Section Nine So White

You may have been confused by recent news reports saying that people are angry that Scarlett Johansson is not Asian. See, they're making a movie based on the classic manga series/anime movie Ghost In The Shell and she's going to be playing the lead role. But, like most anime, Ghost In The Shell is set in Japan, and about Japanese people. Coming on the heels of the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, this whitewashed casting didn't sit well with many people.

I was prepared to write a post about this. I wasn't going to defend the casting, but just to point out that it isn't racism per se, but rather it's America's uneasiness with foreign stuff. (Remember that it was only by JK Rowling's insistance that the Harry Potter movies were actually as British as the books.) I would then claim that in the unlikely event that Canadians made a movie Hollywood deemed worthy of remaking, they would probably insist on re-setting it on their side of the 49th. Then I'd point out that I don't condone this sort of soft-xenophobia, but that it's not as serious a charge as racism.

But now I find out that the upcoming movie hasn't been transplanted to the U.S. It's still set in Japan, with Japanese characters. That is, they're making a movie whose main character is named "Motoko Kusanagi", but we're just supposed to accept that she looks like Scarlett Johansson. Yes, I know, the character is a cyborg, you could easily explain that she has chosen a body that looks caucasian because she felt like it. Aside from not being real true to the character, that's the sort of fake-sounding exposition that jams up the audience's suspension of disbelief. But the fact is, the issue is apparently not making the movie more American, but more white.

To explain the casting, many people have resorted to money. The phrase, "you don't know how the industry works" seems to come up a lot. The idea is that there aren't any famous (in the West) Japanese actresses. First of all, that's hardly an excuse, it's merely a deflection, like my aforementioned planned post. But that line of reasoning has a few problems:

• They originally cast the significantly-less-famous Margot Robbie in the role
• When a movie's main draw is either special effects or a pre-established franchise, Hollywood is okay with a little-known star.
• Most of the major supporting players are white too.

So I really can't buy the explanations. It's expecially bewildering given how global the movie business has become. Hopefully the desire to bring in a world-wide audience will change some attitudes in Hollywood.

So Long, And Thanks For All The Tuna Roll

You may have seen the speech President Obama gave during his meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.  (Hey, spelled that right on the first try.)  It made the news because Obama thanked Japan for its many contributions to world culture, which he summed up as karate, karaoke, manga, anime, and emojis.

I hope this starts a precedent that countries will start formally acknowledging what others have given us.  I think that would help us to appreciate people from far away.  e.g. Hey Austria, thanks for Mozart and Red Bull.

But it also brings up something that people don't seem to notice: Japan has actually been pretty successful fighting back against the American cultural machine.  In fact, there are plenty of other things we can thank Japan for:

• Sushi
• Godzilla and other Kaiju
• Ramen
• Taking a few of our extra rock bands off our hands
• Cute robots
• Pocky
• Drifting
• The Walkman
• Saving video games after the Americans messed them up
• The Uncanny Valley
• The Power Rangers
• Yayoi Kusama
• Hello Kitty

Canadians Need To Stay Out Of Japan

Just the other day I was complimenting Japan, but now I find that as I was doing that, a couple of Canada's most famous citizens were embarrassing themselves there. Fortunately, few people noticed, because another famous Canadian decided to clean his pants.

First, Justin Bieber got in trouble for praying at a Japanese shrine. See, most countries with checkered military pasts have the good sense to make it well known that their war memorials are dedicated only to innocent victims and rank-and-file soldiers, not to the war criminals that led them. But Japan hasn't done this, and the Yasukuni Shrine memorializes the war criminals right along with everyone else.

Bieber apologized when this was pointed out to him. I may have criticized him in the past, but I find it hard to blame him here. Most of the other dumb things he's done were things he should have known better. But not knowing the controversial history of a shrine in another country? I can forgive him for that. What I find notable is that a twenty-year-old pop star with a history of bad decision-making handled the situation better than fifty years of Japanese politicians, who have visited the shrine unapologetically.

Meanwhile, Avril Lavigne has been accused of either racism or bad taste for her video for a song dedicated to Hello Kitty. I can't say whether or not it's racist, because the video was taken down from YouTube, and I don't want to watch it anyway. What it does tell me is: Lavigne's remaining fan base is in Japan, and there is no limit to how far she will go to stay popular with someone.

From the descriptions of the video, it doesn't sound racist so much as simplistic. We really need a term that can describe naive ignorance rather than actual hatred or prejudice.  People who think Mexico is full of Taco Bells.  Or more to the point, people who don't realize they don't know about a given country, and try to discuss it anyway.  It's annoying, but let's reserve inflammatory words like "racist" for people who have really earned it.

A Whale-Gorilla Of A Tale

I've mentioned before that the Japanese have a tendency to reaffirm their stereotypes. But to be fair, that's not always true. I figure Godzilla is a good example. He's not cute, and his back story has anti-technology undertones.
It's also interesting how the Japanese seem to understand him in a way that Americans don't. Back in the late nineties, there were American and Japanese reboots of the franchise. Based on stereotypes, you would expect the Japanese to be the ones that miss the point by applying all the technology they can. Yet, it was the Americans who tried to make it a realistic action movie, and the Japanese who realized that its just not Godzilla unless it's a guy in a rubber suit smashing model buildings. There even seemed to be a knowing sense of irony when they pointed out it was no mere man in a rubber suit, but an accomplished gymnast in a high-tech rubber suit.

But now the Americans are having another kick at the giant mutant can, and it looks like they're taking it as over-serious as ever, with post-apocalyptic scenes and heart-tugging over-acting. I'm not sure they considered the effect of our seeing these emotional scenes of devastation like something out of a war movie, only to the be told this is a Godzilla movie.

It's especially disappointing because there's so much you could do with Godzilla in our irony-aware world. Even if you insist on a realistic CGI monster, a tongue-in-cheek interpretation could be great. Say, have a story about a down-on-his-luck Godzilla reduced to arranged fights against Gamera in derelict neighborhoods of Detroit. It could be a great retelling of Rocky. Quentin Tarantino has got to be looking for new genres; who wouldn't pay to see his monster movie?

Turning Japanese

Well its finally happened: I saw the news reports about the little Japanese robot being sent to the space station, thought "I should blog about how stereotypically Japanese that is, then thought "that sounds familiar." I looked it up and sure enough, six months ago when the robot was first announced, I made a post just like that.

So this time I'll take a different angle. Since this robot looks like Robo-sapien crossed with Astro Boy, it's clear there is some pop-cultural influence here. I've heard that point before: Japan's tech-positive anime is in contrast to western movies where the machine is often the enemy, and that translates to their greater enthusiasm for robots. Really, it's hard to see the direction of causality here: are the Japanese robo-positive because their fictitious heroes drive giant robots, or does anime/manga freely use tech because that's what their public wants?

But I would like to think that culture can affect the progression of technology.  It seems that most often, our culture is shaped by the things we invent, and what we invent is just a result of a slow succession of one invention after another. In our world, we see China as a potential successor to the U.S., but for all the talk of their mystery and tradition, they seem to be building a modern world just like the one they're eclipsing. Meet the new superpower, same as the old superpower.

So I hope Japan is showing us that we can chose the nature of our future. For one thing, I hope the future really will be as cute as they will try to make it. But it also gives me some solace that I may have seen a preview of the future through our imaginings of it. I may not live to travel the stars, but at least I helped sow the cultural seeds that guarantee who ever does travel the stars will do so using something they'll call, "warp drive."

I See Great Pain In Your Future

So I just saw this story about a plastic surgeon in Japan who will alter the lines in your palm so that your fortune will be more desirable. (Warning: the link is predictably gross.)  But wait, there's more: the lines are made by burning them in.  Rather than go on a big rant, I'll just invite you to meditate on all the layers of stupidity that are present in this story.  Keep in mind that it could all turn out to be a hoax, so you can add cruel Internet hoaxes and the fact that we can no longer tell satire from reality as two more layers.

But just so you don't go away with no faith in humanity, here's a link about how an old Walmart in McAllen, Texas was turned into America's largest one-floor library.

Neo Tokyo, We Have a Problem

I came across this article about how the Japanese space agency is creating a robot to assist the Japanese astronaut who will soon be going to the International Space Station.  But this isn't some utilitarian machine to do esoteric technical work.  No, it's a cute, human shaped robot whose primary task is to make conversation and keep the astronauts company.

That's what love about Japan: I don't think there's any other country on earth that is as gloriously, unapologetically reaffirming of its own stereotypes.  The Americans didn't put gun racks on the shuttle.  The Russians didn't put a little spacecraft inside a bigger one inside a bigger one.  And the Chinese spacecraft, to my knowledge, was both expensive and made of non-toxic materials. 

Here in Canada, our greatest contribution to space exploration has been the Canadarm.  I suppose that's a little stereotypical: it's practical, it's not flamboyant, in a pinch it can be used as a bottle opener.