gah, stupid geisha movie

[keryx]

Aside from the one scene that looks like some kind of fascinating Butoh musical theatre performance, I have no interest in seeing Memoirs of a Geisha. Please stop showing me the preview, movie theaters (I've been to theaters like 6 times in the past two weeks, virtually unheard of for me).

I don't care if Margaret Cho likes it (okay, she just likes the Idea of It), the book always struck me as more of the same exoticism of Asian women that you can get anywhere. Like a Victor Hugo novel with the New Modern Twist of being about a Hot Asian Prostitute (not that it's even true of the geisha tradition, though it seems to be what western culture thinks). Oh, look at her being exploited! Isn't it tragic?

Ironically, I think a big part of why I grew up comfortable in a variety of cultures despite my whiiiiiteness has something to do with exoticizing Asian women. I lived in military housing much of my childhood, and many of my friends were half-Filipina, half-Samoan, half-Korean, half-Japanese - half, in short, lots of racial groups that were colonized a thousand times [excepting Japan] and later essentially occupied by the American military. And the non-white halfs of my friends' families, not all that surprisingly, were invariably their moms. It's a weird sort of multiculturalism, the white, young sailor & his brown family: I mean, they were real, normal (in the sense of being actual people & not wacky fantasies) families, but I wonder how much their presence in the military community was about the normal & how much was about the Exotic Asian Woman thing.

The western thing with geisha in specific and Asian women in general is so squicky and bleh-ick-nasty-taste-in-my-mouth. I have a very hard time divorcing that book or that movie from it. Am I seeing something wrong? Is it actually some sort of great, fabulous celebration of Japanese culture, or somehow just a story totally devoid of that Exotic Asian Woman shit?

I don't know. It's not entirely for me to decide, of course. But I still don't plan to see it.

Comments

[snidegrrl.livejournal.com]

I totally feel ya on this one.

[peregrin8.livejournal.com]

me too.

[libskrat]

I had to convert this sucker to an ebook Back In The Day, so I read more of it than I really wanted to. If you remove the Exotic Asian Woman shit, what's left is an incredibly pedestrian revenge/love tale that not even Harlequin would publish.

So, basically, you're right.

[firecat]

I confess to having really loved the book up until the Harlequin-romancesque ending...but I think I'm just kind of indiscriminate when it comes to entertainment featuring Japan/Japanese people. (I also liked Shogun.) I certainly wouldn't recommend the book as feminist or non-exploitative. I don't plan to see the movie.

Blah

[attrice.livejournal.com]

I hated the book. It was just so damn...ignorant..condescending...insipid. I don't really have a problem with men writing women's stories but he was way out of his league. It was like a man's fantasy of a geisha. Lost and beautiful, schooled in the art of love, but never demanding or angry or..well, human. Cannot hate this book enough.

I hope the movie bombs.

[zhenzhi.livejournal.com]

i have met REAL geisha in japan, through one of the jobs i had when i lived there (nightclub)
the ones i met were older... even elderly... and one thing i really admired was how they were more valued and more revered the older they were. to hire the company of these older geisha was much much more expensive than the younger "pretty" ones. without exception (those i met) were articulate, educated, funny and very down to earth. their artistic accomplishments were masterful... music, calligraphy, dance... really amazing and wonderful women.
though i never had the chance to broach the subject of "were you expoited?" or not.
i did read somewhere that the geisha the author of that book used the story of, was mortified about how she was portrayed in the book... she felt she (and geisha in general) were misrepresented as victims, when the case was, they were proud of their achievements and the honour bestowed upon them by society. it is easy for us to judge from a western viewpoint.... they see it in an entirely different way. if i remember rightly, she was planning on publishing her own memoirs by way of correction (which she had not considered to do before).

but the asian women thing...... hmmmm. both my brothers have asian wives. but then, i had a japanese husband (ex, my partner now is european descent), and my mum is married to an indonesian (not my father).
although i would like to think differently, i have seen first hand that some males find asian women less threatening to their "masculinity" and therefore more sexually attractive than a woman from a more female empowered culture. and i find that really offensive and sexist and immature.
interesting post.... i will stop my comment here, but this is a subject i have often pondered on myself. :-)

[peregrin8.livejournal.com]

wow, that is very interesting about the older geishas -- not at all what I would have thought, based on the stereotypes we get here. (And I hope that woman does write her own memoirs!)

[zhenzhi.livejournal.com]

some of them are classed as "national living treasures" in japan. i think they really deserve this title. :-)

but japanese woman's general infantasization (spelling?!).... it's completely heinous! :-/

[luna-littleone.livejournal.com]

To understand Geisha culture there are more factual books out there.

Geisha's do not perform sexual acts it is service.
Hence probably why I enjoy it and the concept.

[jadelennox]

See, I'm going to see it, even though I'm also pissed off by Exotic Asian stereotypes (at one company I worked at, every single married white programmer was married to an Asian woman. And while I can't point at any one couple and say "your relationship is unhealthy" and I'm sure most of them were good healthy relationships, the Japanophilia in geek culture is freaking disturbing. To be fair, in recent years, it's geek *girls* exoticizing what they see as effeminate Japanese men ("oh they are so kawaii!" they cry, right before I smack them down).

But I'm going to see the movie because, even though Zhang Ziyi and Michelle Yeoh will not actually have swords or kick any ass, I know they *can*. Same reason I'm going to see the new Zorro movie, even though it looks lame. If someone kicks ass with a sword, I adore them. If said someone is a man in black or a hot hot woman, I fall in love for all time.

Then I will hate the movie because in my heart I will be expecting them to break out the whoop-ass at any moment.

[varsil.livejournal.com]

Also, to be fair, there are plenty of other reasons for the white geek with asian girlfriend thing other than the Exotic Asian stereotypes.

Namely, the pool of women who share will date geeks, and who share geek interests tends to be racially skewed. I can go into reasons why that is, but it doesn't change the basic fact there.

This isn't to say that the exotic thing isn't at play, but I've heard far fewer geeks talk about going out and scoring an asian girl than I've heard non-geeks say the same things, mostly because the geeks tend to be trying their damndest to meet /anyone/.