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

[Nornes, Markus]

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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