H-JAPAN (E): representations of blacknesS, Japanese & Korean Cinema

[Jasper Sharp]

This reminds me of PiFan festival in Puchon, Korea, when an American film curator, Dennis Nybeck, screened a whole load of politically incorrect American cartoons featuring racist stereotypes, films such as Disney's "Mickey's Treasure Island" and Warner Brothers "Coal Black and de Sebbun Dwarves" which the studios have long tried to suppress. The films were interesting time capsules from another less enlightened era, but I was surprised during the Q&A afterwards, when one of the Korean audience members asked why the films were seen as racially offensive, as "the black characters seemed happy and enjoying themselves".I guess in racially homogeneous societies there's never been the sort of racial suppression on a mass scale as in Europe or America, and with black people a very small and near invisible minority, its not such a sensitive area, and also audiences can't identify so much with the characters, hence they are usually portrayed in a one-dimensional, often comical light. The offensiveness of films such as Shinozaki's (I guess this must have been one of the later Deka Matsuri films) and Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl is really down to naivety on the part of the filmmakers.
I saw Hotel Hibiscus, and its an awfully twee drama set in Okinawa. As Brian has pointed out, one of the characters is mixed race, the illegitimate son of a GI. Beyond that, I don't remember much about it other than finding the film really irritating, with its cast of quirky and cute characters.
Jasper



Midnight Eye: The Latest and Best in Japanese Cinema
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Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 08:15:42 -0400
From: amnornes at umich.edu
To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Subject: Re: H-JAPAN (E): representations of blacknesS,  Japanese & Korean  Cinema





Re: H-JAPAN (E): representations of blacknesS,  Japanese & Korean  Cinema


Several years ago, Nippon Connection showed a really obnoxious film by Shinozaki Makoto. This is a director I respect, so I was really at a loss when the lights went up. I guess you’d call it a madcap parody of TV police/detective series. One of the main characters was a black detective, played by a Japanese actor in overt blackface. It traded on the worst kind of stereotypes. I think there’s even a scene where he eats watermelon out of the refrigerator at a crime scene. I could bee wrong about that, as I’ve tried hard to forget about the film. 



I complained to several (American and European) festival visitors about this (although couldn’t bring myself to bring it up with Shinozaki-san himself); however, they didn’t see the problem. This suggests that it might be a rich text to look at, as there may be some contradictions or ambivalences worth playing with. 



But I doubt it.



Markus









On 9/3/09 7:51 AM, "Brian Ruh" <brianruh at yahoo.com> wrote:



Just saw this review of the film "Minami no Shima no Furimun":

http://metropolis.co.jp/movies/eiga/minami-no-shima-no-furimun/



The film is set in Okinawa, and according to the review, "Worse than this highly unoriginal plot is the fact that all the (mainly black) GIs are violent, arrogant and abusive. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say the portrayal is outright racist."



Also, last week I sent an email to the list about "Hotel Hibiscus," another film set in Okinawa, but I never saw it come through. Here's what I wrote (apologies if it did make it through for others and you're seeing this for the second time):

Nakae Yuji's "Hotel Hibiscus" focuses on a family on Okinawa. The children in the family don't all have the same father (but they do have the same mother) -- one of them has an African-American father while another has a white American father. It's been a while since I've seen the film, but I don't think much is made of this except to note it in passing. Which could be noteworthy in itself.



== Brian





     




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