It shouldn’t matter, but it does, and to simply carry on as if it doesn’t still matter is naive and ineffectual. Le Guin merely portrayed the caucasian characters as a minority, that would be fine– deliberately making them “rather backwards” is where it gets problematic.
KIMBA THE WHITE LION FULL
If we accept that racial stereotypes are bad, then they’re all bad, full stop.
My problem is that modern society says that any stereotype based on race is bad– and then turns a blind eye to attacks on whites. That’s not subverting an expectation– it’s merely replacing one prejudice with another. Let me repeat the important part for you:īy simply subverting an expectation, a novelist can undermine a prejudice. And Tenar’s fair hair and blue eyes are right, since she’s a minority type from the Kargish islands. Most of the characters look white to me, but there is at least a nice variation of tans and beiges. I am told that they may perceive this Ged as darker than my eye does.
I am told that the Japanese audience perceives them differently. Most of the people in anime films look — to the American/European eye — white. But I know that an anime film runs smack into the almost immutable conventions of its genre. I cannot address the issue of race in Japan because I know too little about it.
I have blasted them for whitewashing Earthsea, and do not forgive them for it.
KIMBA THE WHITE LION TV
The makers of the American TV version, while boasting that they were “color blind,” reduced the colored population of Earthsea to one and a half. By simply subverting an expectation, a novelist can undermine a prejudice.
KIMBA THE WHITE LION SKIN
Fantasy heroes of the European tradition were conventionally white — just about universally so in 1968 — and darkness of skin was often associated with evil. My purpose in making most of the people of Earthsea colored, and the whites a marginal and rather backward people, was of course a moral one, aimed at young American and European readers. Le Guin’s take on whitewashing and the anime “Tales of Earthsea”: However, the article seems to be more about a Japanese-American’s self-indulgent unease with Japanese culture’s relationship with America and her identity crisis than about whitewashing.Īnyway, my fault for reading something on The Verge. Yes, apart from the last paragraph it’s beautifully written. Hanging on to a particular piece of your culture, and demanding that others ‘keep their filthy mittens away from it’ is not going to stop that from happening, no matter how emotionally significant that one era or aspect of culture might be to you.
But that’s for the market to decide, there’s absolutely no reason why political correctness needs to get in the way of how the British director wants to tell this particular story, even if that results in an inferior product. Will it be better than the original? Knowing the quality of what comes out of Hollywood these days, I highly doubt it. Merely telling the same story, from the same perspective in a different medium is an fairly useless exercise in comparison. Infusing an inherently Japanese story with American culture, re-casting the story from an American perspective at least has the chance of adding something new and fresh to the world. Being protective of one aspect, claiming it as your own creates an artificial boundary that effectively serves to maintain the separation of cultures, emphasizing the “us-and-them” thinking that lies at the root of all racism.Īn American version of Ghost in the Shell will inevitably be different from a Japanese version, but that’s a good thing. A truly multicultural society can only come about by creating a melting pot of all aspects from all cultures around the world.