Have you been following the recent debate about Asian representation in comic and graphic novel films? Recently it was announced that a live action version of Ghost in the Shell is coming out. The comic series was of course completely populated by Asians including the main character. However, it was also announced that the film version would star Scarlett Johansson and the filmmakers are going to digitally alter her to make her look Asian.
If this isn’t bad enough Marvel is going to make the long awaited film version of Dr. Strange and the only major Asian in the story, Strange’s mentor, the Ancient One, is going to be played by a white English female, Tilda Swinton. The film makers explained that they did not want to risk infuriating the Chinese market by portraying a heroic character from Tibet because China does not recognize it as a separate country,
Now I have nothing against Swinton and Johansson. As a matter of fact I like both of their work very much (who could forget Lost in Translation, Ghost World, Snow Piercer and Orlando? But this is all part of the infuriating Hollywood tradition to use white actors to play Asians. This happened when Christopher Lee and Boris Karloff played Fu Manchu numerous times (They’re both English), Peter Lorre played Mr. Motto (he’s Hungarian) and Werner Oland was Charlie Chan (he’s Swedish) sixteen times.
Even the Kung Fu TV series chose to make the main character, Kwai Chang Caine, of mixed descent (he had to be half white) and the comic book imitation Shanghai followed suit. But Shanghai was supposed to be Fu Manchu’s son. Why would Manchu who was supposed to be an Asian supremacist have a child with a white woman? It makes no sense.
I did like Carradine in the role quite a bit and you can go here to see my interview with him.
One of the funniest fake previews in Grindhouse makes fun of how Hollywood uses inappropriate actors to play other ethnicities. Watch this hilarious clip to see Nicholas Cage as Fu Manchu.
There were also a few famous Hollywood actors that were Asians like Anna May Wong and Nancy Kwan got some parts but they were often stereotypical roles (the geisha or seductive mysterious femme fatale). Machiko Kyō and Toshiro Mifune also got some big Hollywood parts but they did most of their best work for Asian film makers. I have to admit I really liked Anna May Wong in Piccadilly.
I CAN understand why the Mandarin was changed into a non-Asian in an Ironman film because in the comics he was a stereotypical long nailed mysterious martial arts using Fu Manchu type (The only problem is during most of Ironman’s history he was the major villain and unlike Batman or Spiderman ironman never had many good villains.) Why couldn’t the film makers just make him a little more complex and multidimensional instead of taking the easy way out?
It still bothers me that the movie studios would go so out of their way to avoid casting Asians for roles they are ideal for. Now I think I might go watch A Touch of Evil (which stars Charlton Heston as a Mexican) or West Side Story (Natalie Wood as a Puerto Rican).
** “goodnight, sweet prince/and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest” –Shakespeare’s Hamlet
By now everyone knows that Prince has passed on prematurely and unexpectedly last week and off course the internet was filled with tributes and announcements.
A friend of mine invited me to meet her at the Beauty Bar on Chicago Avenue to experience a Prince themed music night (I think it’s their third one they had there.) I wore a purple shirt (One woman there even seem to have purple skin but it might have been the light) and I even danced a bit (I do this about once every ten years.) The DJ played Prince songs all night (even the one sung by Sinead O’Connor) and there were projected princely images on the wall near the dance floor. Many of the people there were so young that they looked like they were not alive during Prince’s heyday.
I have to echo what everyone has said. Prince was a multi-talented genius and very few solo artists have written so many enduring songs or achieved so much simultaneous popularity and critical acclaim.
Despite the ascendance of great college rock bands in the 80’s (like REM, X, and Sonic Youth) and the continued success of Bruce Springsteen and Michael Jackson, Prince practically owned the radio during those years. No single artist was both so creative and finally successful during those years. I have to admit this even though I don’t like any one Prince album as much as London Calling or It Tales a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back.
You have to remember when Purple Rain came out Prince had the number one film, the number one album, and the number one single in the country. That’s never been equaled, not even Elvis achieved that. One of my colleagues at Daley said Kurt Cobain was probably the last rock star, but his output is pretty measly compared to Prince’s (of course you can say the same thing about the Sex Pistols.)
Unfortunately the purple reign ended in the early ‘90s and about 90 percent of Prince’s most memorable music was created between 1980 and 1989. I think Prince’s problem was that in the late 80’s the first great wave of militant rap exploded and artists like Public Enemy, NWA and the Wu Tang Clan made Prince seem old fashioned, trite, and out of touch. The purple one tried to incorporate hip-hop in his songs but it did not work out that well. Prince still made some great singles after 1990 (his old stuff sounds better than ever) but they often sounded a bit rehashed.
I’m sorry I never got a chance to see him live. I once tried to score tickets for a show and they sold out in three minutes.
After the Prince night I went to see the new Miles Davis film. More on that later. I might also put in some stuff in my next blog about the death of Namor and where the Atlantis myths come from.
