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Creative Commons License

Posted Tuesday, September 27, 2005 11:54 PM

Guest Blogger: Passenger 58

Memoirs of a Japanese Geisha Played By A Chinese Actress and a Cast of Chinese Actresses For White Audiences Who Don't Give A Damn About The Difference.

Hollywood and its racist film makers cannot be trusted with anything Asian. Ever. The corrupt Steven Spielberg's newest race bomb, "Memoirs of a Geisha", adds further insult to generations of injury.

Based on the Arthur Golden Asian-women-as-sex-object bestseller, it is no surprise that Spielberg, billions upon billions of dollar signs flashing in his very sick mind, is capitalizing on the larger Asian-women-as-sex-object megatrend. America loves hot Asian chicks, right? This is bad enough.

But the film stars Zhang Ziyi and Michelle Yeoh, the former the world's favorite hot Asian chick de jour. the second the world's favorite hot "Asian fighting chick", and together, the reunited cast of the overrated-as-hell "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". They team with Gong Li, the world's "classic" hot Asian chick. This, too, is all bad enough.

The glaring problem is that they are Chinese. They are Chinese.

Did Spielberg think, for one milisecond, that something is wrong with this? Perhaps Mr.Big and the gang do not think it is a huge insult to Japan, and Japanese acting talent all over the world, that he refused to cast Japanese people in a film about Japan, and Japanese people.

Did the three women feel any guilt? They should have. That is, unless their own billions of flashing dollar signs, and their racial ignorance, prevented them from comprehending. (Come to think of it, in "James Bond", Michelle Yeoh let herself be the sexual punch line of the film, which included straddling Pierce Brosnan while on a motorcycle. So any kind of sensitivity to these things may be too much to ask for.)

Reportedly, these Chinese women had to practice how to speak English with a Japanese accent. Let us all shudder to think about what that entailed.

Of course, this shit is nothing new. How many generations have bad Hollywood film and TV productions about Chinese been cast with Japanese, and vice versa? How many times have James Shigeta, Philip Ahn, Mako, Soon Tek-Oh, Tamlyn Tomita, etc. played Chinese? How many times have Keye Luke and James Hong been given roles as Japanese?

Of course, white people often haven't found it necessary to cast Asians as Asians. Not when you could yank a white actor's eye folds into slits, or have David Carradine star in "Kung Fu". Sure why not.

I can already see the stupid looks on white (men's) faces. Hey, who cares! Crack open another beer and pass the popcorn! Asian CHICKS! Asian sex slaves! Chinese, Jap, whatever. I like it!

I don't like it. And Asians like me, who believe that there is sanctity in integrity, in doing things right, will continue to wage war until we make it right.

 

The World According To   The Web

©2005 Ron Lim unless noted

 

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KEYWORDS: Ron Lim, Ron W. Lim, blog, art direction, advertising, photographs, illustration, Spider-man, Amazing Fantasy