Memoirs of a Geisha

Since I’ve started this blog, I’ve made a habit of commenting on American movies that come out with Japanese themes, such as Kill Bill, The Last Samurai, Lost in Translation, and The Grudge.

It’s interesting for me to try and observe how these movies are perceived over here for a couple of reasons. For one, Japanese people are absolutely in love with American movies. American movies consistently do better in Japan than Japanese movies. And, outside of the US domestic market, Japan is the number one in foreign box office profits. Many American movie stars are more popular in Japan than they are back home.

Also, Japan is obsessed with itself. Some people say Japan has an inferiority complex. Some say Japan has a superiority complex. Really it’s probably a little bit of both. But Japan is really concerned with the way the rest of the world sees it. For example when Matsui and Ichiro became American baseball stars, the Japan nightly news correspondents would routinely say things like, “When I saw American children cheering for Ichiro, I never felt so proud to be Japanese.”

So, given both of these factors, I really expected Japanese people to be doing back flips in excitement when all these American movies about Japan started coming out.

But they didn’t. “Kill Bill” did fairly well over here, but there didn’t seem to be a lot of excitement either in the media or among my Japanese friends. “Lost in Translation” was never even released in the theaters. You can find it on video now, but most Japanese people still don’t even know it exists.

“The Grudge” also passed away like a ghost in the night. I would never even have heard about it if I hadn’t stumbled on “The Japan Times” review while reading my evening paper.

The exception to this was “The Last Samurai” which generated a huge amount of excitement. For months it was all my students and Japanese friends would talk about. The movie had more ticket sales in Japan than in America.

But if you ask any Japanese person why they liked “Last Samurai” so much, the answer is always the same: “Tomu Kuruuzu”. And so, perhaps “The Last Samurai” is the exception that proves the rule. Japanese people enjoyed the nod to their traditions and culture, but what they really loved was the big Hollywood movie star. Japanese people don’t go to American movies to see about Japan. That’s what they have Japanese movies for. They go to American movies to see the tall blond haired and blue eyed American movie stars.　

Which makes it easy to foresee why “Memoirs of a Geisha” (or “Sayuri” as the movie has been re-titled in Japan) probably isn’t going to do so well here.

That, plus the decision to film it all in English, and cast Chinese and other non-Japanese Asian actresses in almost all of the leads. I remember reading about this film in September and commenting to a friend, “A Chinese actress in the lead? That’s not going to go over very well here.”

And it hasn’t. I don’t know how much of this has made the news back home, but there are a lot of angry Japanese people, and there have been calls by some Japanese bloggers to boycott this film.

But even if an official boycott doesn’t take place, what is really going to kill this film is just disinterest.

I don’t have a TV, so sometimes I can be a little out of the hype (like when I had to revise my entry on Kill Bill), and plus I’m no expert on Japan, I’m just some guy who’s over here teaching English. But I’ve probably talked to 20 or so Japanese friends about this film, and without exception they all said something like, “A Chinese actress as a Geisha? This film obviously wasn’t made for a Japanese audience. I don’t plan on seeing it.”

The director of the movie was quoted in the Japan Times as saying, “I just hired the best person for the part. I didn’t consider race in the casting decision.”

I read that and I thought, “Damn right!” Sure Zhang Ziyi isn’t a Japanese Geisha. Ken Watanabe wasn’t a Samurai. An actor by definition is someone who pretends to be someone they’re not. In American films we have British actors playing American soldiers, Australians playing American colonialists, New Zealanders playing middle eastern terrorists, Scottish actors playing British secret agents, and Australians playing Scotts. Do we whine about it?

So far though I’m standing on my own on this one. I haven’t been able to convince any of my Japanese friends, and even among the other foreigners people often say, “But don’t you think for something as central to Japanese cultural as a Geisha they should have found a Japanese actress?”

Usually when speaking to a Japanese person I try and bring the point up in very soft way. I might casually mention that we had British actors playing American soldiers in “Black Hawk Down”, and nobody got upset about it, but then leave it at that.

Only among Japanese people I know well do I feel comfortable being more confrontational. For instance when I spoke to Shoko, I asked, “Why are you people always so racist?”

“First of all don’t talk to me in that tone,” she answered. “Secondly you Americans are on top of the world and you know it, so you don’t need to feel insecure about these kind of things. But how do you think it makes us Japanese feel when Hollywood decided there wasn’t a single Japanese actress good enough to play the part? I guess it must have been because we can’t speak English.”

I’m not sure Zhang Ziyi was cast for her English abilities. In “Rush Hour 2”, for example, she didn’t speak a word of English the whole movie.　　And if language is the primary concern, why not cast an Asian American?

But that’s the belief people have over here. Well aware that Japan is lagging behind other Asian countries in English ability, many Japanese people believe Zhang Ziyi was cast because no Japanese actress could speak English well enough. I’ve heard it from a number of people besides Shoko. Thus the casting of Zhang Ziyi is taken as a painful reminder of the failure that Japan’s language education program has been.

For what its worth, the racism is just as deep on the other side. According to The Japan Times, many Chinese have called Zhang Ziyi a traitor for taking the role, and called for her to be hacked into tiny pieces.

Because, as mentioned above, Japan is the number one foreign box office, Hollywood is most likely going to take a financial hit for their decision not to cast a Japanese actress. But good for them for not giving into racism, and allowing this silly feud between Japan and China to influence their casting decisions. Good to know Hollywood is putting its principals ahead of money. Its times like this when I feel proud to be an American. (Cue the patriotic music, scene of me wiping away a tear against a backdrop of the American flag and the Hollywood sign).

That is why they made that casting decision, isn’t it? Pure altruism on the part of Hollywood, right? It wouldn’t be because Zhang Ziyi is more recognizable than any Japanese actress, or because she has an exotic Asian sounding name and the average man in a pub doesn’t know the difference between China and Japan anyway? That’s just me being cynical, right?

The Japan times, always a good source of information, has a review of this movie by a Japanese woman, which focuses on the many inaccuracies in the film and an article on how this film is being treated in the Japanese media

While I’m on the subject, one more quick thought before I close this off. “The Karate Kid” series, which was for many in my generation our first introduction to Japan, is completely unknown here. People in Japan can talk with you about Star Trek, Harry Potter, Star Wars, The Lone Ranger, The Beatles and The Carpenters and all other sorts of Western pop culture. But no one has ever heard of “The Karate Kid.”

Link of the Day
Two Michigan Corporations Named among 2005’s Top Corporate Human Rights Violators

Also...Japan is a small country when you look at it on the map, but boy does it take forever to get from one end to the other. I haven't been able to get back to Oita since this summer because of the distance.
This Japan Times article does a good job of describing this phenomenon.