As promised, here are my notes on The Mask of Fu Manchu. Hopefully we can use the film to have a nuanced and fruitful discussion, and not just a heated condemnation of it. I’ve organized it only very idly.
- British think the artifacts belong to them
- Torture overtones, Railway Man
- “Can’t let a Chinaman beat me”
- “一起” “快D” in awful Cantonese
- Exoticism of Asian Women
- All speaking roles are played by whites
- Occasional Cantonese, usually gibberish
- Boris Karloff
- Mixing of cultures
- Thai, Cantonese => Mongol?
- Barbarians/Savages cowed by gunfire Pocahontas
- Do all the hard labour, but the White man discovers the treasure
- Shirtless. In Mongolia. Wat.
- “Will we ever understand these Eastern races?”
- Eastern Mysticism Pirates of the Caribbean
- Tomb legends dismissed, though Khan sword power not?
- Tells us about society’s view of the world -> The Power of Film
- Power structures
- Blacks at the very very bottom
- Use as vessel for poison
- Not even a cunning enemy, simply ornamentation or slave
- One quickly switches sides to the whites
- Women very subjugated to men
- Hysterical, emotional, untrustworthy
- Weak
- Passively accepting fate, while men struggle
- Heteronormative
- Blacks at the very very bottom
- Strange mix of authenticity and exoticism.
- Self deprecating culture
- 武
- 茉莉花
- East vs. the World
- Why Genghis Khan?
- Eroticism
- Homoerotic scenes (loincloths, lingering shots on male form)
- Orgasmic shrieks of Asian girl over White man’s pain
- Masturbation images of horde
- White men can dominate Asian women
- Asian women drawn irresistibly to White Men
- White women as the bargaining object used to signify power
- White woman must be kept safe
- “Take their women”
- Clutched at when passed through the crowd, but never touched.
- White woman as the untouchable sole provenance of white men
- Asian woman’s use by father as bargaining token laughed off
- Which kinds of inter-racial relationships allowed
- White men may dally with Asian women, but will always return to their “own” women
- Asians as cunning but cowardly
- Three times doctor from Western Universities
- Images behind doors, spies, attacking from behind
- Westerners going out to face head on without guile
- Greedy and swayed by small amount of gold (as opposed to tortured and un turnable)
- No whites
- “Christian arrogance”
- conflation of culture and religion (and race and language)
- “our gods”
- Proclamations in the name of the “British Government”
- conflation of culture and religion (and race and language)
- “Hideous Yellow Monster”
- Faceless Asian hordes “Yellow Menace” defeated by two white men
- “There will be other Fu Manchus”
- Bumbling servant at end.
Avatar: The Last Airbender is an American TV series on Nickelodeon. It was/is animated in Korea, with American voice actors. There are three “books” (seasons) of the original series (which we did not watch). You can watch them here:
http://www.gogoanime.com/avatar_the_last_airbender_chapter_1
http://www.gogoanime.com/avatar_the_last_airbender_chapter_21
http://www.gogoanime.com/avatar_the_last_airbender_chapter_41
Avatar: The Legend of Korra is the sequal series, with four “books” planned. Three have been released, and the fourth is being released now. You can watch them here:
http://www.gogoanime.com/avatar-the-legend-of-korra-episode-1
http://www.gogoanime.com/avatar-the-legend-of-korra-season-2-episode-1
http://www.gogoanime.com/avatar-the-legend-of-korra-season-3-episode-1
Enjoy!
OHS Film & History 