Message from dnakashima

[Anonymous]

There was also a controversy concerning an actor named Jonathan Pryce playing an Asian man a while ago (Miss Saigon, I think). I don't really think it's right to create more borders in a world already saturated with imagined borders between individuals, groups, and nations. I find non traditional casting interesting but something like the Mickey Rooney role or the minstrel blackface is offensive because the intent is to ridicule a group of people. There's no malice in Zhang Yiyi playing that part from the actress but I find it interesting that (and I only heard this) that the director did not feel that he could find a single Japanese actress to play the part. What does that mean exactly?

I have not read the book, seen the movie, nor have I read much about it. I have heard that the author is a white guy (is he American?) speaking from the voice of a Geisha woman from Japan. Now that's a more bizarre circumstance than a Texan playing a Londoner but I still feel like it's his right to write. This is first amendment stuff here. I haven't heard that his intent was to mock or caricature the Geisha. However, there was a professor at grad school who proclaimed that he spoke from the voice and took the positionality of a poor, black lesbian. What I think he wanted to mean by that was he was down with the most oppressed of the oppressed. The funny feeling I had about him saying that was that what he said is what he wanted that group to say. He wanted to put words in their mouths. I also sort of felt sorry for him because I think he felt he lacked credibility because of his white man identity. See what I mean? too many borders.

I would not want to think that I could not write a book from the point of view of anyone: animal, vegetable or mineral. By the way, I'm writing all your autobiographies. dan[Edit by="dnakashima on Jan 6, 5:20:51 PM"][/Edit]