Asian Fusion Racism: Memoirs of a Geisha

Asian Fusion Racism: Memoirs of a Geisha

So, the appalling thing that I found about the movie Memoirs of a Geisha is that the makers did not even have the slightest sense of respect to cast at least Japanese actresses for the leads, which were all occupied by Chinese actresses. There are a couple of things discussed already about the blunder.

One is that those Chinese actresses are all the same employed and introduced as nameless figures and ignored their ethnicity as replacable figures. This happens because of the prevalent notion of Asia in US as more or less the equivalent of what is called Chinese with some contempt that refers uncanniness and cheap aliens from the East. In the context, to the Western eyes, all Asian women are nameless, nationalityless and faceless. This movie was a project to heig hten people's awareness of ever fuckable Asian women into something even more accessible (discrimination friendly) with a twist of novelty; that is supposed to be the notion coined as Geisha. No matter to be celebrated as it seemed, it is to institutionalize the dismissive persepective toward Asia.

The irony is that the movie does not seem to be seeking any authenticity, if there is such a thing here, of Geisha-ish facts. They are more interested in promoting the handiness of Asia by presenting the interexchangeablity of China and Japan, back and forth as they please, to the extent the border disappears. The contradiction we face here, the absence of Japanese whe n the movie is supposed to focuse to the theme, goes back to the intention of the project; if they attempted to discover (I don't necessarily like the idea that Asia as something to be discovered by West because it could refer and fix them to be the center that is entitled to manipulate the singlurar narrative on the world, by the way) unknown facts of Geisha around early twenty century, instead of materializing their fantasy of Geisha that is based upon their pure ignorance and issueing some worthy coin to feed Western Asian fantasy, at least they should have been more serious about the subject. What was so difficulut to resort to Japanese people who have more resources than US when it comes to Geisha only if they were on the same page, which is quite questionable. In this case, after all, materializing their fantasy of Asia=China and promote the idea of Asia=China=Japan (even more novel) was their point rather than pursuing better (less biased) representation of Geisha or Japanese culture.

It seems that the existence of real Japan, or Japanese people was rather a burden to the Geisha lovers in the West because the real people could always threaten their fantasy.

Some reviewers said the movie did not live up to what the Chinese actresses had acquired already in their careers. In other words, they were saying the movie did not do justice for the big names from China. Well, then, stop hiring them and expect them to fulfill what was demanded.

What was the trouble finding fucking a couple of actresses from Japan, where tons of showbiz people are thriving? The lead could have been done by anybody that's got an Asian face if it did not have to be Japanese. The most rediculous thing about the film is that they speak in English. Idiot.

Second thing was that this Asian Fusion project to promote and institutionalize the racism makes the entire Asia look and appeal as a metaphor of a brothel, where all women are accommodated to sell out. Believe it or not, this movie is celebrating it and institionalizing. So the house of Geisha in the movie is reflecting the history and the current women's condition there and the movie is unconsciously (or deliberately) acting as a pimp and a broker who trafficks them to US.

West is taking advantage Asia as part of the world where they are welcomed to get away with treating women as slaves and make excuses such as they have way worse treatment. Japan had institutionalized and refined the method, so they moved on the system earlier than any other Asian country. Now that other women do the dirty work, Japanese do not keep any high profile in the Asian fusion sex trade ring or mail order bride/adoption. But to register the accessiblity of easier Asian women in Western phyche is after all lucrative and beneficial to both parties, a country like China and punters of the world, West. They sell everything from babies to hookers to stir the economy and West is no say because they are happy to have somebody who is still happy to do things no one would not in their countries any more. The urgent need for both US and China is to exchange female sex and money. US wants Chinese people to have buying power and thier own people to get interested in China in any way to invest. Sex and/or war is always the first phenomenan to appear in the sort of contact.

If this might sound paranoid to you, I have got legitimate reason to have this angle to decipher as above as a die hard Asian hooker in the US. Just be patient until I gather up all the infos.

To conclude today's entry forcefully, this failure movie really proves how little they minded to show any accuracy in the representation. To make representation accurate or faithful to what exists in the reality (or in the history) is not the ultimate goal to achieve in film making in general. Because it is always a matter of whose persepective a movie is employing to percolate phenomena and let it manifest in the screen. However, they can never be too careful to depict things and people with least prej udice or bias; this is something those who engaged in the line of business, reagardless making money or not, should care. Most all, though, doesn't this movie promote some creepy notion that people have to have some kind of Western physical feature to be accepted as someon enough to be represensed to West: that is what they connoated to show the heroine to become a big shot sex worker because of the blue eyes (!) she got as idiocyncracy?