination. The same problem still resonates on the level of entire societies.
I disagree with a lot of that.
I don't see where you get erasure from. The basic logic of humans entails that we copy, replicate, combine. I'd say it's a large part of why we've done as well as we have. I contend that you can't just shut this down when it comes to cultural exchange. It has happened, does happen, will. Always. Happen. And that's a good thing, it ensures we will continue to learn and not be shut off in our little bubble.
That's the surprising thing to me about this issue. It's an attempt to close off ethnic groups and races from the main flow of culture. I'm surprised you see nothing alarming about that idea. History traditionally hasn't been kind to groups that tried to divorce themselves from the rest of the world. To the contrary, long term the successful groups and nations were those that learned from their neighbors, spread their own culture. That's how you learn, how you learn to understand and how you in turn allow others to understand you. You mention China and that's a great example of how cutting yourself off from the works can breed stagnation, and eventually hostility and exoticism.
In the end, culture is not zero sum. When I "take" from a culture they have not been erased or lessened. They have exactly the same "amount" of culture. But now the world has something new, something maybe not better but slightly different. And we keep doing this and we keep evolving. This is a Good Thing.
The key question you're missing is whether it's systemic or not. Nowhere am I disputing the natural flow of culture across borders. The issue arises when what is imported is not representative and properly attributed.
Nobody fucking objects to Mulan. What people object to is when you take everything Japan has produced culturally, and rewrite it all as American, starring American actors set in American cities, and then also not bring over anything obviously Japanese. That's erasure, when most Americans can't name anything of cultural import produced in Japan. And combined, that's cultural appropriation, when American society benefits culturally and economically from Japanese cultural innovations without ever attributing any of it to Japan and not portraying Japanese culture as relevant and worthwhile.
This is, of course, not absolute. Obviously Japanese culture has penetrated the American zeitgeist in small ways, principally in the animated realm. The question is one of how much is being taken versus how much is attributed, and how the American public then views Japanese culture and, by proxy, the Japanese people themselves.
Frankly, it's embarrassing to see bits where Americans get asked what they know about Japanese culture, and all they can say is Hello Kitty. That's the manifestation.
I grit my teeth slightly at the way cultural appropriation tends to turn into a discussion of how it's totally acceptable if you don't include the societal problems that accompany it while whitewashing tends to turn into a discussion of how it's totally acceptable if you include the societal problems that accompany it.
Agreed. In all cases, context should be considered, not just when it favors your argument.
I feel in casting cases people definitely attempt to ignore all mitigating factors/alternate explanations in favor of the one that supports their narrative. In the case of appropriation, it's also wrong to ignore context but considering I think the entire argument has a flawed premise "culture as property" it's not really a necessary hill to die on.
You are doing the very thing I'm gritting my teeth at in this very post.
Rather than trying to push back in some tiny fashion against the societal problems involved in either case, you're choosing the course of action that accepts their continued existence in both cases.
It doesn't just work when you want it to. If you want everyone to include context than you must do the same.
You seem to be frustrated I disagree with you, because you're not attacking my argument you're lamenting I'm not on your side.
My point is that in the case of casting, you are saying that ideally we would cast whomever, but it's easier to cast white actors therefore we should continue to do so. You accept the problem to justify your course of action.
In the case of cultural appropriation, you are saying that ideally all cultures should borrow from each other, and so we should do so even though people feel that by doing so in the current social environment you are contributing to the inequality between various groups. You refuse to accept the problem to justify your course of action.
And as you point out, these things are very much collective action problems. I think I largely agree with your ideals, I just also think that acting on them in the way you're suggesting (given the context of the world as it is) will only serve to entrench the problems we have.
(To be honest I'm more interested in the casting discussion because it is, I think, better defined. The cultural appropriation discussion is really more of a level 3-sigma liberal SJW classified topic because below that nobody ever agrees on what it actually is, never mind whether it's a problem.)
Ok I'll stick to casting here.
First, I'm definitely not worried about entrenching because the industry doesn't work that way. They work off of money, they produce products to obtain it. So:
A: They are not satisfying consumers, and lose money. It will take a lot of time because they're pretty heavily invested into their formulas, but money is money. Eventually some studio will do it better (we are already seeing this) and slowly -- ever so slowly -- the great wheels in the money machine turn. This is why I am terribly skeptical of the "movies should push my politics" angle. They won't, and arguably shouldn't, until they think it makes them money. Once your politics have disseminated to the target demographic, than your entertainment slowly changes to reflect this development.
B: They are satisfying customers and continue to make shit tons of money off thier less than diverse casting. Ok, bummer dude. But all the complaining in the world won't change their bottom line until you go back to point A.
The conclusion being, studios and more specifically individual films and actors are absolutely the wrong targets. Easy, juicy, feel good targets but ultimately the wrong ones.
I see the wheel slowly turning, I'm not worried. We're in the "we want it now!" stage, so it sucks, but I'm not worried.
There are numerous causes for the existence of the stereotypical american culturally ignorant slob (and ho boy that's a sterotype in case you were unaware) but I don't think cultural appropriation is one of the major causes. Look at our education system. Look at how we have very deliberately decided to teach history. American exceptionalism is most likely the chief contributing factor to the large number of Americans who don't really bother to explore outside their culture, and ironically American exceptionalism is a facet of American culture.
I grit my teeth slightly at the way cultural appropriation tends to turn into a discussion of how it's totally acceptable if you don't include the societal problems that accompany it while whitewashing tends to turn into a discussion of how it's totally acceptable if you include the societal problems that accompany it.
Agreed. In all cases, context should be considered, not just when it favors your argument.
I feel in casting cases people definitely attempt to ignore all mitigating factors/alternate explanations in favor of the one that supports their narrative. In the case of appropriation, it's also wrong to ignore context but considering I think the entire argument has a flawed premise "culture as property" it's not really a necessary hill to die on.
You are doing the very thing I'm gritting my teeth at in this very post.
Rather than trying to push back in some tiny fashion against the societal problems involved in either case, you're choosing the course of action that accepts their continued existence in both cases.
It doesn't just work when you want it to. If you want everyone to include context than you must do the same.
You seem to be frustrated I disagree with you, because you're not attacking my argument you're lamenting I'm not on your side.
My point is that in the case of casting, you are saying that ideally we would cast whomever, but it's easier to cast white actors therefore we should continue to do so. You accept the problem to justify your course of action.
In the case of cultural appropriation, you are saying that ideally all cultures should borrow from each other, and so we should do so even though people feel that by doing so in the current social environment you are contributing to the inequality between various groups. You refuse to accept the problem to justify your course of action.
And as you point out, these things are very much collective action problems. I think I largely agree with your ideals, I just also think that acting on them in the way you're suggesting (given the context of the world as it is) will only serve to entrench the problems we have.
(To be honest I'm more interested in the casting discussion because it is, I think, better defined. The cultural appropriation discussion is really more of a level 3-sigma liberal SJW classified topic because below that nobody ever agrees on what it actually is, never mind whether it's a problem.)
Ok I'll stick to casting here.
First, I'm definitely not worried about entrenching because the industry doesn't work that way. They work off of money, they produce products to obtain it. So:
A: They are not satisfying consumers, and lose money. It will take a lot of time because they're pretty heavily invested into their formulas, but money is money. Eventually some studio will do it better (we are already seeing this) and slowly -- ever so slowly -- the great wheels in the money machine turn. This is why I am terribly skeptical of the "movies should push my politics" angle. They won't, and arguably shouldn't, until they think it makes them money. Once your politics have disseminated to the target demographic, than your entertainment slowly changes to reflect this development.
B: They are satisfying customers and continue to make shit tons of money off thier less than diverse casting. Ok, bummer dude. But all the complaining in the world won't change their bottom line until you go back to point A.
The conclusion being, studios and more specifically individual films and actors are absolutely the wrong targets. Easy, juicy, feel good targets but ultimately the wrong ones.
I see the wheel slowly turning, I'm not worried. We're in the "we want it now!" stage, so it sucks, but I'm not worried.
Out of curiosity, what would you say the right targets are?
By your own argument, it seems to me that studios and specific films are actually a great target. If people make it clear that they won't see GitS because of whitewashed casting, while at the same time going to see films with more diverse casts, then Hollywood has to take notice and follow the money. Speaking out about these things and following through with your dollars is exactly how change happens.
There are numerous causes for the existence of the stereotypical american culturally ignorant slob (and ho boy that's a sterotype in case you were unaware) but I don't think cultural appropriation is one of the major causes. Look at out education system. Look at how we have very deliberately decided to teach history. American exceptionalism is most likely the chief contributing factor to the large number of Americans who don't really bother to explore outside their culture, and ironically American exceptionalism is a facet of American culture.
I don't think anybody denies that cultural appropriation itself has other societal causes. But I also don't think the causal chain is that simple. After all, what could fuel a society's sense of exceptionalism more than a blatant disregard for the advances made by other societies?
It's also not at all an American-only phenomenon. India has been brought up as an example nation that engages in this frequently. And incidentally, Indian exceptionalism is a major cause of geopolitical and societal strife in South Asia.
Also, when Americans criticize other nations for rewriting history... that's what cultural appropriation is, or it's part of it anyways. And part of that is baked into the American education system, such as how it disregards technological advances made by other nations and geopolitical events in other parts of the world. Cultural appropriation is just the slice of that that manifests within the cultural realm; it's significantly more abstract due to the way culture works, but the result is that Americans don't think highly of Japanese culture, when in reality, it's quite deep and encompassing and it's just that they're only exposed to small, altered slices of it.
I think the lack of education is primarily due to the language barrier. The best way to inundate yourself in authentic foreign culture is to learn the language, and due to shared romance and Saxon origin, it's easier to bridge cultural gaps over the atlantic.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I think expecting movies to cast progressively makes movies into something they are not. While art can act as an engine for change, that is not what art is. I might applaud a movie for casting progressively but I don't expect it or demand it. My primary concern for a film is "is it any good? Does it work?"
The issue of whitewashing or cultural appropriation feels very forced to me. I get *some* arguments RE casting but I am infinitely frustrated that the "cultural appropriation" street seems to go one way only. No country or culture is an island, and specifically when it comes to art everyone borrows from EVERYONE. It feels specifically disingenuous to make any appropriation argument in regards to Japanese art/culture when you consider how heavily they've borrowed from western culture. GITS may be Japanese but you'd be blind to watch it (and indeed most similar creations) and say you do not find a huge western influence. And that's part of the appeal to me, much like many American films/creations: the mixture of different familiar and foreign elements that can create a more interesting or novel piece of entertainment.
There's been a lot of discussion in this thread already about this issue. Cultures borrow from each other, yes, but you have to consider the history of the cultures involved. Has one of those cultures subjugated the other culture for hundreds of years? Do they have a history of taking whatever cultural artifacts they want, while denying those affected the ability to express their own culture?
Sometimes the street really does only go one way.
I disagree with the entire idea that taking cultural artifacts is wrong. Cultures have no inherent right to their culture. If they wanted it all to themselves they shouldn't have been so damn cool, than we no one would want it.
Making it forbidden will only make people fetishize it.
Taking cultural artifacts can be wrong, though. As an example, let's talk about Native American headdresses. White people love wearing Native American headdresses. They look cool. In fact, white people love appropriating Native American culture so much that they often claim Native American ancestry via the "Cherokee Princess" myth.
But white people have also systemically oppressed Native Americans for centuries, to the point of outright genocide. White people have also tried to prevent Native Americans from practicing their culture - as late as the 1990s there were government programs in place in North America meant to dismantle Native American culture. Native Americans do have an inherent right to their culture, the right to practice it as they see fit, and for most of our history this right has been denied.
In this context, taking cultural artifacts is wrong. You can't divorce "Native American headdresses are cool" from systemic attempts to destroy Native American culture. You can't ignore the fact that white people have taken what they want from Native American culture while also trying to wipe that culture out. If you are a white person wearing a Native American headdress, you're perpetuating centuries of cultural imperialism whether that was your intention or not.
Obviously not every situation is as clear-cut as this. What is or isn't cultural appropriation can change a lot when you consider the histories of the cultures involved. But you have to consider those histories. You can't just do what you want because you think it's cool.
You're talking about two very different things. Taking from a culture is not the same as destroying it. You're putting the two together and calling it wrong as a whole.
No one owns their own culture. No one gets to dictate what parts or used or liked or left behind. I'd say in the Native American case this has been particularly damaging, in that in a well-intentioned attempt to atone for the sins of our fathers, we've put them off limits to the point of exoticizing them. A one way culture flow is not healthy, as they continue to imbibe our culture pieces of their own are lost. And because we've made it sacrosanct their own culture isn't absorbed anywhere, it doesn't become a part of ours and live on. It just dies a little bit at a time.
To me, though, it's all semantics. No one can lay claim to their culture and say "no, this is mine." I absolutely stand by that statement.
I think you're misunderstanding the problem of systemic cultural appropriation. (In fact, a lot of people misunderstand the problem of systemic cultural appropriation.) There is a problem of taking important cultural artifacts and treating them with disrespect, such as taking holy relics and using them as Halloween costumes. That's one thing, but it's not really cultural appropriation; it's more just stupid-ass insensitivity.
What really makes cultural appropriation what it is is when it becomes a systemic erasure of the culture that generated these art-forms. In close-quarters, like for African-Americans, this results in more tangible economic harms, but even broadly, what results is that a society's cultural achievements are eliminated and replaced with an implied inferiority. When American movie-makers take Chinese stories and myths, and retell them as purely American stories, while Chinese stories and myths themselves are not visible in American media, this results in a degradation in people's perceptions of Chinese culture. "You see, nothing culturally valuable has come out of China! Americans are the best at culture! We have the best story tellers and authors and artists!!" (Admittedly, this hasn't happened with China. Instead, American perceptions of Chinese culture are probably tainted the other way, with an overbearing need to perceive them as mythical and fantastic, but....)
It's not about a single piece of art or "claiming their culture". It's about what happens when one culture shoves another to the side. It's like if a famous researcher took an obscure scientist's research and claimed it as their own; the problem is that the other person doesn't get credit for their work! You don't have to go destroy the obscure scientist's work, smash their lab, and get their papers retracted; reputation/culture are not physical objects; erasure is the same as elimination. The same problem still resonates on the level of entire societies.
I disagree with a lot of that.
I don't see where you get erasure from. The basic logic of humans entails that we copy, replicate, combine. I'd say it's a large part of why we've done as well as we have. I contend that you can't just shut this down when it comes to cultural exchange. It has happened, does happen, will. Always. Happen. And that's a good thing, it ensures we will continue to learn and not be shut off in our little bubble.
That's the surprising thing to me about this issue. It's an attempt to close off ethnic groups and races from the main flow of culture. I'm surprised you see nothing alarming about that idea. History traditionally hasn't been kind to groups that tried to divorce themselves from the rest of the world. To the contrary, long term the successful groups and nations were those that learned from their neighbors, spread their own culture. That's how you learn, how you learn to understand and how you in turn allow others to understand you. You mention China and that's a great example of how cutting yourself off from the works can breed stagnation, and eventually hostility and exoticism.
In the end, culture is not zero sum. When I "take" from a culture they have not been erased or lessened. They have exactly the same "amount" of culture. But now the world has something new, something maybe not better but slightly different. And we keep doing this and we keep evolving. This is a Good Thing.
The key question you're missing is whether it's systemic or not. Nowhere am I disputing the natural flow of culture across borders. The issue arises when that flow is imbalanced and properly attributed.
Nobody fucking objects to Mulan. What people object to is when you take everything Japan has produced culturally, and rewrite it all as American, starring American actors set in American cities, and then also not bring over anything obviously Japanese. That's erasure, when most Americans can't name anything of cultural important produced in Japan. And combined, that's cultural appropriation, when American society benefits culturally and economically from Japanese cultural innovations without ever attributing any of it to Japan and not portraying Japanese culture as relevant and worthwhile.
This is, of course, not absolute. Obviously Japanese culture has penetrated the American zeitgeist in small ways, principally in the animated realm. The question is one of how much is being taken versus how much is attributed, and how the American public then views Japanese culture and, by proxy, the Japanese people themselves.
Frankly, it's embarrassing to see bits where Americans get asked what they know about Japanese culture, and all they can say is Hello Kitty. That's the manifestation.
I don't see why it has to be equal. You say it's been imbalanced and I agree... But why does that matter?
Some nations and cultures are more pervasive than others, some are givers some are takers. Some don't become givers until later. America is a young country that is basically a conglomeration of a lot of different cultures. It makes absolute sense that they'd do a lot of taking and I see nothing wrong with that.
To back that up though, a LOT flows OUT of America too. I lived abroad most of my life so maybe I see it more than some, but I think youd need to be blind to not see how much American culture has spread and been taken accross the world.
Also no, your example is not erasure. Taking something from another culture and mashing it together with your own stuff is business as usual. It's what cultural exchange IS and it doesn't erase anything more than Panda Fucking Express erased Chinese food or getting served curry fried chicken in Chenai erased KFC from our glorious culture!
I feel like you and I have very different ideas of what healthy cultural exchange looks like. To me your example is perfect: a Japanese story retold by Americans with American actors and probably containing some new ideas. It doesn't erase the original, the original is RIGHT THERE if you like it better.
The key question you're missing is whether it's systemic or not. Nowhere am I disputing the natural flow of culture across borders. The issue arises when that flow is imbalanced and properly attributed.
Nobody fucking objects to Mulan. What people object to is when you take everything Japan has produced culturally, and rewrite it all as American, starring American actors set in American cities, and then also not bring over anything obviously Japanese. That's erasure, when most Americans can't name anything of cultural important produced in Japan. And combined, that's cultural appropriation, when American society benefits culturally and economically from Japanese cultural innovations without ever attributing any of it to Japan and not portraying Japanese culture as relevant and worthwhile.
This is, of course, not absolute. Obviously Japanese culture has penetrated the American zeitgeist in small ways, principally in the animated realm. The question is one of how much is being taken versus how much is attributed, and how the American public then views Japanese culture and, by proxy, the Japanese people themselves.
Frankly, it's embarrassing to see bits where Americans get asked what they know about Japanese culture, and all they can say is Hello Kitty. That's the manifestation.
I don't see why it has to be equal. You say it's been imbalanced and I agree... But why does that matter?
Some nations and cultures are more pervasive than others, some are givers some are takers. Some don't become givers until later. America is a young country that is basically a conglomeration of a lot of different cultures. It makes absolute sense that they'd do a lot of taking and I see nothing wrong with that.
To back that up though, a LOT flows OUT of America too. I lived abroad most of my life so maybe I see it more than some, but I think youd need to be blind to not see how much American culture has spread and been taken accross the world.
Also no, your example is not erasure. Taking something from another culture and mashing it together with your own stuff is business as usual. It's what cultural exchange IS and it doesn't erase anything more than Panda Fucking Express erased Chinese food or getting served curry fried chicken in Chenai erased KFC from our glorious culture!
I feel like you and I have very different ideas of what healthy cultural exchange looks like. To me your example is perfect: a Japanese story retold by Americans with American actors and probably containing some new ideas. It doesn't erase the original, the original is RIGHT THERE if you like it better.
Sorry, I did not mean equal in terms of the quantity of flow being balanced between two parties. I meant, for our incoming flow, are we achieving a rough balance that properly represents what's on the other side? If Americans think of Japanese culture as children's cartoons and animated pornography, that's harmful to Japanese people. And if that's all America imports culturally from Japan with attribution, then that's what will result.
Ideally, if America is going to import Japanese culture, then it should be importing a good cross-section of it, so that American consumers are exposed to the true depth and breadth of Japanese culture and develop a truthful perception of Japanese culture and the Japanese people. Obviously, there are real barriers to that, both practical - just because you import it doesn't mean people will consume it - and theoretical - what is a "balanced" cross-section of Japanese culture? How do you measure that? - but when you're VERY far from that, that's when problems arise, because cultural imports affect what people A think of people B. They might even be the MOST influential when somebody from people A has never met somebody from people B.
Edit: Which is also, by the way, why the Ghost in the Shell adaptation has been of particular interest, because it's a major market importation of a popular, mature Japanese work. It's not Pokemon or Dragonball, and so it represents an opportunity to add a new angle to how Americans view Japanese culture.
I grit my teeth slightly at the way cultural appropriation tends to turn into a discussion of how it's totally acceptable if you don't include the societal problems that accompany it while whitewashing tends to turn into a discussion of how it's totally acceptable if you include the societal problems that accompany it.
Agreed. In all cases, context should be considered, not just when it favors your argument.
I feel in casting cases people definitely attempt to ignore all mitigating factors/alternate explanations in favor of the one that supports their narrative. In the case of appropriation, it's also wrong to ignore context but considering I think the entire argument has a flawed premise "culture as property" it's not really a necessary hill to die on.
You are doing the very thing I'm gritting my teeth at in this very post.
Rather than trying to push back in some tiny fashion against the societal problems involved in either case, you're choosing the course of action that accepts their continued existence in both cases.
It doesn't just work when you want it to. If you want everyone to include context than you must do the same.
You seem to be frustrated I disagree with you, because you're not attacking my argument you're lamenting I'm not on your side.
My point is that in the case of casting, you are saying that ideally we would cast whomever, but it's easier to cast white actors therefore we should continue to do so. You accept the problem to justify your course of action.
In the case of cultural appropriation, you are saying that ideally all cultures should borrow from each other, and so we should do so even though people feel that by doing so in the current social environment you are contributing to the inequality between various groups. You refuse to accept the problem to justify your course of action.
And as you point out, these things are very much collective action problems. I think I largely agree with your ideals, I just also think that acting on them in the way you're suggesting (given the context of the world as it is) will only serve to entrench the problems we have.
(To be honest I'm more interested in the casting discussion because it is, I think, better defined. The cultural appropriation discussion is really more of a level 3-sigma liberal SJW classified topic because below that nobody ever agrees on what it actually is, never mind whether it's a problem.)
Ok I'll stick to casting here.
First, I'm definitely not worried about entrenching because the industry doesn't work that way. They work off of money, they produce products to obtain it. So:
A: They are not satisfying consumers, and lose money. It will take a lot of time because they're pretty heavily invested into their formulas, but money is money. Eventually some studio will do it better (we are already seeing this) and slowly -- ever so slowly -- the great wheels in the money machine turn. This is why I am terribly skeptical of the "movies should push my politics" angle. They won't, and arguably shouldn't, until they think it makes them money. Once your politics have disseminated to the target demographic, than your entertainment slowly changes to reflect this development.
B: They are satisfying customers and continue to make shit tons of money off thier less than diverse casting. Ok, bummer dude. But all the complaining in the world won't change their bottom line until you go back to point A.
The conclusion being, studios and more specifically individual films and actors are absolutely the wrong targets. Easy, juicy, feel good targets but ultimately the wrong ones.
I see the wheel slowly turning, I'm not worried. We're in the "we want it now!" stage, so it sucks, but I'm not worried.
Out of curiosity, what would you say the right targets are?
By your own argument, it seems to me that studios and specific films are actually a great target. If people make it clear that they won't see GitS because of whitewashed casting, while at the same time going to see films with more diverse casts, then Hollywood has to take notice and follow the money. Speaking out about these things and following through with your dollars is exactly how change happens.
Sorta?
If this is a really big deal for you than ok, do the protests and go see only diverse films. But..... That's not really going to do anything. Not while you have Marvel or Game of Thrones style juggernauts crushing it out there. I agree, if you could really convince a large portion of the population to do the same it mighty speed it up but I really doubt you're going to convince people to not watch the the next Avengers when it doesn't have a racial/ethnic ratio you like.
My optimism is sustained by looking at the past, and looking at the world. Hollywood is (somehow) easily the most diverse film industry on the planet. Crazy, I know. It's not perfect but it's good, and definitively better than it was.
My view is that it will still happen organically, but probably not to the extent that people want or expect. And that's probably for the best.
You guys want a case to study cultural appropriation I can really not think of a better case then Memoirs of a Geisha.
A book written by a white guy(Arthur Golden) about a Japanese Geisha before and after WW2, made into a Hollywood movie staring Zhang Ziyi, Ken Watanabe, Gong Li and Michelle Yeoh.
Shows that you could cast Asian Actors and still be guilty of "whitewashing" .
If that isn't an interesting case, I don't know what is.
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
0
Options
SurfpossumA nonentitytrying to preserve the anonymity he so richly deserves.Registered Userregular
Um.
How... exactly does this organic change happen? Like, speaking for myself, all I'm arguing for is mindfulness of social issues when making a decision. That's literally it! I firmly believe that, in aggregate, just that much will drive this change you are referring to.
I feel like that's not really too much to ask of anyone.
You guys want a case to study cultural appropriation I can really not think of a better case then Memoirs of a Geisha.
A book written by a white guy(Arthur Golden) about a Japanese Geisha before and after WW2, made into a Hollywood movie staring Zhang Ziyi, Ken Watanabe, Gong Li and Michelle Yeoh.
Shows that you could cast Asian Actors and still be guilty of "whitewashing" .
If that isn't an interesting case, I don't know what is.
You guys want a case to study cultural appropriation I can really not think of a better case then Memoirs of a Geisha.
A book written by a white guy(Arthur Golden) about a Japanese Geisha before and after WW2, made into a Hollywood movie staring Zhang Ziyi, Ken Watanabe, Gong Li and Michelle Yeoh.
Shows that you could cast Asian Actors and still be guilty of "whitewashing" .
If that isn't an interesting case, I don't know what is.
Well, again, you have the recent case with Nina, which we were talking about on the first page. A lot of the issue there can be traced back to the main behind the camera principals being white.
The key question you're missing is whether it's systemic or not. Nowhere am I disputing the natural flow of culture across borders. The issue arises when that flow is imbalanced and properly attributed.
Nobody fucking objects to Mulan. What people object to is when you take everything Japan has produced culturally, and rewrite it all as American, starring American actors set in American cities, and then also not bring over anything obviously Japanese. That's erasure, when most Americans can't name anything of cultural important produced in Japan. And combined, that's cultural appropriation, when American society benefits culturally and economically from Japanese cultural innovations without ever attributing any of it to Japan and not portraying Japanese culture as relevant and worthwhile.
This is, of course, not absolute. Obviously Japanese culture has penetrated the American zeitgeist in small ways, principally in the animated realm. The question is one of how much is being taken versus how much is attributed, and how the American public then views Japanese culture and, by proxy, the Japanese people themselves.
Frankly, it's embarrassing to see bits where Americans get asked what they know about Japanese culture, and all they can say is Hello Kitty. That's the manifestation.
I don't see why it has to be equal. You say it's been imbalanced and I agree... But why does that matter?
Some nations and cultures are more pervasive than others, some are givers some are takers. Some don't become givers until later. America is a young country that is basically a conglomeration of a lot of different cultures. It makes absolute sense that they'd do a lot of taking and I see nothing wrong with that.
To back that up though, a LOT flows OUT of America too. I lived abroad most of my life so maybe I see it more than some, but I think youd need to be blind to not see how much American culture has spread and been taken accross the world.
Also no, your example is not erasure. Taking something from another culture and mashing it together with your own stuff is business as usual. It's what cultural exchange IS and it doesn't erase anything more than Panda Fucking Express erased Chinese food or getting served curry fried chicken in Chenai erased KFC from our glorious culture!
I feel like you and I have very different ideas of what healthy cultural exchange looks like. To me your example is perfect: a Japanese story retold by Americans with American actors and probably containing some new ideas. It doesn't erase the original, the original is RIGHT THERE if you like it better.
Sorry, I did not mean equal in terms of the quantity of flow being balanced between two parties. I meant, for our incoming flow, are we achieving a rough balance that properly represents what's on the other side? If Americans think of Japanese culture as children's cartoons and animated pornography, that's harmful to Japanese people. And if that's all America imports culturally from Japan with attribution, then that's what will result.
Ideally, if America is going to import Japanese culture, then it should be importing a good cross-section of it, so that American consumers are exposed to the true depth and breadth of Japanese culture and develop a truthful perception of Japanese culture and the Japanese people. Obviously, there are real barriers to that, both practical - just because you import it doesn't mean people will consume it - and theoretical - what is a "balanced" cross-section of Japanese culture? How do you measure that? - but when you're VERY far from that, that's when problems arise, because cultural imports affect what people A think of people B. They might even be the MOST influential when somebody from people A has never met somebody from people B.
Ok your first paragraph is a really good point. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's harmful to Japanese people anymore than I'm "harmed" by being stereotyped as a hamburger loving, beer swilling, flag waving, gun toting cowboy has harmed Americans at large. BUT, if that is the majority of what we get from Japan than I'd say yeah, would be great to get more.
You know what fucks with that, though? The outrage that happens over "appropriation". It's utterly counterintuitive to want more of that culture and than go "No! Stop! You're absorbing it wrong!" when people become interested in it. You will never obtain a perfect 1 for 1 transfer. Our culture will find value in some things and not in others, and we will take some things whole and mash other things up with our own stuff and make something new. Obsessing over it doesn't help, it makes it off limits, exotic, a potential fetish.
Last Samurai is a great example. If you're looking at it as an attempted 1 for 1 transfer of culture... Yeah no. But that's not what movies like that are doing, that's not what they're trying to do. They're doing what always happens in these situations: taking something foreign, and using familiar aspects to make it accessible. The "Americanized" aspects of the film were what allowed it to disseminate, that's the transfer mechanism for culture!
Ultimately, if you're looking for accurate and true representation of material... Just go watch a Japanese film? If we do it, it only makes sense to do it OUR way, adapted for OUR culture: but this opens the door a crack, this provides an opportunity to explore where OUR version came from, and perhaps dig deeper.
There's lots of Asian media out there; would you think there's a market for korean soap operas in America?
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I grit my teeth slightly at the way cultural appropriation tends to turn into a discussion of how it's totally acceptable if you don't include the societal problems that accompany it while whitewashing tends to turn into a discussion of how it's totally acceptable if you include the societal problems that accompany it.
Agreed. In all cases, context should be considered, not just when it favors your argument.
I feel in casting cases people definitely attempt to ignore all mitigating factors/alternate explanations in favor of the one that supports their narrative. In the case of appropriation, it's also wrong to ignore context but considering I think the entire argument has a flawed premise "culture as property" it's not really a necessary hill to die on.
You are doing the very thing I'm gritting my teeth at in this very post.
Rather than trying to push back in some tiny fashion against the societal problems involved in either case, you're choosing the course of action that accepts their continued existence in both cases.
It doesn't just work when you want it to. If you want everyone to include context than you must do the same.
You seem to be frustrated I disagree with you, because you're not attacking my argument you're lamenting I'm not on your side.
My point is that in the case of casting, you are saying that ideally we would cast whomever, but it's easier to cast white actors therefore we should continue to do so. You accept the problem to justify your course of action.
In the case of cultural appropriation, you are saying that ideally all cultures should borrow from each other, and so we should do so even though people feel that by doing so in the current social environment you are contributing to the inequality between various groups. You refuse to accept the problem to justify your course of action.
And as you point out, these things are very much collective action problems. I think I largely agree with your ideals, I just also think that acting on them in the way you're suggesting (given the context of the world as it is) will only serve to entrench the problems we have.
(To be honest I'm more interested in the casting discussion because it is, I think, better defined. The cultural appropriation discussion is really more of a level 3-sigma liberal SJW classified topic because below that nobody ever agrees on what it actually is, never mind whether it's a problem.)
Ok I'll stick to casting here.
First, I'm definitely not worried about entrenching because the industry doesn't work that way. They work off of money, they produce products to obtain it. So:
A: They are not satisfying consumers, and lose money. It will take a lot of time because they're pretty heavily invested into their formulas, but money is money. Eventually some studio will do it better (we are already seeing this) and slowly -- ever so slowly -- the great wheels in the money machine turn. This is why I am terribly skeptical of the "movies should push my politics" angle. They won't, and arguably shouldn't, until they think it makes them money. Once your politics have disseminated to the target demographic, than your entertainment slowly changes to reflect this development.
B: They are satisfying customers and continue to make shit tons of money off thier less than diverse casting. Ok, bummer dude. But all the complaining in the world won't change their bottom line until you go back to point A.
The conclusion being, studios and more specifically individual films and actors are absolutely the wrong targets. Easy, juicy, feel good targets but ultimately the wrong ones.
I see the wheel slowly turning, I'm not worried. We're in the "we want it now!" stage, so it sucks, but I'm not worried.
Out of curiosity, what would you say the right targets are?
By your own argument, it seems to me that studios and specific films are actually a great target. If people make it clear that they won't see GitS because of whitewashed casting, while at the same time going to see films with more diverse casts, then Hollywood has to take notice and follow the money. Speaking out about these things and following through with your dollars is exactly how change happens.
Sorta?
If this is a really big deal for you than ok, do the protests and go see only diverse films. But..... That's not really going to do anything. Not while you have Marvel or Game of Thrones style juggernauts crushing it out there. I agree, if you could really convince a large portion of the population to do the same it mighty speed it up but I really doubt you're going to convince people to not watch the the next Avengers when it doesn't have a racial/ethnic ratio you like.
My optimism is sustained by looking at the past, and looking at the world. Hollywood is (somehow) easily the most diverse film industry on the planet. Crazy, I know. It's not perfect but it's good, and definitively better than it was.
My view is that it will still happen organically, but probably not to the extent that people want or expect. And that's probably for the best.
Okay, I think I understand where you're coming from, and where our points of view differ. Would it be fair to say that you view increased racial representation in film as a natural process, and one that will happen eventually if we just give it enough time?
Because while I agree that things have been getting better, I don't think that's a natural or inevitable process. Things change because people speak out and try to make a difference. It's not like everyone woke up one day and realized on their own that Mickey Rooney playing a Japanese person in Breakfast at Tiffany's was offensive. We have to have these conversations and talk about these issues before people can come to these conclusions.
I also think you're misrepresenting my argument with this:
I really doubt you're going to convince people to not watch the the next Avengers when it doesn't have a racial/ethnic ratio you like.
No one is advocating for this. No one is suggesting specific quotas, or that boycotting the Avengers would somehow help the situation. I'm saying we should be aware of these issues in a macro sense (i.e. "wow, Hollywood sure does cast a lot of white people"), and act on egregious examples of these issues in a micro sense (for example, making it clear you won't see GitS because of whitewashed casting).
You guys want a case to study cultural appropriation I can really not think of a better case then Memoirs of a Geisha.
A book written by a white guy(Arthur Golden) about a Japanese Geisha before and after WW2, made into a Hollywood movie staring Zhang Ziyi, Ken Watanabe, Gong Li and Michelle Yeoh.
Shows that you could cast Asian Actors and still be guilty of "whitewashing" .
If that isn't an interesting case, I don't know what is.
Well, again, you have the recent case with Nina, which we were talking about on the first page. A lot of the issue there can be traced back to the main behind the camera principals being white.
Except in that case, your saying that the person they cast isn't "black enough", which is kind of insulting to that person.
Plus it is going to lead down a rabbit hole of they now need to also cast based on racial stereotypes, which opens up a potentially even worse case of racism in casting.
+1
Options
SurfpossumA nonentitytrying to preserve the anonymity he so richly deserves.Registered Userregular
Yeah, I first joined CrunchyRoll to watch the live action Death Note movies. They have a lot of stuff, and Hulu has a pretty large library of Japanese/Korean drama/comedy shows.
There's lots of Asian media out there; would you think there's a market for korean soap operas in America?
omg yes. Coffee Prince is so good.
(There are a bunch on Netflix by the way.)
If one of the HD channels picked some up that'd be great, most korean places bootleg their own dvds because the legal distribution options in the US are really slim
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
There's lots of Asian media out there; would you think there's a market for korean soap operas in America?
Crunchyroll has an entire section devoted to live action Japanese and Korean dramas.
Well good, that'll help a lot.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I grit my teeth slightly at the way cultural appropriation tends to turn into a discussion of how it's totally acceptable if you don't include the societal problems that accompany it while whitewashing tends to turn into a discussion of how it's totally acceptable if you include the societal problems that accompany it.
Agreed. In all cases, context should be considered, not just when it favors your argument.
I feel in casting cases people definitely attempt to ignore all mitigating factors/alternate explanations in favor of the one that supports their narrative. In the case of appropriation, it's also wrong to ignore context but considering I think the entire argument has a flawed premise "culture as property" it's not really a necessary hill to die on.
You are doing the very thing I'm gritting my teeth at in this very post.
Rather than trying to push back in some tiny fashion against the societal problems involved in either case, you're choosing the course of action that accepts their continued existence in both cases.
It doesn't just work when you want it to. If you want everyone to include context than you must do the same.
You seem to be frustrated I disagree with you, because you're not attacking my argument you're lamenting I'm not on your side.
My point is that in the case of casting, you are saying that ideally we would cast whomever, but it's easier to cast white actors therefore we should continue to do so. You accept the problem to justify your course of action.
In the case of cultural appropriation, you are saying that ideally all cultures should borrow from each other, and so we should do so even though people feel that by doing so in the current social environment you are contributing to the inequality between various groups. You refuse to accept the problem to justify your course of action.
And as you point out, these things are very much collective action problems. I think I largely agree with your ideals, I just also think that acting on them in the way you're suggesting (given the context of the world as it is) will only serve to entrench the problems we have.
(To be honest I'm more interested in the casting discussion because it is, I think, better defined. The cultural appropriation discussion is really more of a level 3-sigma liberal SJW classified topic because below that nobody ever agrees on what it actually is, never mind whether it's a problem.)
Ok I'll stick to casting here.
First, I'm definitely not worried about entrenching because the industry doesn't work that way. They work off of money, they produce products to obtain it. So:
A: They are not satisfying consumers, and lose money. It will take a lot of time because they're pretty heavily invested into their formulas, but money is money. Eventually some studio will do it better (we are already seeing this) and slowly -- ever so slowly -- the great wheels in the money machine turn. This is why I am terribly skeptical of the "movies should push my politics" angle. They won't, and arguably shouldn't, until they think it makes them money. Once your politics have disseminated to the target demographic, than your entertainment slowly changes to reflect this development.
B: They are satisfying customers and continue to make shit tons of money off thier less than diverse casting. Ok, bummer dude. But all the complaining in the world won't change their bottom line until you go back to point A.
The conclusion being, studios and more specifically individual films and actors are absolutely the wrong targets. Easy, juicy, feel good targets but ultimately the wrong ones.
I see the wheel slowly turning, I'm not worried. We're in the "we want it now!" stage, so it sucks, but I'm not worried.
Out of curiosity, what would you say the right targets are?
By your own argument, it seems to me that studios and specific films are actually a great target. If people make it clear that they won't see GitS because of whitewashed casting, while at the same time going to see films with more diverse casts, then Hollywood has to take notice and follow the money. Speaking out about these things and following through with your dollars is exactly how change happens.
Sorta?
If this is a really big deal for you than ok, do the protests and go see only diverse films. But..... That's not really going to do anything. Not while you have Marvel or Game of Thrones style juggernauts crushing it out there. I agree, if you could really convince a large portion of the population to do the same it mighty speed it up but I really doubt you're going to convince people to not watch the the next Avengers when it doesn't have a racial/ethnic ratio you like.
My optimism is sustained by looking at the past, and looking at the world. Hollywood is (somehow) easily the most diverse film industry on the planet. Crazy, I know. It's not perfect but it's good, and definitively better than it was.
My view is that it will still happen organically, but probably not to the extent that people want or expect. And that's probably for the best.
Okay, I think I understand where you're coming from, and where our points of view differ. Would it be fair to say that you view increased racial representation in film as a natural process, and one that will happen eventually if we just give it enough time?
Because while I agree that things have been getting better, I don't think that's a natural or inevitable process. Things change because people speak out and try to make a difference. It's not like everyone woke up one day and realized on their own that Mickey Rooney playing a Japanese person in Breakfast at Tiffany's was offensive. We have to have these conversations and talk about these issues before people can come to these conclusions.
I also think you're misrepresenting my argument with this:
I really doubt you're going to convince people to not watch the the next Avengers when it doesn't have a racial/ethnic ratio you like.
No one is advocating for this. No one is suggesting specific quotas, or that boycotting the Avengers would somehow help the situation. I'm saying we should be aware of these issues in a macro sense (i.e. "wow, Hollywood sure does cast a lot of white people"), and act on egregious examples of these issues in a micro sense (for example, making it clear you won't see GitS because of whitewashed casting).
I really don't see a problem with the casting individually. I think it's a fairly classic case of imported culture being localized with familiar ideas/faces. I feel you're not well served attacking risky import movies like this, you'll likely move them off that kind of movie altogether (a great loss) before you change their mind on casting.
As to the first part, I think we agree with the end result but disagree on method. I won't try to argue you off it, but I do remain highly skeptical of it.
I haven't read through the thread yet, but Andy Greenwald has made a good point for quite a while on his podcast about diversity in casting. Even if you don't actually care about social justice one iota, you should care about getting interesting stories. And throwing support behind getting more diverse perspectives and storytelling only leads to good things as a consumer of fiction. Jessica Jones was great, and would never have been made not that long ago because it's too female. London Spy, a non-superpower show, is a spy drama with a completely fresh viewpoint of a non-masculine gay man. By contrast we all know exactly how masculine manly men approach being a spy, we've seen it a dozen times.
Perspectives on the world that are different from our own are not only good for you, like cinematic vegetables, they present a whole new world that can capture your imagination. We saw this happen in the late '90s and early '00s, as manga swept in and captured a bunch of non-comics readers, much to the comics' industry's consternation (and embarrassing copycat attempts). The new Miss Marvel is another great example of this happening organically inside the industry - plenty of non-teenage-Muslim-girl readers are enjoying Miss Marvel a ton, because her distinct perspective on the world is one that readers have otherwise never really seen before.
Representation, positive portrayal, all of that is great, and makes it a cause to support all on its own, but you should also support more diversity in popular entertainment because just think of all the fascinating stories that we're missing out on. It is in my white male self-interest to want more diversity in Hollywood, because I want new stories to consume.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
The key question you're missing is whether it's systemic or not. Nowhere am I disputing the natural flow of culture across borders. The issue arises when that flow is imbalanced and properly attributed.
Nobody fucking objects to Mulan. What people object to is when you take everything Japan has produced culturally, and rewrite it all as American, starring American actors set in American cities, and then also not bring over anything obviously Japanese. That's erasure, when most Americans can't name anything of cultural important produced in Japan. And combined, that's cultural appropriation, when American society benefits culturally and economically from Japanese cultural innovations without ever attributing any of it to Japan and not portraying Japanese culture as relevant and worthwhile.
This is, of course, not absolute. Obviously Japanese culture has penetrated the American zeitgeist in small ways, principally in the animated realm. The question is one of how much is being taken versus how much is attributed, and how the American public then views Japanese culture and, by proxy, the Japanese people themselves.
Frankly, it's embarrassing to see bits where Americans get asked what they know about Japanese culture, and all they can say is Hello Kitty. That's the manifestation.
I don't see why it has to be equal. You say it's been imbalanced and I agree... But why does that matter?
Some nations and cultures are more pervasive than others, some are givers some are takers. Some don't become givers until later. America is a young country that is basically a conglomeration of a lot of different cultures. It makes absolute sense that they'd do a lot of taking and I see nothing wrong with that.
To back that up though, a LOT flows OUT of America too. I lived abroad most of my life so maybe I see it more than some, but I think youd need to be blind to not see how much American culture has spread and been taken accross the world.
Also no, your example is not erasure. Taking something from another culture and mashing it together with your own stuff is business as usual. It's what cultural exchange IS and it doesn't erase anything more than Panda Fucking Express erased Chinese food or getting served curry fried chicken in Chenai erased KFC from our glorious culture!
I feel like you and I have very different ideas of what healthy cultural exchange looks like. To me your example is perfect: a Japanese story retold by Americans with American actors and probably containing some new ideas. It doesn't erase the original, the original is RIGHT THERE if you like it better.
Sorry, I did not mean equal in terms of the quantity of flow being balanced between two parties. I meant, for our incoming flow, are we achieving a rough balance that properly represents what's on the other side? If Americans think of Japanese culture as children's cartoons and animated pornography, that's harmful to Japanese people. And if that's all America imports culturally from Japan with attribution, then that's what will result.
Ideally, if America is going to import Japanese culture, then it should be importing a good cross-section of it, so that American consumers are exposed to the true depth and breadth of Japanese culture and develop a truthful perception of Japanese culture and the Japanese people. Obviously, there are real barriers to that, both practical - just because you import it doesn't mean people will consume it - and theoretical - what is a "balanced" cross-section of Japanese culture? How do you measure that? - but when you're VERY far from that, that's when problems arise, because cultural imports affect what people A think of people B. They might even be the MOST influential when somebody from people A has never met somebody from people B.
Ok your first paragraph is a really good point. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's harmful to Japanese people anymore than I'm "harmed" by being stereotyped as a hamburger loving, beer swilling, flag waving, gun toting cowboy has harmed Americans at large. BUT, if that is the majority of what we get from Japan than I'd say yeah, would be great to get more.
You know what fucks with that, though? The outrage that happens over "appropriation". It's utterly counterintuitive to want more of that culture and than go "No! Stop! You're absorbing it wrong!" when people become interested in it. You will never obtain a perfect 1 for 1 transfer. Our culture will find value in some things and not in others, and we will take some things whole and mash other things up with our own stuff and make something new. Obsessing over it doesn't help, it makes it off limits, exotic, a potential fetish.
Last Samurai is a great example. If you're looking at it as an attempted 1 for 1 transfer of culture... Yeah no. But that's not what movies like that are doing, that's not what they're trying to do. They're doing what always happens in these situations: taking something foreign, and using familiar aspects to make it accessible. The "Americanized" aspects of the film were what allowed it to disseminate, that's the transfer mechanism for culture!
Ultimately, if you're looking for accurate and true representation of material... Just go watch a Japanese film? If we do it, it only makes sense to do it OUR way, adapted for OUR culture: but this opens the door a crack, this provides an opportunity to explore where OUR version came from, and perhaps dig deeper.
Well, I specifically don't define what "VERY far" from proper representation means (also don't define what "proper representation" means too), because I don't know that there's an answer to that.
I largely agree with what you're saying, other than that last paragraph. It's not really about my wanting more Japanese culture in my life - I don't really - but about popular mass-media portrayals of Japanese culture. If, in America, Japanese culture is absorbed through a narrow lens, this changes how Japanese people are viewed, and then as a Japanese-American (I am not Japanese, btw) or as a Japanese tourist or even Japanese people beleaguered by American tourists, I have to live with this racial bias that's been introduced by a multimedia industry that I am not really any part of.
I'm Chinese. People think I'm good at math. That's because Chinese immigrants have earned that particular reputation via first-hand experience. That doesn't make it any less annoying or racially stereotyping. For a while though in my youth, people also thought I knew karate/kung fu, because of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan and the Karate Kid. That's a very specific manifestation that's of those times, but my point is that it wasn't me as a Chinese kid not getting to watch authentic Chinese media that was the cause. If we showed Chinese people in other roles in media and not-so-selectively imported Chinese stories, then maybe as a youth, I wouldn't had to deal with so many assumptions about my nature based on my race. That's the micro-level manifestation. (I've previously talked about the macro-level manifestation so won't repeat it here.)
There's also the matter of how that media may have affected me and other Chinese/East Asian youth living in North America. We haven't really broached that topic in-depth yet in this thread (I think), but I'll lob this out: those of us in the STEM fields who are concerned about female representation in these fields are also very concerned about the unbalanced portrayals of male versus female scientists/engineers/programmers in popular media, because we believe that this has a strong effect on whether young girls enter STEM fields. That speaks to why the casting issue is of concern to minorities beyond just the equity issue for minority actors, because these mass media portrayals (or non-portrayals, rather) may be influencing how minority youth perceive themselves and their potential futures.
Edit: Because you're replying so fast, and I don't want to just take over the thread, I'll say I agree with you on your reply to this post. I started this line of discussion by saying that I think a lot of people are misusing the term "cultural appropriation" to refer to something else that may legitimately also be of concern, but it's not really the same thing. (They might also say that I'm misusing the term, of course.) Sometimes they're not though, and the media just mis-reports it too, like when BLM protesters protest one specific case, and then that case might fall apart on them, and so people go, "Well I don't know what they got so upset about," but really, they weren't out there in response to one specific case, but to a broader issue. So when people get up in arms about one specific act of cultural appropriation, I also think that's ridiculous, but I also need to recognize that that might just be one act among many and it's serving as a "easy-to-digest" access point for the rest of us.
The key question you're missing is whether it's systemic or not. Nowhere am I disputing the natural flow of culture across borders. The issue arises when that flow is imbalanced and properly attributed.
Nobody fucking objects to Mulan. What people object to is when you take everything Japan has produced culturally, and rewrite it all as American, starring American actors set in American cities, and then also not bring over anything obviously Japanese. That's erasure, when most Americans can't name anything of cultural important produced in Japan. And combined, that's cultural appropriation, when American society benefits culturally and economically from Japanese cultural innovations without ever attributing any of it to Japan and not portraying Japanese culture as relevant and worthwhile.
This is, of course, not absolute. Obviously Japanese culture has penetrated the American zeitgeist in small ways, principally in the animated realm. The question is one of how much is being taken versus how much is attributed, and how the American public then views Japanese culture and, by proxy, the Japanese people themselves.
Frankly, it's embarrassing to see bits where Americans get asked what they know about Japanese culture, and all they can say is Hello Kitty. That's the manifestation.
I don't see why it has to be equal. You say it's been imbalanced and I agree... But why does that matter?
Some nations and cultures are more pervasive than others, some are givers some are takers. Some don't become givers until later. America is a young country that is basically a conglomeration of a lot of different cultures. It makes absolute sense that they'd do a lot of taking and I see nothing wrong with that.
To back that up though, a LOT flows OUT of America too. I lived abroad most of my life so maybe I see it more than some, but I think youd need to be blind to not see how much American culture has spread and been taken accross the world.
Also no, your example is not erasure. Taking something from another culture and mashing it together with your own stuff is business as usual. It's what cultural exchange IS and it doesn't erase anything more than Panda Fucking Express erased Chinese food or getting served curry fried chicken in Chenai erased KFC from our glorious culture!
I feel like you and I have very different ideas of what healthy cultural exchange looks like. To me your example is perfect: a Japanese story retold by Americans with American actors and probably containing some new ideas. It doesn't erase the original, the original is RIGHT THERE if you like it better.
Sorry, I did not mean equal in terms of the quantity of flow being balanced between two parties. I meant, for our incoming flow, are we achieving a rough balance that properly represents what's on the other side? If Americans think of Japanese culture as children's cartoons and animated pornography, that's harmful to Japanese people. And if that's all America imports culturally from Japan with attribution, then that's what will result.
Ideally, if America is going to import Japanese culture, then it should be importing a good cross-section of it, so that American consumers are exposed to the true depth and breadth of Japanese culture and develop a truthful perception of Japanese culture and the Japanese people. Obviously, there are real barriers to that, both practical - just because you import it doesn't mean people will consume it - and theoretical - what is a "balanced" cross-section of Japanese culture? How do you measure that? - but when you're VERY far from that, that's when problems arise, because cultural imports affect what people A think of people B. They might even be the MOST influential when somebody from people A has never met somebody from people B.
Ok your first paragraph is a really good point. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's harmful to Japanese people anymore than I'm "harmed" by being stereotyped as a hamburger loving, beer swilling, flag waving, gun toting cowboy has harmed Americans at large. BUT, if that is the majority of what we get from Japan than I'd say yeah, would be great to get more.
You know what fucks with that, though? The outrage that happens over "appropriation". It's utterly counterintuitive to want more of that culture and than go "No! Stop! You're absorbing it wrong!" when people become interested in it. You will never obtain a perfect 1 for 1 transfer. Our culture will find value in some things and not in others, and we will take some things whole and mash other things up with our own stuff and make something new. Obsessing over it doesn't help, it makes it off limits, exotic, a potential fetish.
Last Samurai is a great example. If you're looking at it as an attempted 1 for 1 transfer of culture... Yeah no. But that's not what movies like that are doing, that's not what they're trying to do. They're doing what always happens in these situations: taking something foreign, and using familiar aspects to make it accessible. The "Americanized" aspects of the film were what allowed it to disseminate, that's the transfer mechanism for culture!
Ultimately, if you're looking for accurate and true representation of material... Just go watch a Japanese film? If we do it, it only makes sense to do it OUR way, adapted for OUR culture: but this opens the door a crack, this provides an opportunity to explore where OUR version came from, and perhaps dig deeper.
Well, I specifically don't define what "VERY far" from proper representation means (also don't define what "proper representation" means too), because I don't know that there's an answer to that.
I largely agree with what you're saying, other than that last paragraph. It's not really about my wanting more Japanese culture in my life - I don't really - but about popular mass-media portrayals of Japanese culture. If, in America, Japanese culture is absorbed through a narrow lens, this changes how Japanese people are viewed, and then as a Japanese-American (I am not Japanese, btw) or as a Japanese tourist or even Japanese people beleaguered by American tourists, I have to live with this racial bias that's been introduced by a multimedia industry that I am not really any part of.
I'm Chinese. People think I'm good at math. That's because Chinese immigrants have earned that particular reputation via first-hand experience. That doesn't make it any less annoying or racially stereotyping. For a while though in my youth, people also thought I knew karate/kung fu, because of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan and the Karate Kid. That's a very specific manifestation that's of those times, but my point is that it wasn't me as a Chinese kid not getting to watch authentic Chinese media that was the cause.
I got stereotyped in my travels too. People treated me like the dumb American stereotype, it was annoying as all hell. So I * kind of* get ya, though probably not to the same degree?
I think we both want the same thing. I just think that propagating the cultural appropriation theory ends up closing us off and separating cultures more than anything else. It puts a culture on a high shelf and says "don't touch". So we either don't, or it becomes an object of unhealthy fascination. Than we all lose.
I grit my teeth slightly at the way cultural appropriation tends to turn into a discussion of how it's totally acceptable if you don't include the societal problems that accompany it while whitewashing tends to turn into a discussion of how it's totally acceptable if you include the societal problems that accompany it.
Agreed. In all cases, context should be considered, not just when it favors your argument.
I feel in casting cases people definitely attempt to ignore all mitigating factors/alternate explanations in favor of the one that supports their narrative. In the case of appropriation, it's also wrong to ignore context but considering I think the entire argument has a flawed premise "culture as property" it's not really a necessary hill to die on.
You are doing the very thing I'm gritting my teeth at in this very post.
Rather than trying to push back in some tiny fashion against the societal problems involved in either case, you're choosing the course of action that accepts their continued existence in both cases.
It doesn't just work when you want it to. If you want everyone to include context than you must do the same.
You seem to be frustrated I disagree with you, because you're not attacking my argument you're lamenting I'm not on your side.
My point is that in the case of casting, you are saying that ideally we would cast whomever, but it's easier to cast white actors therefore we should continue to do so. You accept the problem to justify your course of action.
In the case of cultural appropriation, you are saying that ideally all cultures should borrow from each other, and so we should do so even though people feel that by doing so in the current social environment you are contributing to the inequality between various groups. You refuse to accept the problem to justify your course of action.
And as you point out, these things are very much collective action problems. I think I largely agree with your ideals, I just also think that acting on them in the way you're suggesting (given the context of the world as it is) will only serve to entrench the problems we have.
(To be honest I'm more interested in the casting discussion because it is, I think, better defined. The cultural appropriation discussion is really more of a level 3-sigma liberal SJW classified topic because below that nobody ever agrees on what it actually is, never mind whether it's a problem.)
Ok I'll stick to casting here.
First, I'm definitely not worried about entrenching because the industry doesn't work that way. They work off of money, they produce products to obtain it. So:
A: They are not satisfying consumers, and lose money. It will take a lot of time because they're pretty heavily invested into their formulas, but money is money. Eventually some studio will do it better (we are already seeing this) and slowly -- ever so slowly -- the great wheels in the money machine turn. This is why I am terribly skeptical of the "movies should push my politics" angle. They won't, and arguably shouldn't, until they think it makes them money. Once your politics have disseminated to the target demographic, than your entertainment slowly changes to reflect this development.
B: They are satisfying customers and continue to make shit tons of money off thier less than diverse casting. Ok, bummer dude. But all the complaining in the world won't change their bottom line until you go back to point A.
The conclusion being, studios and more specifically individual films and actors are absolutely the wrong targets. Easy, juicy, feel good targets but ultimately the wrong ones.
I see the wheel slowly turning, I'm not worried. We're in the "we want it now!" stage, so it sucks, but I'm not worried.
Out of curiosity, what would you say the right targets are?
By your own argument, it seems to me that studios and specific films are actually a great target. If people make it clear that they won't see GitS because of whitewashed casting, while at the same time going to see films with more diverse casts, then Hollywood has to take notice and follow the money. Speaking out about these things and following through with your dollars is exactly how change happens.
Sorta?
If this is a really big deal for you than ok, do the protests and go see only diverse films. But..... That's not really going to do anything. Not while you have Marvel or Game of Thrones style juggernauts crushing it out there. I agree, if you could really convince a large portion of the population to do the same it mighty speed it up but I really doubt you're going to convince people to not watch the the next Avengers when it doesn't have a racial/ethnic ratio you like.
My optimism is sustained by looking at the past, and looking at the world. Hollywood is (somehow) easily the most diverse film industry on the planet. Crazy, I know. It's not perfect but it's good, and definitively better than it was.
My view is that it will still happen organically, but probably not to the extent that people want or expect. And that's probably for the best.
Okay, I think I understand where you're coming from, and where our points of view differ. Would it be fair to say that you view increased racial representation in film as a natural process, and one that will happen eventually if we just give it enough time?
Because while I agree that things have been getting better, I don't think that's a natural or inevitable process. Things change because people speak out and try to make a difference. It's not like everyone woke up one day and realized on their own that Mickey Rooney playing a Japanese person in Breakfast at Tiffany's was offensive. We have to have these conversations and talk about these issues before people can come to these conclusions.
I also think you're misrepresenting my argument with this:
I really doubt you're going to convince people to not watch the the next Avengers when it doesn't have a racial/ethnic ratio you like.
No one is advocating for this. No one is suggesting specific quotas, or that boycotting the Avengers would somehow help the situation. I'm saying we should be aware of these issues in a macro sense (i.e. "wow, Hollywood sure does cast a lot of white people"), and act on egregious examples of these issues in a micro sense (for example, making it clear you won't see GitS because of whitewashed casting).
I really don't see a problem with the casting individually. I think it's a fairly classic case of imported culture being localized with familiar ideas/faces. I feel you're not well served attacking risky import movies like this, you'll likely move them off that kind of movie altogether (a great loss) before you change their mind on casting.
As to the first part, I think we agree with the end result but disagree on method. I won't try to argue you off it, but I do remain highly skeptical of it.
Yeah, it sounds like we're going to have to agree to disagree on these last couple of issues. In any case, thanks for the long discussion; I've found it really interesting and useful.
I grit my teeth slightly at the way cultural appropriation tends to turn into a discussion of how it's totally acceptable if you don't include the societal problems that accompany it while whitewashing tends to turn into a discussion of how it's totally acceptable if you include the societal problems that accompany it.
Agreed. In all cases, context should be considered, not just when it favors your argument.
I feel in casting cases people definitely attempt to ignore all mitigating factors/alternate explanations in favor of the one that supports their narrative. In the case of appropriation, it's also wrong to ignore context but considering I think the entire argument has a flawed premise "culture as property" it's not really a necessary hill to die on.
You are doing the very thing I'm gritting my teeth at in this very post.
Rather than trying to push back in some tiny fashion against the societal problems involved in either case, you're choosing the course of action that accepts their continued existence in both cases.
It doesn't just work when you want it to. If you want everyone to include context than you must do the same.
You seem to be frustrated I disagree with you, because you're not attacking my argument you're lamenting I'm not on your side.
My point is that in the case of casting, you are saying that ideally we would cast whomever, but it's easier to cast white actors therefore we should continue to do so. You accept the problem to justify your course of action.
In the case of cultural appropriation, you are saying that ideally all cultures should borrow from each other, and so we should do so even though people feel that by doing so in the current social environment you are contributing to the inequality between various groups. You refuse to accept the problem to justify your course of action.
And as you point out, these things are very much collective action problems. I think I largely agree with your ideals, I just also think that acting on them in the way you're suggesting (given the context of the world as it is) will only serve to entrench the problems we have.
(To be honest I'm more interested in the casting discussion because it is, I think, better defined. The cultural appropriation discussion is really more of a level 3-sigma liberal SJW classified topic because below that nobody ever agrees on what it actually is, never mind whether it's a problem.)
Ok I'll stick to casting here.
First, I'm definitely not worried about entrenching because the industry doesn't work that way. They work off of money, they produce products to obtain it. So:
A: They are not satisfying consumers, and lose money. It will take a lot of time because they're pretty heavily invested into their formulas, but money is money. Eventually some studio will do it better (we are already seeing this) and slowly -- ever so slowly -- the great wheels in the money machine turn. This is why I am terribly skeptical of the "movies should push my politics" angle. They won't, and arguably shouldn't, until they think it makes them money. Once your politics have disseminated to the target demographic, than your entertainment slowly changes to reflect this development.
B: They are satisfying customers and continue to make shit tons of money off thier less than diverse casting. Ok, bummer dude. But all the complaining in the world won't change their bottom line until you go back to point A.
The conclusion being, studios and more specifically individual films and actors are absolutely the wrong targets. Easy, juicy, feel good targets but ultimately the wrong ones.
I see the wheel slowly turning, I'm not worried. We're in the "we want it now!" stage, so it sucks, but I'm not worried.
Out of curiosity, what would you say the right targets are?
By your own argument, it seems to me that studios and specific films are actually a great target. If people make it clear that they won't see GitS because of whitewashed casting, while at the same time going to see films with more diverse casts, then Hollywood has to take notice and follow the money. Speaking out about these things and following through with your dollars is exactly how change happens.
Sorta?
If this is a really big deal for you than ok, do the protests and go see only diverse films. But..... That's not really going to do anything. Not while you have Marvel or Game of Thrones style juggernauts crushing it out there. I agree, if you could really convince a large portion of the population to do the same it mighty speed it up but I really doubt you're going to convince people to not watch the the next Avengers when it doesn't have a racial/ethnic ratio you like.
My optimism is sustained by looking at the past, and looking at the world. Hollywood is (somehow) easily the most diverse film industry on the planet. Crazy, I know. It's not perfect but it's good, and definitively better than it was.
My view is that it will still happen organically, but probably not to the extent that people want or expect. And that's probably for the best.
Okay, I think I understand where you're coming from, and where our points of view differ. Would it be fair to say that you view increased racial representation in film as a natural process, and one that will happen eventually if we just give it enough time?
Because while I agree that things have been getting better, I don't think that's a natural or inevitable process. Things change because people speak out and try to make a difference. It's not like everyone woke up one day and realized on their own that Mickey Rooney playing a Japanese person in Breakfast at Tiffany's was offensive. We have to have these conversations and talk about these issues before people can come to these conclusions.
I also think you're misrepresenting my argument with this:
I really doubt you're going to convince people to not watch the the next Avengers when it doesn't have a racial/ethnic ratio you like.
No one is advocating for this. No one is suggesting specific quotas, or that boycotting the Avengers would somehow help the situation. I'm saying we should be aware of these issues in a macro sense (i.e. "wow, Hollywood sure does cast a lot of white people"), and act on egregious examples of these issues in a micro sense (for example, making it clear you won't see GitS because of whitewashed casting).
I really don't see a problem with the casting individually. I think it's a fairly classic case of imported culture being localized with familiar ideas/faces. I feel you're not well served attacking risky import movies like this, you'll likely move them off that kind of movie altogether (a great loss) before you change their mind on casting.
As to the first part, I think we agree with the end result but disagree on method. I won't try to argue you off it, but I do remain highly skeptical of it.
Yeah, it sounds like we're going to have to agree to disagree on these last couple of issues. In any case, thanks for the long discussion; I've found it really interesting and useful.
This idea that we should just ignore the opinions of actual Japanese people seems insane to me.
If the general consensus in the country of Japan is that this is fine and good that should probably carry some weight. Otherwise you're just talking over the very people you're trying to defend. And even among Westerners I have yet to see an actual Japanese-American, or a Japanese person from whatever country, come out against it.
I would also like to know how faithful the GitS film is with the themes of the original comic. Cross-cultural adaptation is a real thing and the Japanese do it all the time with Western stuff. I do think that if they want to cast Scarjo they probably should have changed the name of the character, and the thing about using CGI to make her look more Asian is, if not a bullshit rumour, clearly pretty dumb.
Do you mean Japanese people living in Japan, or Japanese-Americans, or both?
Because most Japanese people would be, "Who cares?" because it's an American movie which isn't really going to be high on their cultural zeitgeist and Japan itself is extremely ethnically monolithic.
Japanese-Americans and other Asian-Americans care a whole fucking lot more.
So this got glossed over earlier, but I actually think it deserves a little more focus.
To whom should the film-makers pay respect? The Japanese, who created Ghost in the Shell, or the Japanese-Americans, who may watch this version of it?
If Africans were to put on the plays of Shakespeare, should they seek out Venetian actors and actresses for The Merchant? If Bollywood recreated The Great Escape, how should they cast it?
In addition to the points made regarding imperialistic history, here's the other problem with your argument:
The vast majority of storytelling is "color blind."
When you have a cast of white characters in Western storytelling, there are generally two reasons:
1) This story is specifically in regards to that particular culture
2) This story isn't specific to white culture, but whiteness is simply treated as "the default."
The vast majority of the time, including the works of Shakespeare, it's the latter. The problem is, option #2 to only available for white people. Similarly, most people won't blink an eye if a board of directors is entirely straight white males, because white males is considered "the default." But they would notice if the board was entirely female, entirely black, entirely Asian, entirely gay, etc. Because those things are against the default.
Since option #2 doesn't exist for minorities, that means that the vast majority of movies with minority cases fall under option #1. Which means that you have a story specifically built around ethnic identity, where ethnic identity is thrown out the window.
Which is kind of ironic in a way since the history of the Mulan story is a good example of cultural appropriation and minority erasure in it's own right.
Posts
I think you're misunderstanding the problem of systemic cultural appropriation. (In fact, a lot of people misunderstand the problem of systemic cultural appropriation.) There is a problem of taking important cultural artifacts and treating them with disrespect, such as taking holy relics and using them as Halloween costumes. That's one thing, but it's not really cultural appropriation; it's more just stupid-ass insensitivity.
What really makes cultural appropriation what it is is when it becomes a systemic erasure of the culture that generated these art-forms. In close-quarters, like for African-Americans, this results in more tangible economic harms, but even broadly, what results is that a society's cultural achievements are eliminated and replaced with an implied inferiority. When American movie-makers take Chinese stories and myths, and retell them as purely American stories, while Chinese stories and myths themselves are not visible in American media, this results in a degradation in people's perceptions of Chinese culture. "You see, nothing culturally valuable has come out of China! Americans are the best at culture! We have the best story tellers and authors and artists!!" (Admittedly, this hasn't happened with China. Instead, American perceptions of Chinese culture are probably tainted the other way, with an overbearing need to perceive them as mythical and fantastic, but....)
It's not about a single piece of art or "claiming their culture". It's about what happens when one culture shoves another to the side. It's like if a famous researcher took an obscure scientist's research and claimed it as their own; the problem is that the other person doesn't get credit for their work! You don't have to go destroy the obscure scientist's work, smash their lab, and get their papers retracted; reputation/culture are not physical objects; erasure is the same as elimination. The same problem still resonates on the level of entire societies.
There is a separation between asian-americans and asians that is hard to define. And GitS is an Asian property, so somehow it kind of feels like even asian-americans would be appropriating a foreign culture.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
It doesn't just work when you want it to. If you want everyone to include context than you must do the same.
You seem to be frustrated I disagree with you, because you're not attacking my argument you're lamenting I'm not on your side.
Wow.
Okay.
So. My only real response is, "No, and fuck you white person for telling me that I'm too white to be a 'real Asian' when y'all love nothing more than to treat me like a 'real Asian' when it suits you."
I think whether an exchange is good or bad is kinda pointless and ultimately extremely arbitrary. I still think you're considering culture the wrong way. It's not something you're holding in your hands that someone is taking.
The second bit is a tougher one. I'm strongly against "sins of the father" arguments, but I also understand why ethnic groups want to be represented. It's also a difficult one for me to parse having lived mostly abroad and seeing most every country primarily represent their main ethnic/racial group.
I'd say it's a collective vs singular issue. I think it's fair to to use this as an example of a larger issue without condemning this individual example. As much as we want everything to be our idea of perfect, it's unfair to dump on individual instances that in isolation are quite harmless. Essentially, the eternal quandary of collective action problems.
And cultural transfer isn't going to be some sort of perfect platonic form of another culture that is perfectly represented in its original packaging for everyone to gaze at as if in a museum without transforming it or changing it. That will never happen.
If this is the goal, then we may as well skip ahead to "OK we completely failed to achieve that, what's next?"
In the case of cultural appropriation, you are saying that ideally all cultures should borrow from each other, and so we should do so even though people feel that by doing so in the current social environment you are contributing to the inequality between various groups. You refuse to accept the problem to justify your course of action.
And as you point out, these things are very much collective action problems. I think I largely agree with your ideals, I just also think that acting on them in the way you're suggesting (given the context of the world as it is) will only serve to entrench the problems we have.
(To be honest I'm more interested in the casting discussion because it is, I think, better defined. The cultural appropriation discussion is really more of a level 3-sigma liberal SJW classified topic because below that nobody ever agrees on what it actually is, never mind whether it's a problem.)
I will say this as someone who enjoyed the new Oldboy but couldn't really get into the old one (but understand it's critical popularity and cultural importance)
The Spike Lee Oldboy was a lot of fun.
"Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, I’ll give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor
My new novel: Maledictions: The Offering. Now in Paperback!
I disagree with a lot of that.
I don't see where you get erasure from. The basic logic of humans entails that we copy, replicate, combine. I'd say it's a large part of why we've done as well as we have. I contend that you can't just shut this down when it comes to cultural exchange. It has happened, does happen, will. Always. Happen. And that's a good thing, it ensures we will continue to learn and not be shut off in our little bubble.
That's the surprising thing to me about this issue. It's an attempt to close off ethnic groups and races from the main flow of culture. I'm surprised you see nothing alarming about that idea. History traditionally hasn't been kind to groups that tried to divorce themselves from the rest of the world. To the contrary, long term the successful groups and nations were those that learned from their neighbors, spread their own culture. That's how you learn, how you learn to understand and how you in turn allow others to understand you. You mention China and that's a great example of how cutting yourself off from the works can breed stagnation, and eventually hostility and exoticism.
In the end, culture is not zero sum. When I "take" from a culture they have not been erased or lessened. They have exactly the same "amount" of culture. But now the world has something new, something maybe not better but slightly different. And we keep doing this and we keep evolving. This is a Good Thing.
Who do you think you're talking to?
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
The key question you're missing is whether it's systemic or not. Nowhere am I disputing the natural flow of culture across borders. The issue arises when what is imported is not representative and properly attributed.
Nobody fucking objects to Mulan. What people object to is when you take everything Japan has produced culturally, and rewrite it all as American, starring American actors set in American cities, and then also not bring over anything obviously Japanese. That's erasure, when most Americans can't name anything of cultural import produced in Japan. And combined, that's cultural appropriation, when American society benefits culturally and economically from Japanese cultural innovations without ever attributing any of it to Japan and not portraying Japanese culture as relevant and worthwhile.
This is, of course, not absolute. Obviously Japanese culture has penetrated the American zeitgeist in small ways, principally in the animated realm. The question is one of how much is being taken versus how much is attributed, and how the American public then views Japanese culture and, by proxy, the Japanese people themselves.
Frankly, it's embarrassing to see bits where Americans get asked what they know about Japanese culture, and all they can say is Hello Kitty. That's the manifestation.
Ok I'll stick to casting here.
First, I'm definitely not worried about entrenching because the industry doesn't work that way. They work off of money, they produce products to obtain it. So:
A: They are not satisfying consumers, and lose money. It will take a lot of time because they're pretty heavily invested into their formulas, but money is money. Eventually some studio will do it better (we are already seeing this) and slowly -- ever so slowly -- the great wheels in the money machine turn. This is why I am terribly skeptical of the "movies should push my politics" angle. They won't, and arguably shouldn't, until they think it makes them money. Once your politics have disseminated to the target demographic, than your entertainment slowly changes to reflect this development.
B: They are satisfying customers and continue to make shit tons of money off thier less than diverse casting. Ok, bummer dude. But all the complaining in the world won't change their bottom line until you go back to point A.
The conclusion being, studios and more specifically individual films and actors are absolutely the wrong targets. Easy, juicy, feel good targets but ultimately the wrong ones.
I see the wheel slowly turning, I'm not worried. We're in the "we want it now!" stage, so it sucks, but I'm not worried.
Out of curiosity, what would you say the right targets are?
By your own argument, it seems to me that studios and specific films are actually a great target. If people make it clear that they won't see GitS because of whitewashed casting, while at the same time going to see films with more diverse casts, then Hollywood has to take notice and follow the money. Speaking out about these things and following through with your dollars is exactly how change happens.
I don't think anybody denies that cultural appropriation itself has other societal causes. But I also don't think the causal chain is that simple. After all, what could fuel a society's sense of exceptionalism more than a blatant disregard for the advances made by other societies?
It's also not at all an American-only phenomenon. India has been brought up as an example nation that engages in this frequently. And incidentally, Indian exceptionalism is a major cause of geopolitical and societal strife in South Asia.
Also, when Americans criticize other nations for rewriting history... that's what cultural appropriation is, or it's part of it anyways. And part of that is baked into the American education system, such as how it disregards technological advances made by other nations and geopolitical events in other parts of the world. Cultural appropriation is just the slice of that that manifests within the cultural realm; it's significantly more abstract due to the way culture works, but the result is that Americans don't think highly of Japanese culture, when in reality, it's quite deep and encompassing and it's just that they're only exposed to small, altered slices of it.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I don't see why it has to be equal. You say it's been imbalanced and I agree... But why does that matter?
Some nations and cultures are more pervasive than others, some are givers some are takers. Some don't become givers until later. America is a young country that is basically a conglomeration of a lot of different cultures. It makes absolute sense that they'd do a lot of taking and I see nothing wrong with that.
To back that up though, a LOT flows OUT of America too. I lived abroad most of my life so maybe I see it more than some, but I think youd need to be blind to not see how much American culture has spread and been taken accross the world.
Also no, your example is not erasure. Taking something from another culture and mashing it together with your own stuff is business as usual. It's what cultural exchange IS and it doesn't erase anything more than Panda Fucking Express erased Chinese food or getting served curry fried chicken in Chenai erased KFC from our glorious culture!
I feel like you and I have very different ideas of what healthy cultural exchange looks like. To me your example is perfect: a Japanese story retold by Americans with American actors and probably containing some new ideas. It doesn't erase the original, the original is RIGHT THERE if you like it better.
Sorry, I did not mean equal in terms of the quantity of flow being balanced between two parties. I meant, for our incoming flow, are we achieving a rough balance that properly represents what's on the other side? If Americans think of Japanese culture as children's cartoons and animated pornography, that's harmful to Japanese people. And if that's all America imports culturally from Japan with attribution, then that's what will result.
Ideally, if America is going to import Japanese culture, then it should be importing a good cross-section of it, so that American consumers are exposed to the true depth and breadth of Japanese culture and develop a truthful perception of Japanese culture and the Japanese people. Obviously, there are real barriers to that, both practical - just because you import it doesn't mean people will consume it - and theoretical - what is a "balanced" cross-section of Japanese culture? How do you measure that? - but when you're VERY far from that, that's when problems arise, because cultural imports affect what people A think of people B. They might even be the MOST influential when somebody from people A has never met somebody from people B.
Edit: Which is also, by the way, why the Ghost in the Shell adaptation has been of particular interest, because it's a major market importation of a popular, mature Japanese work. It's not Pokemon or Dragonball, and so it represents an opportunity to add a new angle to how Americans view Japanese culture.
Sorta?
If this is a really big deal for you than ok, do the protests and go see only diverse films. But..... That's not really going to do anything. Not while you have Marvel or Game of Thrones style juggernauts crushing it out there. I agree, if you could really convince a large portion of the population to do the same it mighty speed it up but I really doubt you're going to convince people to not watch the the next Avengers when it doesn't have a racial/ethnic ratio you like.
My optimism is sustained by looking at the past, and looking at the world. Hollywood is (somehow) easily the most diverse film industry on the planet. Crazy, I know. It's not perfect but it's good, and definitively better than it was.
My view is that it will still happen organically, but probably not to the extent that people want or expect. And that's probably for the best.
A book written by a white guy(Arthur Golden) about a Japanese Geisha before and after WW2, made into a Hollywood movie staring Zhang Ziyi, Ken Watanabe, Gong Li and Michelle Yeoh.
Shows that you could cast Asian Actors and still be guilty of "whitewashing" .
If that isn't an interesting case, I don't know what is.
How... exactly does this organic change happen? Like, speaking for myself, all I'm arguing for is mindfulness of social issues when making a decision. That's literally it! I firmly believe that, in aggregate, just that much will drive this change you are referring to.
I feel like that's not really too much to ask of anyone.
Why would anybody think otherwise?
Well, again, you have the recent case with Nina, which we were talking about on the first page. A lot of the issue there can be traced back to the main behind the camera principals being white.
Ok your first paragraph is a really good point. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's harmful to Japanese people anymore than I'm "harmed" by being stereotyped as a hamburger loving, beer swilling, flag waving, gun toting cowboy has harmed Americans at large. BUT, if that is the majority of what we get from Japan than I'd say yeah, would be great to get more.
You know what fucks with that, though? The outrage that happens over "appropriation". It's utterly counterintuitive to want more of that culture and than go "No! Stop! You're absorbing it wrong!" when people become interested in it. You will never obtain a perfect 1 for 1 transfer. Our culture will find value in some things and not in others, and we will take some things whole and mash other things up with our own stuff and make something new. Obsessing over it doesn't help, it makes it off limits, exotic, a potential fetish.
Last Samurai is a great example. If you're looking at it as an attempted 1 for 1 transfer of culture... Yeah no. But that's not what movies like that are doing, that's not what they're trying to do. They're doing what always happens in these situations: taking something foreign, and using familiar aspects to make it accessible. The "Americanized" aspects of the film were what allowed it to disseminate, that's the transfer mechanism for culture!
Ultimately, if you're looking for accurate and true representation of material... Just go watch a Japanese film? If we do it, it only makes sense to do it OUR way, adapted for OUR culture: but this opens the door a crack, this provides an opportunity to explore where OUR version came from, and perhaps dig deeper.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Okay, I think I understand where you're coming from, and where our points of view differ. Would it be fair to say that you view increased racial representation in film as a natural process, and one that will happen eventually if we just give it enough time?
Because while I agree that things have been getting better, I don't think that's a natural or inevitable process. Things change because people speak out and try to make a difference. It's not like everyone woke up one day and realized on their own that Mickey Rooney playing a Japanese person in Breakfast at Tiffany's was offensive. We have to have these conversations and talk about these issues before people can come to these conclusions.
I also think you're misrepresenting my argument with this:
No one is advocating for this. No one is suggesting specific quotas, or that boycotting the Avengers would somehow help the situation. I'm saying we should be aware of these issues in a macro sense (i.e. "wow, Hollywood sure does cast a lot of white people"), and act on egregious examples of these issues in a micro sense (for example, making it clear you won't see GitS because of whitewashed casting).
Except in that case, your saying that the person they cast isn't "black enough", which is kind of insulting to that person.
Plus it is going to lead down a rabbit hole of they now need to also cast based on racial stereotypes, which opens up a potentially even worse case of racism in casting.
(There are a bunch on Netflix by the way.)
Crunchyroll has an entire section devoted to live action Japanese and Korean dramas.
If one of the HD channels picked some up that'd be great, most korean places bootleg their own dvds because the legal distribution options in the US are really slim
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Well good, that'll help a lot.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I really don't see a problem with the casting individually. I think it's a fairly classic case of imported culture being localized with familiar ideas/faces. I feel you're not well served attacking risky import movies like this, you'll likely move them off that kind of movie altogether (a great loss) before you change their mind on casting.
As to the first part, I think we agree with the end result but disagree on method. I won't try to argue you off it, but I do remain highly skeptical of it.
Perspectives on the world that are different from our own are not only good for you, like cinematic vegetables, they present a whole new world that can capture your imagination. We saw this happen in the late '90s and early '00s, as manga swept in and captured a bunch of non-comics readers, much to the comics' industry's consternation (and embarrassing copycat attempts). The new Miss Marvel is another great example of this happening organically inside the industry - plenty of non-teenage-Muslim-girl readers are enjoying Miss Marvel a ton, because her distinct perspective on the world is one that readers have otherwise never really seen before.
Representation, positive portrayal, all of that is great, and makes it a cause to support all on its own, but you should also support more diversity in popular entertainment because just think of all the fascinating stories that we're missing out on. It is in my white male self-interest to want more diversity in Hollywood, because I want new stories to consume.
Well, I specifically don't define what "VERY far" from proper representation means (also don't define what "proper representation" means too), because I don't know that there's an answer to that.
I largely agree with what you're saying, other than that last paragraph. It's not really about my wanting more Japanese culture in my life - I don't really - but about popular mass-media portrayals of Japanese culture. If, in America, Japanese culture is absorbed through a narrow lens, this changes how Japanese people are viewed, and then as a Japanese-American (I am not Japanese, btw) or as a Japanese tourist or even Japanese people beleaguered by American tourists, I have to live with this racial bias that's been introduced by a multimedia industry that I am not really any part of.
I'm Chinese. People think I'm good at math. That's because Chinese immigrants have earned that particular reputation via first-hand experience. That doesn't make it any less annoying or racially stereotyping. For a while though in my youth, people also thought I knew karate/kung fu, because of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan and the Karate Kid. That's a very specific manifestation that's of those times, but my point is that it wasn't me as a Chinese kid not getting to watch authentic Chinese media that was the cause. If we showed Chinese people in other roles in media and not-so-selectively imported Chinese stories, then maybe as a youth, I wouldn't had to deal with so many assumptions about my nature based on my race. That's the micro-level manifestation. (I've previously talked about the macro-level manifestation so won't repeat it here.)
There's also the matter of how that media may have affected me and other Chinese/East Asian youth living in North America. We haven't really broached that topic in-depth yet in this thread (I think), but I'll lob this out: those of us in the STEM fields who are concerned about female representation in these fields are also very concerned about the unbalanced portrayals of male versus female scientists/engineers/programmers in popular media, because we believe that this has a strong effect on whether young girls enter STEM fields. That speaks to why the casting issue is of concern to minorities beyond just the equity issue for minority actors, because these mass media portrayals (or non-portrayals, rather) may be influencing how minority youth perceive themselves and their potential futures.
Edit: Because you're replying so fast, and I don't want to just take over the thread, I'll say I agree with you on your reply to this post. I started this line of discussion by saying that I think a lot of people are misusing the term "cultural appropriation" to refer to something else that may legitimately also be of concern, but it's not really the same thing. (They might also say that I'm misusing the term, of course.) Sometimes they're not though, and the media just mis-reports it too, like when BLM protesters protest one specific case, and then that case might fall apart on them, and so people go, "Well I don't know what they got so upset about," but really, they weren't out there in response to one specific case, but to a broader issue. So when people get up in arms about one specific act of cultural appropriation, I also think that's ridiculous, but I also need to recognize that that might just be one act among many and it's serving as a "easy-to-digest" access point for the rest of us.
I got stereotyped in my travels too. People treated me like the dumb American stereotype, it was annoying as all hell. So I * kind of* get ya, though probably not to the same degree?
I think we both want the same thing. I just think that propagating the cultural appropriation theory ends up closing us off and separating cultures more than anything else. It puts a culture on a high shelf and says "don't touch". So we either don't, or it becomes an object of unhealthy fascination. Than we all lose.
Yeah, it sounds like we're going to have to agree to disagree on these last couple of issues. In any case, thanks for the long discussion; I've found it really interesting and useful.
Likewise, I enjoyed the exchange.
In addition to the points made regarding imperialistic history, here's the other problem with your argument:
The vast majority of storytelling is "color blind."
When you have a cast of white characters in Western storytelling, there are generally two reasons:
1) This story is specifically in regards to that particular culture
2) This story isn't specific to white culture, but whiteness is simply treated as "the default."
The vast majority of the time, including the works of Shakespeare, it's the latter. The problem is, option #2 to only available for white people. Similarly, most people won't blink an eye if a board of directors is entirely straight white males, because white males is considered "the default." But they would notice if the board was entirely female, entirely black, entirely Asian, entirely gay, etc. Because those things are against the default.
Since option #2 doesn't exist for minorities, that means that the vast majority of movies with minority cases fall under option #1. Which means that you have a story specifically built around ethnic identity, where ethnic identity is thrown out the window.
Which is kind of ironic in a way since the history of the Mulan story is a good example of cultural appropriation and minority erasure in it's own right.