Week 6, Friday. Kato, chpt 3: Mutiny in the Global Village

“As if it were attempting to sea the leakage of ‘reality’ from the factory of fantasy, Hollywood resorted to every possible means to eradicate the voices of labor. It ranged from an outright violent repression- deploying thugs, private police, and the (social) department (in case of Warner Brothers)- to the use of collaborative unions, and, most significantly, the rhetoric of ‘anti-communism’” (page 75).

While it is important to look at the lack of representation in films when it comes to oppressed people it is also important to look at the representations that do exist, especially when there is an overlapping theme among those who portray characters. On page 74 there is a quote on motion pictures being silent propaganda; a visual stimulant that one subconsciously takes with them past the time the screen is turned off. I once heard that Leave it to Beaver‘s June Cleaver was meant to show women who had “forgotten their place” outside of the home post-WWII how incredible the pumps-and-pearls lifestyle was. It was meant to remind them how glorious it was to be a stay-at-home mother and wife. Of course, the “them” that was being reminded of this American dream were not those who had already found the dream one they weren’t allowed to experience in waking life. Looking back, we can clearly see how the absence of opportunity and representation for women of color was exhibited through a women meant to represent only the white, middle-class family. And, in this representation the propaganda for who was middle-class, who was pumps-and-pearls, an who was the all American wife was obvious.

It is through this form of representation that stereotypes and type-casting becomes problematic. On page 104, Kato describes how the extras for what seems to be the “bad guy’s posse” were contrived of Chinese addicts without housing in Hong Kong. Not only does this give us a view on how people treat those with addictions (immediate villains)and in poverty but it creates this face-to-the-lifestyle sort of propaganda. Our subconscious remembers the bad guy from on screen and moves that image out of Hollywood. And as discussed through pages 100-104, there is a large amount of concealing the reality of those images that goes into the production of the film. No one wants to see the green screen, and that is understandable, but it’s the “Disneyland myth” in terms of labor that proves to have the negative impacts; “[...]where the trace of labor, not to mention of resistance, is completely erased in the final product” (page 104). The viewer begins to become disassociated with the labor that is necessary for the product and this issue expands into clothing and food production (among others).

However, there remains to be activism through alternative methods . I looked into this when researching the art that came from the American Japanese Internment Camps during World War II and found that by discrediting resistance that does not fit the common definition, we are erasing both the voice and the courage that came through the art. On pages 89 and 108, we are given examples of how Hendrix and Lee (respectively) used their power as pop culture icon and their art to fight back as activists.

Paper Lanterns

Paper lanterns are pretty and we often see them for decoration here, but they have a lot of symbolism in China. Every year China has their lantern festival during the 15th day of the first lunar month… which happened to land on Valentines day this year…just a few days ago!

The lamps were first made during the Han dynasty, and were first just used for lighting. They would make them out of bamboo and red silk or paper because red resembles good fortune and joy in China. Later, the monks would light the lanterns to worship Buddha. The Emperor had everyone light the lanterns to worship Buddha. This later became a custom, and everyone would light the lanterns to celebrate and represent their strong and prosperous country. Now the lamps are mainly used for decoration during the year, and for the Lantern Festival. Traditions during the Lantern Festival are watching the lanterns, guessing lantern riddles, eating Yuanxio (rice ball with fillings) and doing different folk dances like the lion dance.

There are 5 different lanterns and they each are used for something different. The smallest one is “The Baby’s Bottom” they are used with Christmas lights on a tree. (In modern times of course) The second is the “Rolling Paper” they are the cylinder shaped ones and they are most commonly at restaurants. The third one is the “Big Red” which is the classic one we are all used to seeing. The fourth one is “Crystal Magic” and they are the geometrically shaped lanterns. Finally the fifth lantern is “Buddha’s Gastronomy” they are the largest and are seen in temples and at festivals.

Kung Fu Documentaries

For the first film Shaolin Ulysses:Kung Fu Monks in America, it focused on Chinese monks that came from a real Shaolin Temple in China and them came to the states to spread the teachings of martial arts. The word shaolin translates to “little forrest” and that the style of Kung Fu is based off of 5 animals and their characteristics. Animals and earths elements, by the Chinese, are believed to be what embodies kung fu.

Tiger- becomes strong, quick, and direct: it strengthens bone marrow and build muscle.

Leopard-speed, energy, and has an angular attack.

Crane-becomes stable and trains with concentration, accuracy, and is evasive.

Snake-becomes very fast, sensitive and aware; it prolongs life and builds the chi body.

Dragon-becomes powerful, light, quick; and trains the spirit of the mind.

When you learn Kung Fu, you need to learn Buddhism, and for that you need to seek a master. Kung Fu is a fusion of the body and mind, they need to be clear, peaceful, and centered.

During the cultural revolution of china, a lot of Chinese people were feeling oppressed because their leader Mao was trying to go back to the “traditional ways”. Shortly after the cultural revolution a Jet Li film had come out and that’s when martial arts gradually became popular.

Martial arts is a very male dominated activity/study. Women can participate however they are not allowed to wear the Monks robes. To even join in the Shaolin Temple, you have to be endorsed by 3 masters if you want to do kung fu.

For the second film “The Black Kung Fu Experience” as the title described, it was about african americans during the Kung Fu movement. Back in the 1960′s, civil rights for african americans pride became a huge movement in the south. However, there was still an influx of racism from whites towards the blacks.

In this documentary, their stories illustrate how kung fu began and remain as a unique part of the black experience. In particular, kung fu’s themes of the underdog triumphing against the odds resonated in black communities across the United States.

The Black Kung Fu Experience

The Black Kung Fu Experience. I enjoyed this movie. I liked how they were able to share their gifts of loving Kung Fu to younger kids. I loved how the man give his kids accomplishment bands when they got B’s in school. It taught the kids that learning Kung Fu wasn’t enough but learning and getting good grades was. I think sometimes as athletes we assume that doing that sport is good enough, that it will get you somewhere. Its really good that these men taught them that it wasn’t good enough to just be an athlete.

I enjoyed this movie because the man was able to talk about his experience as a black man in the army during the segregation. Hearing his story was so crazy. He was nearly beaten to death for not seating at the end of the bus and was left to die in Vietnam. We hear stories about black men going to the War overseas and in America (fighting for their rights) but never hear about how they got over the horrible things what happened when all the wars stopped. He was able to use Kung Fu as a stress reliever, or a coping mechanism. I think that is great. Telling the story and being able to teach others.

Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune <3

The time has come to explore this side of Sailor Moon. This is the side of Sailor Moon that most fans are aware of but I wanted to bring some light to those who may not be as big of fan as Sailor Moon as I or others might be.

Ah yes the long awaited topic on the homosexual couple in the Sailor Moon series. Let me give you some back info here, so in “Sailor Moon S” we are introduced to some new characters Haruka Tenou and Michiru Kaio (Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune) who are genius high school students who excel in the actitivies they are passionate in and are ALWAYS together. These characters are known to the Sailor gang as just the most beautiful people they know.

Neptune and Uranus

When we see the characters first appearance out of fighting uniform, Haruka (blonde, short hair) is wearing a boys school uniform and refers to themselves with ‘he’ pronouns.The Sailor crew and the audience go wild for him! Then, it’s revealed that Haruka is actually biologically female and this completely shocks the crew but for how long? Literally a few minutes and then Haruka’s gender is pretty much never mentioned again. The unfortunate side here though is that even though Haruka prefers to wear mens clothing and refers to himself with male pronouns, when he transforms into a Sailor Soldier, he is put into the same uniform as the rest of the soldiers. I can’t imagine how uncomfortable he felt wearing that.

The relationship between Haruka and Michiru in the Japanese version only hints to the two’s intimate relationship with each other. We never see them kiss, but they profess quite a few times the type of love they feel for each other and even showing jealousies towards other women or men who flirt with them.

So, how did their relationship change when brought over to America?

LET’S MAKE THEM COUSINS INSTEAD!

*headdesk*

Dark blue states represents legal first cousin marriage

Well when you think about it, that makes sense to change a homosexual relationship into an incestial relationship because marriage by incest is legal in more states than marriage by same sex. Still though, a lot of young kids who were watching the American version scratched their head at this because if these two were cousins then they were REALLY, REALLY into each other and in my opinion, that made me MORE uncomfortable than the version I was watching from Japan.

Cousin Marriage source

everything is a mess when you hide all the lies

Black Dynamite

As I said earlier in the week, I intended to make my obsession post this week about Black Dynamite. It wasn’t until I actually looked into it that I realized it was not only an animated series, but it’s also a movie, one that though styled as if in the 60s or 70s actually came out in 2009. It even has cheesy moments, where they do a close up of a woman’s face and she’s smoking but when she exhales there’s no smoke, and her cigarette isn’t lit.

I believe the film was meant to be a comedy when it was made, and it’s certainly as comedic as possible – not to mention creative. It’s done quite a bit differently than a lot of old kung-fu movies, but still retains much of the classic feel of kung-fu films.

The tv series, however, I felt was a little more straight-forward in their comedy. The film wasn’t exactly subtle, but the series went to a whole new level of extreme. They say ninja instead of nigger, have Michael Jackson being an extreme abusive in the first ten minutes of the series (later revealed to be half alien), and so many strange plot twists that by the end of the first episode my head was reeling. Some moments in both the film and the series are so genuinely creepy that it was hilarious, and both were pretty fantastic to watch. I was mostly unable to actually finish the black dynamite series due to wind knocking out my internet a few times, but I’m looking forward to being able to finish it.

Do You Remember?

Do you remember Yao Ming? The Chinese basketball player who played on the Huston Rockets? The reason I ask is because he retired in 2011. Although he really isn’t in the news much today he was back then. Yao Ming was the tallest Chinese American to play in the NBA. An article from the Washington Times “with Ya Ming in retirement, China has lost a big asset” it explains how Yao Ming was the face for Chinese. For boys and girls to look up to as a basketball player, an athlete in America. “He was a tremendously effective diplomat, and he really put a human face on the whole idea of the story of the Chinese athlete – because he could speak English, [and] because he was funny,” said M. Nicole Nazzaro. I think its really good that people looked up to Yao Ming. For him to be as famous as he was, in a sport that you usually don’t see to many Asian Americans you have to give him props for being a man that made a country look good and to be able to take a lot of criticism.

Do you remember when Shaquille O’neal and Yao would always go at it. The media would always compare the two.. Who would dominate the game? Who would score more? It would be like Lebron and Kobe of today. Shaquille was quoted saying, “Tell Yao Ming, ‘Ching-chong- yang-wah-ah-soh’,” Shaq had said – in jest – to an Asian reporter. I loved Shaq although his free-throws weren’t that great he was a good basketball player unfortunately he did talked a lot of crap. To be on the floor talking poorly is one thing to insult ones culture is another. It may look poorly on Shaq but it made Yao Ming look even better. Being able to take these unnecessary comments made him look like the better person. I never thought about how a Asian American would be looked at until I started looking closer at Yao Ming and Jeremy Lin.

gonna be a monster killer

Pop-ositions

One of my group’s pop-ositions was as follows: “Globalization didn’t necessarily work because the cultural exchange was mostly one-sided, as one culture was sort of overriding the other.”

To this effect, American culture has a habit of trying to take over other cultures without necessarily allowing for them to point out whether or not you’re doing it when when you take on these aspects of other things. Early on in the class, a friend of mine told me that Korean food was one of the only Asian foods that had not been changed upon being brought to the United States, because many of the others didn’t actually suit the American palette. Upon doing a little research, this seems pretty universal in American misunderstanding. I looked up a few popular English recipe sites, and though many of them had quite a few useful posts, most of the “Asian” recipes were variations of the same American way it’s done.

This can be seen in a number of other ways as well. As a child I was a huge fan of the Pokemon cartoon series, and I still play the video games. But there were multiple situations in which they changed things in the series, simply because they weren’t American. One that I found distinctly strange even as a child was the overwriting of onigiri in one of the episodes. I had no idea what it actually was at the time; I had no experience with much of anything Japanese outside of Sailor Moon. But in the episode they referred to the onigiri as a sandwich. My brother and I kind of looked at each other, and we wondered out loud if either of us had ever seen a sandwich that looked like that before. Naturally, we hadn’t. But, being young and having short attention spans, we thought nothing of it until years later. Often times, much like what’s done with history, things that are thought of as strange or inconvenient for a certain target area are simply written out.

Asian Fortune article

While scanning the web for API news I came across this article which I thought was extremely interesting since it discussed the issues of how Asian Americans and Asian Pacific Islander Men are often, “emasculated and stereotyped in popular in mainstream media.” However in this article they mentioned that instead of beating a dead horse by writing another article about the stereotypes that coincide with Asian American and Pacific Islander men they would instead highlight a few men who reside in the Washington DC area and shine light on their talents, hobbies, and successes. This I found interesting because a lot of times people try to continue discussing the same stereotypes that are placed upon the API men which as the article mentions would aid in “circulating,” these pre-conceived notions displayed through the media. I wonder if they have a point their? What do you all think? Here is a link to the article.

http://www.asianfortunenews.com/2014/02/7-real-aapi-asian-american-and-pacific-islander-men-to-watch/

Gung Fu and Thursdays films

From watching the two documentaries about Gung Fu, entitled “Shaolin Ullyesus”, and “The Black Kung Fu Experience”, I was fascinated by the discipline and the dedication these practitioners of the art of Gung Fu presented. However in regards to popular culture, Gung Fu has become global. People are fascinated by the beautiful and powerful movements in this martial arts and from the film I can see how it has really changed and impacted peoples lives forever.

In the film, “The Black Kung Fu Experience” many of the African practitioners of Kung Fu such as Ron Van Clief, Dennis Brown, and Donald Hamby, were influenced by popular culture in the form of Kung Fu films which caused them to take up martial arts and to learn Gung Fu. Also with the popularity from the movie industry we see that the Shaolin temple in China has become a tourist site, and the monks their have even sent representatives to tour the world to demonstrate the skills of these warrior monks. It is interesting to see the historic path of Gung Fu and how it has spread throughout the world. With it originally being spread through the persecution of the monks after the fall of the Ming dynasty or more recently through films and media, it is amazing to see the effect it has had on the world. It also was interesting to see how to the African Americans in the United States saw Gung Fu as a symbol of pride and hope for the black community. With such racism and prejiduce towards their community in our nations history, Bruce Lee’s films and other Kung Fu movies, depicted the underdog, rising up and defeating or atleast opposing their opponents who in most cases had greater strength and power, which I feel gave the African American youth this sense of being able to rise up against the prejudices they faced and to be proud of who they are. I also find it fascinating how through this form of martial arts, we see a link between East and west. Furthermore through the interest in Kung Fu films, and with Gung Fu schools being available for Americans to learn the art of Gung Fu, we see a gap being bridged between two cultures, which shows the effect popular culture can have on the world.

A-POP, Don't Stop

Winter 2014