Welcome to Fantasy Friday everyone. It’s time to Blog for a Beer. (Click here for the rules.)
This week Silvia Moreno-Garcia gave us an excellent primer on the many ways in which fantasy filmmakers completely mess up Pre-Columbian cultures by lumping them all into one group, assigning practices and beliefs they don’t have, and generally turning them into random brown savages. Because who cares, right? They’re all dead anyway. Oh wait…
Hollywood is not the only offender when it comes to misrepresenting non-American, non-Western or non-white cultures. Literature, comics, television, and even games get in on this party. In your experience, what are some of the worst offenders?
1 • Clint Harris said:
November 14th, 2008 at 12:41 pm, permalink
Don’t worry, it’s not only non-Wester and non-White cultures this happens to. As part of my day job, a visitor from southeast Asia spent his three weeks on an exchange program decked out in cowboys boots, ten gallon hat and brush-popper shirts and black jeans. I haven’t seen rodeo queens get that gussied up. I wonder if he looked at the rest of us like “Why aren’t you all dressed like this?”
Because nobody dresses like that. In fact, I was surprised you could even buy clothes like that. There must be a duty-free shop at every airport. It’s where American tourists buy kimonos when visiting Japan. It’s where Europeans get their Levis and Mickey Mouse sweatshirts. It’s where celebrities buy their dashikis when they go to Africa to adopt children. And where tourists of all nations, creeds, and ethnicities buy a kilt (or at least try one on) when visiting Scotland. Sombrero’s for Mexico and fur hats for Russia.
And the people that work there hand you your bags, smile, and LAUGH when you leave. The bastards.
It is pretty heartening though, since people can wander through someone else’s country dressed ridiculously offensive. I mean, you are essentially an interloper, dressed in the biggest stereotypical clothes you can buy. But I have faith in human kind, because no one seems to get mad. No one comes up to these tourists, demanding what they are thinking, dressing like that. They shrug. They might make the occasional quip, but no one gets violent. Even if they find out their guest isn’t really from Kazakhstan.
Maybe they figure these tourists are trying to honor their culture by attempting to “fit in” and “go native” or at the very least are just ignorant of modern styles and social context. In which case, your “foreign” host will probably acclimate you slowly, over your visit, as to not mortify you.
Maybe those people at the Mysterious Stereotypical Duty Free Shop are the true world diplomats. And here I thought they were just trying to get some cheap laughs at our expense.
2 • Nora said:
November 14th, 2008 at 1:16 pm, permalink
Clint,
I don’t think what you’re talking about is the same thing. Yes, all of us engage in a bit of cultural stereotyping — particularly those of us who only know others through TV or entertainment media. But there’s a big difference between the amusing, relatively benign “imitation” that your Southeast Asian exchange visitor did, and the malignant denigration examples that Moreno-Garcia’s article talks about. The first is done out of a (misguided) admiration, or at worst a friendly mockery; the latter is done to ridicule or flat-out libel an entire culture. Very little harm can come from characterizing Americans as cowboys (except from what happens when Americans start to believe it, as our president has shown), but a great deal can come from treating the indigenous people of Mexico as if they were bloodthirsty half-naked savages who were better off defeated, colonized, and forcibly assimilated.
I’m minded of Nisi Shawl’s article on cultural appropriation, in which she cites Diantha Day Sprouse. Sprouse characterizes the ways in which one can approach/depict another culture as Invaders, Tourists, and Guests. The ideal is to approach that culture as a Guest — to be invited in, to treat the hosts with respect and be treated respectfully in turn, etc. But most Hollywood people (and game companies, and so on) seem to prefer acting as Invaders — stomping in, taking what they want and leaving the rest, and just generally getting things wrong.
Anyway, back on point — the worst offender I can think of offhand is the Stargate TV series, which depicts planet after planet of primitive brownish people who react to aliens by worshipping them as gods (and it’s always the gods of Third World cultures or nonwhite cultures who are evil alien overlords), while showing technologically advanced, skeptical planets as mostly white. And the gods of white cultures — the Asgard, for example — are still aliens, but benevolent ones.
I’m also looking forward — not — to Resident Evil 5 this year, which apparently attempts to rectify the series’ neglect of black people by pouring them all into one game… as mindless-savage zombies. ::sigh:: And I liked the RE series, too. I hate them for making it ugly for me.
3 • Michael Gordon said:
November 14th, 2008 at 1:42 pm, permalink
If we’re going to point to things like typical Sci Fi Channel fare, then you have to admit that seminal white/wester/european mythologies and cultures are equally misrepresented. Hercules and Xena anyone? The last legion? What about the ghosts in the Ark of the Covenant that melt faces? That’s not in any scripture I’ve ever read.
Accuracy is not on the radar for these writers, it has very little to do with the fact that the cultures are non-western, just different priorities.
4 • K. Tempest Bradford said:
November 14th, 2008 at 2:32 pm, permalink
How was Greek culture misrepresented in Hercules/Xena?
On Stargate, I mostly agree with you Nora, but not quite. In early seasons, a lot of the planets they went to were full of white people. The majority, in fact. The Gouauld (however you spell that) were mostly Egyptian gods at first, then expanded a bit to include, notably, Chinese and Japanese gods/emperor gods plus the Caananite Ba’al, but also Greek (which is Western, if not white, but depicted by a white guy). Additionally, the aliens pretending to be Native American and Mexica gods were benevolent, too. But we only saw them in one episode, so they are easy to forget or overlook.
The real problem with culture and race in Stargate was the surprising number of planets full of white people when they were supposed to have been mostly seeded from Egypt plus the shift, in later seasons, to more white actors playing aliens that took on POC god names. And ALL of the technically advanced planets were full of white people or mostly white people, so you’re right on that point.
And even weirder, though most planets had mainly white people, the Jaffa (the army for the evil aliens) were almost all POC and they were, in every sense, slaves.
5 • Clint Harris said:
November 14th, 2008 at 2:32 pm, permalink
Nora,
Very good points, especially regarding Dubya. Possibly more similar to our Asian visitor, since Dubya’s upbringing in New England makes him as much of a cowboy as the other guy. Yep, Hollywood plays on xenophobic reactions when it comes to illustrating conflict. Totally sucks and gives people the wrong impression of things world wide. People in other countries think Americans are gun-toting murderers, we have our stupid misconceptions as well.
Now, I have to disagree with the take on Resident Evil 5. No one seemed to mind when it was the white people staggering around as zombies, getting their heads busted open. Then it went to Spain, more white people (though I do think there was a decided prejudice against the Basques in that one which I didn’t care for), but now that it takes place in Africa, it’s not fun anymore? Depending on where you go in Africa, white people are the vast minority. Wouldn’t it stand to reason that if the formulaic outbreak of T-Virus hits a town in Africa the zombies are going to be people of color? So it’s okay that white people will eat your spleen, but not black people? It hardly sounds fair.
Maybe it’s because the climate in video games tends to demonize people of color. Or maybe it’s because a white guy is killing the zombified black people and it’s a social commentary on race? If they were in Africa and the zombies were all white and the hero was black, wouldn’t it be a political discussion of apartheid or European colonization?
What about games like Fatal Frame? The story unfolds, revealing brutal sacrifices and cultish activities from Feudal Japan. But because it is Asian on Asian brutality there is no discussion? Why? Because the games are developed in Asia which is very homogenous. And why isn’t the latest Call of Duty game called on the carpet? It’s Anglo people vs. Asian people. But it’s historic. WWII was just that in the Pacific theatre, with the Asian Americans sent to fight in Europe. The violence is the focus, not the racial divisions.
It’s blood and guts that sell these games.
So, RE 5, maybe not the best choice of setting, because Africa is a continent whose contries are very much polarized when it comes to race. Vastly moreso than the US. But would we be hearing the same controversy if an African character was the protag in RE5 and not one of the heroes from previous RE Games?
Maybe I’m just being naive. But I’m actually glad to see that Africa gets some focus in a video game. For all people know via the media, it’s the place you can see giraffes on the savanna, and where Angelina Jolie gets her children.
Africa is actually very populated and a rampant disease would do a lot of damage to the entire continent, with people becoming infected, living in fear and misery under tyrannical governments with unscrupulous agendas. Now, the allegory I’m getting at is very extreme, and I certainly don’t think Leon of STARS should go on a rampage of gunfire on AIDS victims by any means. Hell no. But I think that as a developing region of the world, Africa is marginalized, forgotten, and most of the time used as the developed world’s dumping ground or raped of its resources at the expense of the people living there.
I would have to see what the game does in light of these matters to see if it is just another way to exploit the people of Africa, or it its a good way to make people aware of a continent that is usually cast aside in the media.
Maybe it’s a bit of a reach to think that there are altruistic intentions behind this game. Maybe it is just more exploitation.
6 • veejane said:
November 14th, 2008 at 2:41 pm, permalink
But Hollywood’s screwups are the funniest! (Or saddest.) In the middle of The Searchers (1955), a movie about the tail end of the Comancheria (i.e., 1868-1875), a bunch of “Comanches” ride up and shout, very obviously, the one word I know of Najavo: a quasi-derogatory word for white people. It’s awesome!
(The whole thing was filmed in Monument Valley, and so most of the extras were Navajo. I presume they did not explain to the film crew what it was they were saying.)
(FTR, Monument Valley is on the Arizona/Utah border and nowhere near Texas; Navajo and Comanche aren’t even in the same language family, much less alike in food production, tactics, needs, or relationships to the US Army in the later 1860s.)
What? Westerns are both fantasies and alternate histories. They totally count!
7 • Randy Henderson said:
November 14th, 2008 at 3:32 pm, permalink
Aztec Rex. http://www.darkfantasy.org/fantasy/?p=574
Nuff said there.
Apocalypto played up the human sacrifices by the Mayans and little else (not their art, science, engineering, etc.). And, perhaps just because I was watching it with a skeptical eye after Gibson’s religious nuttery leading up to it, but I felt like the whole thing was a set up for the end when the noble Christians arive to save these poor savage people from themselves.
Since the 1950’s (perhaps earlier) there have been plenty of Aztec Mummy, Aztec resurrection, and Aztec cult cutting out heart movies and stories that again do little to explore or consider the real culture and are merely using it as a plot gimmick.
I remember that fine tradition being continued in shows as recent as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where she battled resurrected Native Americans, and an Incan mummy girl who sucked the life out of others to live.
But we can all expect an intense if brief surge in interest in Mayan culture, accompanied by movies, Discovery Channel specials, etcetera, with the upcoming “doomsday” date of 2012 A.D. (the year the Mayan calendar ended and thus, some say, the year the world will end). Maybe they will, by necessity, have to focus on some of the scientific and cultural advances the Mayans made in order to explain why we should even care about their calendar. Maybe.
8 • Randy Henderson said:
November 14th, 2008 at 4:02 pm, permalink
And let us not forget the Book of Mormon, which claims that Native Americans are brown because they are marked for their sin, they are descended from the Jew Lehi who migrated from Israel along with the white Nephites, but these “bad” Lamanites killed all the “good” white Nephites who came with them. Of course, there is no archeological, biological, or agricultural evidence accepted by any impartial scientist to support the described civilizations or this alternate history of the Americas, and in fact the book displays ignorance of the real cultures that had existed, and the evidence that they are descended from Asians who migrated here over the Bering Land Bridge.
The fact that it is treated as religious revelation doesn’t make it any less fantasy fiction, it just makes it dangerous fantasy fiction, and badly researched and poorly conceived alternate history fiction.
9 • Randy Henderson said:
November 14th, 2008 at 4:25 pm, permalink
And last but not least, I vaguely remembered a film called “Q,” so looked it up, and yep, it’s as bad as I remember. Mad Aztec priest sacrificing people in New York, raising the Aztec serpent god Quetzalcoatl out of hibernation to terrorize the city. Just dripping with cultural sensitivity, this one is:
http://www.badmovies.org/movies/q/
10 • AD said:
November 14th, 2008 at 4:34 pm, permalink
There’s Pathfinder were a Viking saves helpless Native Americans from other Vikings. Because they were all flower loving people incapable of fighting for themselves.
11 • Clint Harris said:
November 14th, 2008 at 6:47 pm, permalink
AD @ 10, yeah, no doubt, considering the Vikings, the scourge of Europe, got their butts handed to them when they came across the Atlantic.
I meant to say something on Silvia’s original essay this B4aBeer cites, so I might as well say it here. The Cabeza de Baca work is neat and all, but depending on the translation/interpretation it gets sorta well, stupid. The Cyclone Covey version I read essentially tries to depict the first European explorations into the interior of North America. the original account was believed to be more Central America. The Covey text can be interpreted to impose an earlier European claim on North America. As though it validates cultures of the Southwest US through European influence and exploration.
It irritates the hell out of me. First, there are no facts in the accounts to support these arguments. Covey basically moves the original path of Cabeza de Baca’s journey a couple parallels to the North. Not to mention Cabeza de Baca was a “captive” the entire time and likely made up most of his account to save his neck after the Spanish found him on the West Coast– 900 miles away from where he was supposed to be. His account is like Scheherazade’s tales used to postpone a death sentence.
12 • Pat Logan said:
November 14th, 2008 at 6:57 pm, permalink
300, where the Persian army had Ra from Stargate as Xerxes and hardly any actual, you know, Persians in it.
13 • Edward Brock said:
November 14th, 2008 at 9:51 pm, permalink
I think the biggest offender is probably the religious (not all, of course, but a great many of them for sure).
Whether it be in their “sacred texts” or various books, films, radio & television ministries, there is a blatant & unapologetic misrepresentation of any culture that is in opposition to their particular beliefs.
For centuries religious organizations have condemned any group that does not follow their dogma. Let’s use Christians as an example (though most well-known religions fall under the same umbrella of misrepresentation).
Christians have long associated those of different beliefs as Satanists, even though many (such as most modern Pagans/Wiccans) do not even believe in the devil.
Pick up any book written by an evangelical writer & you will, often, find a blanket assault on other “faiths”. Rarely do these arguments distinguish between the different faiths. Little thought is given to their origins/history except in regards to its opposition to the Christian faith. They will often make reference to their pagan “roots”, but only as a means of condemnation.
It doesn’t seem to matter that various ancient beliefs did not always share a common history. Whether it was the Greeks, the Romans, Egyptians or Norse. Or (in a more modern sense) whether it’s Wiccans, Mormons, Muslims or Pagans, to the evangelicals they are simply “of Satan”.
I have read many books & attended many churches during my life & have found few who speak/write of other beliefs in a fair manner. I know that these evanglists are pushing an agenda, but their flock suffers as a result. They fail to research these cultures for themselves & have been conditioned to overlook/ignore their uniqueness. Thus the cycle of misrepresentation is passed on to each generation.
14 • Janet Chui said:
November 15th, 2008 at 12:24 am, permalink
The Chronicles of Narnia will always take top spot on my list–I remember reading the series in college (my first time encountering the original work) and having my heart torn out how this oft-celebrated classic read like nothing but an attack on Eastern culture and faith. (I went online to look up the titles of the specific Narnia books, but came up with better: A discussion on Lewis’ moralizing at http://www.physicsroom.org.nz/log/archive/2/arab/ ).
15 • gordsellar said:
November 16th, 2008 at 4:23 am, permalink
I’m late for the part, but…
Well, as someone living in Asia, I’d like to note that while I agree with Nora about the difference between “amusing, relatively benign” imitation of the kind Clint described and really offensive denigration, believe me, the latter kind of thing goes on too. Lots of other societies than the West are just as gleefully ignorant about depicting other cultures or societies. While the West, especially the US, has a kind of “special status” in terms of this — it just produces so much entertainment media and so on — he US isn’t even particularly the most aggressive in disrespectfully making a hash of others’ cultures.
(And yes, to some degree ignorance gets used as a defense, but… well, in this era, ignorance is often willful, isn’t it? I mean… Internet. Cheap air travel. Research. Duh.)
Here in Korea, it’s a rare moment to find non-Koreans in a movie or on TV who aren’t villainous in some way. (Slowly less so, but still…) And if there is a Westerner who’s nice, it’s usually one or two decent folk surrounded by much more powerful bad guys. (A fantastical example, and this is of a movie I actually really like, is The Host. The white presence in that movie is just bursting with anti-American sentiment, anxiety about Korean subordinate status to America, and so on. There are three major white characters, only one of whom isn’t menacing.)
(On TV, it’s even more stark — Western women are sex kittens all, waiting for any man to pounce and woo her, while Western men are menacing rapists-in-waiting who are obsessed with bedding Korean women. Though that’s true of SOME Westerners I’ve met here, that’s not more true in any greater proportion than it is among Korean guys. And newspapers run the most horrifying things here… caricatures of modern black Americans with bones in their noses in Flintstones garb. Without comment. Or outcry. Or recognition that it would offend anyone.)
Don’t get me wrong: I’m way beyond ranting now, or resenting it. One gets around to, uh, sort of accepting it, or accepting at least that the media is stupider than enough of the people one meets in person. Accepting that ranting about it on the internet does no good, anyway. (I try get my students to be aware of it in their own creative projects, though, or in classroom discussions.)
But as much as one resigns oneself to it — and I don’t know that resignation is a good thing — this kind of thing does impact politics, sometimes in wrongheaded ways, and for example can persuade people to denigrate foreign countries to their own detriment at times, even when they rarely meet people of another race. This is the thing I’ve been seeing more and more, as I experience what it’s like to be a minority, albeit a privileged minority in a number of ways: the people who sneer sideways at you for being different are losing out in a big way. They’re screwing themselves out of someone who would happily and eagerly work with them, cooperate, etc.
Things are different when you’re not a *privileged* minority, of course. I’m aware of this. If white people think THEY have it bad in the media here, they should pay a little more attention to how Southeast Asians (or blacks, for that matter) are portrayed in the media in Korea.
Not to rant. I think I’m trying to say that while it’s easy to ignore that other societies have media just as bigoted, or moreso — and it certainly helps focus on the media most readers are likely to encounter — it’s probably also fanciful. It’s worth noting that to the degree the inherent vileness an stupidity of this kind of thing is at least debatable amogn us, we’ve achieved something. Not everything we need to achieve, and not that our answers are always easily reached, but we have achieved something!
Because these kinds of discussions don’t even tend to start up at all, where I live. You see blackface minstrel performance on TV, or a show depicting young white men as rapists hunting innocent Korean women, say, and declare, “That’s offensive!” and even some smart, educated people just go, “Huh?”
16 • gordsellar said:
November 16th, 2008 at 4:23 am, permalink
er, late for the party, that is…
17 • Juan said:
November 19th, 2008 at 4:27 pm, permalink
Wow, there’s a lot I can think of–off the top of my head though comes things like Resident Evil 5, World of Warcraft, the book of Mormon (can’t remember the proper name it goes by), Stargate franchise so obviously, the Indiana Jones franchise, Aztec Rex, the recent Mummy movies and the list can go on.
And somehow, I think the constant re-doing of numerous Asian films with a white cast should be tossed in there as well.