Sundry linkage

[oyceter]

1. Some spoilers for PotC3 in the first two links!
   
   Pam Noles and Angry Asian Man perfectly articulate why I will not be watching Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, particularly after the welcoming and inclusive comments from fandom the last time around.
   
   (Dude, I so just broke Vee's Law! 'Elp, 'elp, I'm being oppressed!)



2. For anyone interested, I've been updating my Wiscon reports with additional links to other write ups and transcripts when I can find them. I think I am also done writing up panels; there are one or two more that I went to, but I didn't take notes and don't have much to say about them.



3. Also, here's more on Brian Dennehy as Kublai Khan. My bad; I had it down as Genghis Khan. Note also how there is an Asian actor in the film, but only as a sidekick.



4. In more fannish news, kate_nepveu has started watching Princess Tutu! Well, that and some others, but I am most excited about my dancing duck. Spoil her and die!



5. And! sophia_helix has started to watch Honey & Clover!!!! I think my squeeing last night may have woken some people up! Some day I may be less excited when people watch H&C, but apparently today is not the day.

Comments

[vee-fic.livejournal.com]

Dude, I so just broke Vee's Law

Protecting oneself against homicidal rage is not quite the same as claiming oppression. It is not that The Evol Intarwebs are disallowing you from speaking; it is that you have chosen not to engage in this particular conversation. (So as not to be arrested for murder.)

We at Vee's Law endorse the absence of murder.

[oyceter]

Hee! I am glad Vee's Law is all for the lack of homicidal rage.

[kate_nepveu]

Arrgh. I gather just from the links what the problem with _PotC3_ is, which I'd worried about when I saw a regular newspaper review commenting on it, but I want to know what happens and had pretty well decided to go see it this weekend.

*conflicted*

You will, however, be pleased to hear that another _Princess Tutu_ post should be forthcoming tonight.

[oyceter]

Heh, yeah. Though if you do go see it, I'd love to know what you thought! I've seen a fair amount of feminist commentary online for the movie, but next to no anti-racist commentary (aside from the anti-racist blogosphere).

Also TUTU YAY!

[fireriven.livejournal.com]

Pirates of the Caribbean: At Wit's End made me froth at the mouth, but mainly about feminist issues (http://fireriven.livejournal.com/592146.html) since I've always been nervous about discussing racism and am just now dipping my toes into that realm of conversation.

[oyceter]

Oh yes! I've seen some commentary in other places about the feminist issues as well, but I haven't seen much commentary on the racial issues, outside of the anti-racist blogosphere.

So yeah, now that I am thoroughly spoiled (by my own choice), I think I may watch it on DVD so I can safely scream at my TV without annoying anyone ;).

[cofax7]

Wow, the picture of Dennehy in that link. !!!! So. Totally. Awful. And I kind of like Brian Dennehy, but dude! What were you thinking!

It's like, if someone called me and offered me the role of Pocahontas (in an alternate reality where I am an actress, you understand). I mean, honestly: No.

[oyceter]

I know! So bad!

[chi-zu.livejournal.com]

I saw PoC3 with a friend who was excited about seeing it opening day. I hadn't heard anything going into it about anything, so I was blithely unaware.

HERE THERE BE SPOILERS (highlight to read):

[oyceter]

Oof, yeah.

Also, I mean, I was really excited by the second one too, despite the racial issues. Complicated brains are good!

[fireriven.livejournal.com]

See, I thought the female Pirate Lord was Chinese as well, but my friends are insisting she's meant to be Japanese. The fact that one viewing leaves me so unsure about their intended effect frustrates me and seems telling of the designer's understanding of the differences in Japanese and Chinese culture.

[chi-zu.livejournal.com]

Really? People think she's supposed to be Japanese?

Looking up the cast on imdb, the character is listed as Mistress Ching played by Takayo Fischer. I wonder if this is where the confusion lies, since the name Takayo indicates to me Japanese descent. According to this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brethren_Court#Mistress_Ching) she a Chinese character.

In the theater I remember being surprised that there were two Chinese pirate lords (her and Shao Feng). Usually you just get the token one, so a Japanese lord would make sense. However, the name and the way she was styled all read Chinese to me. I actually think that Penny Rose (the costume designer) did a great job of inventing something based on reality. The hair actually looked Chinese to me as opposed to Japanese, and the make-up seems pretty clearly derived from the Peking opera style. The motifs on her robe also look Chinese-based as opposed to Japanese to me. There's a picture here (http://movies.yahoo.com/summer-movies/Pirates-3/1808713062/photos/95/2507). It feels well-researched to me in the sense of looking at what was around at the time, and then imagining what a pirate might do with it. Believe me, I am hard on designers who don't get it right (Memoirs of a Geisha anyone?), in this case, I think Rose did a great job. She even made the actress's features read ethnically Chinese to me instead of Japanese (I think that her headshot on imdb reads Japanese).

I didn't mean to geek out on this so much, I'm a costume designer, so I'm into this stuff. I realize I don't know your friends, so I could be completely off-base, but maybe they are a little shaky on the boundaries between Chinese and Japanese culture? Which are fluid at best, and certainly both have borrowed from the other over time. I myself descend from a little bit of both and have studied each culture to a certain extent, more than the average American I would say, and sometimes I have trouble distinguishing. It's something I'm sensitive about though because so often people misattribute things to one culture or another. And even though I know that it can be difficult, it also frustrates me because of the American tendency to lump all Asian cultures together and just plain get it wrong. Even when we try hard to be right. To me, the fact that audiences are reading the character as Japanese in this instance speaks more to the lack of general knowledge of the differences between Chinese and Japanese culture than to the work of the designer. ymmv of course.

[chi-zu.livejournal.com]

because I am getting my geek on and can't shut up...

What I did have a problem with was Sao Feng's posse of silent "geisha" girls and the way they were depicted and styled. 1) Geisha, wrong culture. 2) Incorrect idea of what a geisha is. 3) Silent, servile, sexualized Asian women AGAIN, gah!

I don't know how much of this to attribute to Rose or the director. But that is the biggest problem I had with the movie racially.

[oyceter]

I love your costume designer geekery so much!

As someone who doesn't know much, what usually distinguishes Peking opera style from the geisha makeup? I know Peking opera seems more pink to me (esp. the really stylized ones), but I don't really know.

[chi-zu.livejournal.com]

Ho boy, and now we're pushing the boundaries of my knowledge. I only know enough to say, "I know it when I see it."

But as best I can articulate, Peking Opera has specific make-up plots for specific characters. It's closer to western clown make-up in the sense that each face is unique and recognizable to a audience literate in that tradition. So there are many different looks in Chinese opera vs. the handful of proscribed levels of make-up for maiko to geisha. I feel that the features are bolder in opera make-up and that though some faces are pretty plain, they tend to be more elaborate and graphic than geisha make-up. Geisha make-up--like Japanese bridal make-up--aims for an effect of almost mask-like blankness. You're right too about the pink. Levels/amounts of pink used in opera make-up indicate certain things about the character, I think femininity and delicacy might be one of them, but I don't remember. So the opera make-up is often tinted in gradients while geisha make-up (on the face) aims for a purity of whiteness (though I think these is some sort of faint, faint blush, but I'm not sure). However, the nape of the geisha as the most eroticized point of the body is often painted in amazingly beautiful hot pink gradients like a deep flush.

One of the things that makes me think that Mistress Ching's make-up comes from the Chinese Opera tradition is the calligraphic nature of the black strokes used to define her features. Geisha make-up tends to be more smooth and even and indeed seems to me, to attempt to smooth out the features of the face in general. Whereas opera make-up tends to heighten them almost to the level of caricature.

The other thing that says Chinese opera to me is the dab of red in the middle of her lower lip. Now, I could be totally wrong on this one, but I think that this is one of those things that is often misattributed to Japanese culture. My understanding of the geisha mouth is that it's like the bee-stung mouth of the 1920's, drawn within the lines of the lips so that it appears smaller but still mouth-shaped. Some Chinese opera mouths just have the line down the middle and I think that's where Mistress Ching's mouth comes from. Though as mentioned, of all the things I've said in this comment, this last is the one I'm most unsure of. Maiko might do the small dab on the lower lip too, I don't know. I know a lot less about that.

[chi-zu.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, a more direct counterpoint to the Chinese opera make-up is Kabuki make-up which I know even less about but seems to follow similar principals. Even there though, the faces feel simpler and more graphic to me than the Chinese ones. Which feels in keeping with my understanding of the two aesthetics. To make a broad generalization (bad chi-zu!), the Japanese aesthetic tends towards the clean and minimal, the Chinese towards the almost cluttered pattern on pattern. At its best it's ravishing in its detail, at its worst, it's crap piled on top of more crap to the point of gaudy. Which I like! Sometimes I'm not that subtle.

[oyceter]

Oh, cool! Yeah, now I'm starting to remember a bit more about the mask-like effect of opera. I do remember things like how white is for villains and that Guan Gong from Romance of the Three Kingdoms always has a red face, and I can always figure out the Monkey costume, but that's about it!

The thing that confused me a little about the pink was that I remember reading that geisha also put dabs of pinkish make-up on as well, but I don't think nearly as much as in Peking opera. And I didn't know about the mouth! That is cool! All I know is that geisha do the cupid's bow thing (except not a cupid's bow), or sometimes they just paint the lower lip. Er, at least that's what I remember.

Now I sort of actually want to watch Peking opera, even though I never quite got the singing before.

[chi-zu.livejournal.com]

I have a vague memory of geisha tinting the cheek area as well, but I don't know if I'm just making that up or not. If they do, it's much much subtler than the Chinese opera's use of blush. It kind of cracks me up, "I'm blushing delicately" is represented with, "flaming hot pink cheeks of femininity!!!" hee!

I know that when brides paint in their top lip it's called a yama because it looks like a mountain.

Yeah, I used to never get Peking opera at all, but now that I've studied it a teensy bit, it's totally fascinating! I would love to see some live in the more traditional, pre-reform style.

[oyceter]

Oh! That yama thing is cool, thanks!

Also, hee to the "flaming hot pink cheeks of femininity"!

[fireriven.livejournal.com]

I really appreciate this reply! When I left the theatre, I was pretty comfortable in thinking of her as Chinese. It was only in memory, once my friends had spent some time arguing about her being Japanese that I started to wonder what I had seen.

[chi-zu.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'm glad to be helpful as opposed to annoying!

When you brought up the discrepancy I started to wonder if I was remembering things clearly too. Hence having to look stuff up. Though I do have distinct memories of paying close attention to what she looked like and deciding that she was Chinese.