When I put together last Sunday's Link Tilt-A-Whirl I posted a link to a great essay on James Cameron's Avatar on SF/pop culture site site io9 by its editor Annalee Newitz called "When Will White People Stop making Movies Like Avatar?" When I was reading the essay myself I became fascinated with the comment thread, which hummed with indignation at the very premise that an SF film might have a racial (let alone racist) subtext. I found this notably odd since, in the case of Avatar, the aliens are animist, face-painted, bow-and-arrow wielding warriors, so it shouldn't take much effort to see them as proxy Native Americans/First Nations peoples. And also--as I noted in my post-- analyzing SF cultural products is the entire point of the site, so why the incredulity?
I liked the writing on io9 despite the weirdo comments so I went back to visit and was pleased to read another of Newitz's posts--this one reiterating a question posed by Lisa Katayama on Boing Boing: "Why Do Westerners Fetishize Japan's Futuristic Weirdness?" Katayama writes, " Why do so many love to gawk at this mysterious, foreign "other" that is Japanese culture? There are plenty of strange things going on in the US too, but when it happens in Japan, it's suddenly incomprehensible, despicable, awesome, and crazy. This fascination doesn't just end with angry commenters, either. Over the last couple of decades, it has spawned a huge industry of magazines, blogs, and products themed around Japanese culture marketed to Westerners by Westerners who are also obsessed with Japanese culture . . ." Katayama's point, that Westerners often misunderstand the attitude of the Japanese toward their own culture, which is apparently almost entirely less serious than the Westerners who enshrine it, is an interesting one. But I am again fascinated by the comment thread which followed Newitz's post, which again... lets go with "struggled"... with the concept of locating race in popular culture. The angry blind spot where racial representations live for these SF fans is exemplified by the following exchange between poster "Tenacious-G" and editor Newitz:
Tenacious-G
12/17/09
I think this is just another instance of someone manufacturing an excuse to become offended. Personally, I thought shows like Firefly and movies like Bladerunner were a positive depiction of Eastern cultures. Remember, the people bitching about this are the same people who complain that Americans are isolationist and refuse to have anything to do with other cultures. Besides, it's OKAY to think another culture is weird. Weird doesn't mean wrong.
Tenacious-G
12/17/09 @Annalee Newitz: You've got a point there. I guess I never noticed that they didn't have any actual Asians. I did think it was neat how Asian influences were worked into the show, though. However made up the actual words may have been.
To summarize: Actual Eastern peoples are not necessary for a "positive depiction of Eastern cultures" and if you argue otherwise, you are "manufacturing an excuse to become offended."
Yeah, okay.
12/17/09 @Annalee Newitz: You've got a point there. I guess I never noticed that they didn't have any actual Asians. I did think it was neat how Asian influences were worked into the show, though. However made up the actual words may have been.
To summarize: Actual Eastern peoples are not necessary for a "positive depiction of Eastern cultures" and if you argue otherwise, you are "manufacturing an excuse to become offended."
Yeah, okay.
I try to avoid reading comments on Gawker affliate websites like io9 and Jezebel. It always makes me want to smash the computer monitor in anger.
ReplyDeleteThat is probably a good policy.
ReplyDeleteHey, Joe. I'm a fan of the show Avatar and I'm one of many fans of color who is boycotting the film because of the casting decisions. Avatar actually borrows heavily from various Asian cultures across ages and dynasties (particularly the Fire Nation ). The clothes, make-up and social rituals (they have tea cermonies, ancestor worship and martial arts - I mean, come the fuck on...)are undeniably Asian. Also, the Water Nation definitely shares strong similarities to "traditional" (problematic concept, I know) Inuit culture, and other Northern cultures that might be understood as Asian as well. I guess that's where it gets tricky, as our understandings of nations and continents and borders become more fluid when those things are defined by people and culture. At any rate, whatever the Avatar characters are, what they most emphatically are NOT supposed to be is European.
ReplyDeleteFiqah,
ReplyDeleteIt would be great to contrast Cameron's Avatar with the live action version of Avatar: the last airbender. I wrote a bit about the airbender controversy before when I posted about the Asian American Comicon.
(http://vsthepomegranate.blogspot.com/2009/07/pop-mythology-buying-and-selling-report.html)
I wrote: "The offense stems not only from the white washed casting, but from the purposeful re- imagining of an entire SF/Fantasy universe that was based on a panoply of Asian and Inuit cultures into a European one. For PoC fans of SF/Fantasy, who often have to endure racist and ethnocentric content embedded in their fiction ::cough:: Lord of the Rings Trilogy ::cough:: Avatar was a rare opportunity to see a PoC fantasy universe realized."
The thing about the comment thread(s) at io9 that fascinates me is when folks (PoC and not--Annalee Newitz is white) point out these dynamics they get so ANGRY. It's mystifying to me.
Eep, I totally forgot about that! Sorry, that was an excellent analysis. And you're right, folks DO get upset when this is brought to their attention. Nezua at the Unapologetic Mexican susses this out brilliantly in too many posts to link, stating that de-centering Whiteness - or challenging its faux normativity - inspires this brand of rage. Hmmm. I'm gonna link a coupla of your posts now.
ReplyDeleteFiqah,
ReplyDeleteNo worries, I don't expect anyone to keep track of all of my posts about everything. I only reiterated it because you are right: this is pervasive up to and including stuff that hasn't even been released yet, like Last Airbender. And that is the flip side of the (to me) bizarre anger of some SF/fantasy fans-- racist subtexts are everywhere in those media but we aren't supposed to say so. So it becomes like the elephant in the room. Ugh.
But hey, link away.