After having just returned from Bangalore and seeing Cloud
Atlas I find I can no longer hold my tongue concerning the many allegations
that have been thrown at said film.
Warning - there will be more than one spoiler ahead so if you haven't
read or seen the film you might not want to continue reading.
Although
the majority of my readers may not have seen the film I'm sure a few have heard
of the accusations against the film's actors and directors. First and foremost - the heinous act of
"yellow-face". The majority of
the anger has been directed towards Jim Sturgess for playing a Korean man. The question often is why couldn't they get
an actual Korean actor to play this character rather than stick a white man in
to do his job?
First of
all I feel the need to say I understand the resentment; I get the anger and I
agree with the issue at hand. Time and
time again Asian/Asian-American men are overlooked in Hollywood except when we
want them to play a form of Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee. But this film is not that.
There
are times when I feel that the POC community sometimes aim their anger towards
the wrong people. We can't always help
it, there is still so much left to be angry about and there are indeed many
culprits in modern America who deserve
our wrath. However that does not excuse
us from the necessary job of assessing just who is continually pushing us down
and who isn't.
I
wonder, for instance, if those complaining have seen the movie or read the
book. Surely if they had they would
understand what it is that the author and directors were trying to accomplish. The point was to hire a group of talented
actors and use them for each story that was told - thusly re-using them for
each new character we as an audience were introduced to. This is extremely vital not only to the
entire film but to the novel as well.
Jim Sturgess had a role in each story; but why did he have to play the
Korean character?
Simple. In Adam Ewing's story we see him help Autua,
a stowaway who also happened to be black.
Despite the damage he might do to his standing on the boat, Adam fights
for Autua's safe journey and acceptance as a crew member. At the end of the film after Autua has saved
Adam's life and Adam has also saved Autua's life, he comes to the decision that
he must leave his family to help with the emancipation movement concerning
slaves in the U.S.
In the
Neo-Seoul story, Jim's character, Hae-Joo, is fighting for the emancipation of
'fabricants', tank-born humans who are treated as slaves for humans. When they no longer prove to be useful they
are scrapped and turned into food for the remaining fabricants. By keeping the same actor for both Adam Ewing
and Hae-Joo, the directors are bringing to life the idea firmly held in the
book that we are the same souls merely crossing over the past, present, and
future continually bumping into one another.
The book expressed the same plot-point only now that the film has
visualized such an idea it has upset quite a few people.
Some may
think that the only reason I remain so passive and on the "white
man's" side is because I have no dog in this fight. After all I'm not ethnically Asian. But I am Mexican and I could very well have
taken umbrage with the fact that they had Doona Bae, the same woman who plays
Sonmi-451, plays a Mexican woman. Not
just that but she also speaks Spanish and worked at an establishment which was
meant to represent a site that hires undocumented workers. Did I take offense? No. I
even clapped at the part in which Ms. Bae exclaims, "Don't call me a
wetback," after slamming a wrench into Bill Smoke's head. But I could argue that a Mexican woman should
have been given this empowering moment to shout something that most Mexicans
wish to scream at someone at least once in their lives. However that would not have made sense with
the theme and message of the film; in this instance it was much more powerful
to have Doona Bae who represents equally persecuted characters in the film to
take on this role.
Ms. Bae
and Mr. Sturgess are not the only ones to smuggle their identity under the
guise of another ethnicity. Halle Berry
not only plays an Indian woman but a Caucasian woman and a Korean man at
that. Doona Bae also plays Adam Ewing's
Caucasian wife, another important aspect as to why Jim Sturgess had to be both
Adam and Hae-Joo. The point was that
these two souls kept meeting one another no matter how many births.
Jim
Sturgess, an Englishman, also plays the role of
a Scottish character in the film and yet there has been no gripe
concerning this despite the tumultuous history that exists between the two
groups. I would think that this would be
even more offensive as there is an obvious tension that still exists between
the English and the Scottish. Perhaps it
was the make-up artist's choices that did him in. If so it was a difficult task said artist
had, to turn a white man into a Korean man.
No easy feat. Perhaps you could
say they went for the obvious and hurtful stereotypical choice to change only
the eyes and nothing else. They ignored
facial structure and any other aspect besides hair color. But at this token the critiques I believe are
at a loss - we don't know the deliberation and selection process that went
behind choosing how these characters should be changed. For all we know had they decided to also
change skin color (as there is a distinct difference between a white man's skin
color and an Asian man's skin color) but realized that it turned things much too
comical. I agree that the eyes do look
unnatural but then again this is a story set in the future where a fad called
"facescaping" is quite in fashion; perhaps the directors weren't
hoping to come across saying this is what Korean men look like to us but rather
what a person might look like in this particular futuristic society after
multiple unnatural face changes.
Seeing
as how Hae-Joo's character is someone who fights against the government it's
more than plausible that he would have to change his face any number of times
leading to such a strange appearance.
And did
they not change the obvious about each actor at each turn when they had to play
a new ethnicity or gender? They
lightened Halle Berry's skin so she could be a white woman (although even here
I argue that she looks less like a white woman than perhaps someone who is
mixed), gave Jim red hair in order to play a Scotsman, and Hugo Weaving was
given rather frumpy looking breasts in order to play a woman. Modern day audiences often to have everything
spoon-fed to them now or they complain and for a film which is already so
complicated sometimes you have to go for the obvious. Even if that could be considered hurtful; perhaps
hurtful because of the many terrible things which have already been done to
certain communities. But does this film
lie in the same camp as those who have been racist towards Asians in the past? Can it not be seen as it's own separate
entity? Technically speaking it's not a
Hollywood film per se - rather it's an independent film without ties to any
large blockbuster movie tycoon such as Warner Bros.
Another
complaint might be why they didn't choose an Asian actor to play the series of
characters Jim was given. As to that you
will have to take that up with the Directors and the casting director. However my counter question is, how do you
know that any Asian actors auditioned for this role? Seeing as how it's quite risky to enter into
any independent production especially when it cost so much money to make, why
would a burgeoning actor choose to make a film that might not have any return
profit? Or perhaps it all came down to
skill and Jim Sturgess was the only actor they felt capable of the difficult
task of playing 7 different characters in one film.
To that
end I must say he deserves a clap on the back; there is nothing easy about
playing so many different characters in one production and seeing as how this
is an independent production it takes a group of actors who are inspired by the
story in order to want to take part. Jim
Sturgess displays such excitement in his interviews and rather than being able
to share his pride over the work he's done as the others are doing he's being
attacked for a decision made by the directors.
It's no wonder he went to twitter to vent his frustration; despite other
actors also playing Asian characters he has been the most consistently berated
for what he's done.
Imagine
if you worked hard on a project and put all of your labor and love into
something only to have people spit in your face for it afterwards. Of course he made a remark back, most people
who are frustrated would do the same.
Again I
don't mean to belittle the plight of Asian-Americans or the Asian community in any way. I understand that worse has been done to
those groups but does that mean that throwing stones is the appropriate answer? Should the POC community resort to degradation
in retaliation?
What
makes me most sad about all of this is that Cloud Atlas is an amazing film and
an even more amazing novel. In fact I
believe that both pieces of work represent ideas that are inherent in our own
struggles within the POC community. My favorite lines of the book were, much to
my satisfaction, kept in the film and is in my opinion the strongest moment of
both.
When
Adam returns home he writes in his journal that he plans on telling his
father-in-law of his decision to work towards the emancipation movement. His reasoning, "If we believe that
humanity may transcend tooth & claw, if we believe diverse races and creeds
can share this world as peaceably as the orphans share their candlenut tree, if
we believe leaders must be just, violence muzzled, power accountable & the
riches of the Earth & its Oceans shared equitably, such a world will come
to pass."
Beautiful, no? Similar to many ideas that we pass around often in the
POC community when we are up against a fight with those who keep us down. But this is not the lines I was speaking of,
the part I believe that most applies to the critiques we are often given when
we say we want to change the world lie in the discussion between Adam and his
father-in-law.
"I
hear my father-in-law's response. 'Ride
to Tennessee on an ass & convince the red-necks that they are merely
white-washed negroes & their negroes are black-washed Whites! Sail to the Old World, tell 'em their
imperial slaves rights are as inalienable as the Queen of Belgium's! Oh, you'll grow hoarse, poor & grey in
caucuses! He who would do battle with
the many-headed hydra of human nature must pay a world of pain & his family
must pay it along with him! & only as you gasp your dying breath shall you
understand, your life amounted to no more than one drop in a limitless
ocean!"
Adam's
response? "Yet what is an ocean but
a multitude of drops!" Does Adam's
retort not evoke the same passion we POC's feel when people tell us nothing
will ever change? This statement succintly sums up such a powerful message that it makes me unbearably sad to think people will overlook it.
It's a wonderful thing to see such a great perspective in modern day cinema and pop culture (seeing as how we are currently drowning in tripe such as Twilight) and I can't understand how others aren't running to the theaters to watch such a masterpiece. I'm afraid that this beautiful film, much like Robert Frobisher's Cloud Atlas Sextet, will go quietly unnoticed by the masses - and that is a travesty.
The entire time I saw this film I coudn't help but feel as a POC that the book and film were made for any group who has ever felt persecuted; it has done a great thing for us. It's showing us just how connected we all are and though our plights may be different when you boil it down to it's most simplistic form there is no difference between a Korean woman and a Mexican woman; there is no difference between a black man and a Korean man. We all inevitably want the same things and if our souls can travel back and forth between such supposedly "different" vessels than doesn't that mean we are only as different as we conceive ourselves to be? Does not each actor in this film evoke that (including Jim Sturgess) when they don their makeup?
My last
argument concerning the rants against this film deal with my own time in
India. It has made me realize that
constantly bickering and trying to find racist meaning behind all that happens
in society will make you bitter, angry, and ultimately be a waste of
energy. Were I to get upset about every
tiny injustice that happens to either me or those around me here I would surely
pass away with a cold and hardened heart.
Especially
the myth that white people are the only ones who treat POC' incorrectly. What a laugh!
How many times have I heard people in India call Native Americans, Red
Indians! And how many times have I heard
them refer to Mexicans as Red Indians, why I've lost count. Not to mention the resentment and slanders
they often use when referring to anyone of East Asian or South Asian
descent.
But
where I to get into an argument with each of those people it would do no better
than to scream at a wall for the response I would get. It's important to choose your battles and to
decipher who it is that is the culprit and who might accidentally appear to be
one.
For
instance, at Lady Doak College the students held a competition concerning
African-American literature. One of the
competitions was to do a small 5 minute play concerning a story written by an
African-American author. Seeing as how
many of the works they read dealt with persecution of African-Americans by
white people in America the girls decided to do something that would help the
audience identify which characters where which.
Those playing African-American roles painted their faces black while
those playing white characters painted their faces white.
Of
course as I watched this I was initially stunned - did they not realize the
implications of what they were doing?
Did they not know that blackface is an incredibly insensitive act? Shouldn't they inherently know this because
they are POC's?
No. Blackface is primarily an American
construct. These girls were not thinking
of this as a politically incorrect action.
Rather, they wanted to make it clear to the audience using an obvious marker
who was who in the play. Being South
Indian most of these girls already have dark skin and so in order to be clear
as to what was happening they chose to paint their faces to represent the two
groups they were playing. There was no
malice in their hearts when they did this act even if by accident they were
offending a group of people. Do we hurl
stones at them? Do we punish these girls
despite their hopes in representing historical injustices that occurred to African-Americans?
Of
course not. We can discuss with them how their actions might be misconstrued or offensive to others but we shouldn't lump them with actual perpetrators of racism. These girls are not the same
as those who I've heard make racial slurs against most other ethnicities in
India. These girls are not the same as
the ignorant asshole that sent an SMS to Assamese workers in Bangalore telling
them if they didn't go back where they came from they would be killed. They are not the same as those who are
responsible for the mass movement of workers in Bangalore to abandon their
homes.
In this
way we must take a critical look and also try to understand the motives behind
people's actions. Also, we must learn to
look at the larger picture much like in Cloud Atlas. If I didn't look at the larger picture
constantly here in Tamil Nadu than I would surely lose my mind.
*
Disclaimer - I'm not trying to say people's anger over this is illegitimate in
any way. This is simply my opinion on
the matter however I'm not saying I'm right or anyone else is wrong. It's simply an opinion and feel free to
comment with your own - I'd be more than happy to have a discussion and listen
to other people's thoughts.
