Tag Archives: by Brianna Ruffin

Distorted Reflections

Op-Ed

Jordan Peele’s popular horror film about racial anxieties and anti-black racism in the United States, Get Out, made over $100 million in its first three weeks, making Peele the first black writer-director to earn that much on a debut film. The success of Get Out reflects the high demand for quality visual media about the lives of people of color by people of color. Even though the United States is becoming more racially diverse, Hollywood still tends to create and recognize content with majority-white casts. This trend is so persistent that even when Hollywood creates adaptations based on source material about people of color, it’s often altered to showcase white characters.

One of the most egregious cases of whitewashing occurs in the new Netflix film based on the popular Japanese franchise Death Note. The main character in the original series is a college student who finds a notebook lying in the street. Upon further investigation, he discovers that anyone whose name is written in the book (a “death note”)  will die. He decides to kill all criminals, including people who try to stop him, by writing their names in the death note because he believes that killing criminals extrajudicially is the only way to create a more just society. The original manga series has spawned an anime, several live-action movies, and a recent live-action drama, all in Japanese. The show draws on themes of good and evil, which is evident even in the main character’s name. In Japanese, his name is Light Yagami (夜神月). His first name (月) is pronounced “Raito” (the Japanese pronunciation of the English word “light”) and spelled using the character for “moon.” His surname, Yagami (夜神), uses the characters for “night” and “god” in place of the traditional characters used to spell this name. Light Yagami is literally a god of night, a role consistent with the show’s overarching themes. However, in the majority-white American version, Light’s last name is “Turner;” his new name is meaningless. It doesn’t convey any of the themes of the original source material, which makes me wonder if the people behind this adaptation can even see the depth of the original series or if they’re merely blinded by dollar signs.

This is one of the largest issues with whitewashing – people who whitewash these creative works typically show a lack of understanding of the depth of the very shows and films they are hired to create. For instance, the popular animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender is remarkably diverse. Though the creators are white, the show’s characters represent different Asian ethnicities. All of the writing that is seen throughout the series is in Chinese (though the characters speak English), and many of the fighting styles seen in the show are based on Asian martial arts. In contrast, in the M. Night Shyamalan adaptation The Last Airbender, all of these characters are white except for the Japanese antagonist, Zuko, who is portrayed by an actor of Indian descent. Casting choices like these aren’t just superficial issues – they reveal a deep lack of understanding of both the series and its target audience, a telltale sign of poor commercial decision. (Did the film executives behind The Last Airbender really think that such a dedicated fanbase wouldn’t notice that they had substituted white characters for every single person of color – the entire cast – except for one?)

Less and less often are audiences supporting films and television shows that blatantly whitewash characters. The 2016 film The Great Wall, which is set in China and stars Matt Damon as a white savior, was highly unsuccessful domestically and overseas; according to The Hollywood Reporter, it’s slated to lose nearly $75 million. Its score on the film review site Rotten Tomatoes is only 35 percent (compared to Get Out’s 100 percent). The Netflix series Iron Fist, which has a whitewashed main character, has similarly poor reviews. The film Ghost in the Shell, controversial because of its whitewashed main character, made only $19 million in its opening weekend with a production budget of $110 million.

Audiences refuse to see these films and television series not just because they are whitewashed, but because this whitewashing represents poor storytelling. In the cases of film adaptations, the source material is wrung of its meaning. In the case of new remakes of old, problematic stories such as Iron Fist, there is an obvious refusal to update these stories for modern-day fans who are tired of seeing the same faces, stories, and races over and over again. These adaptations are also highly unoriginal. For instance, the new Death Note adaptation didn’t have to be related to the plot of the original series at all. Why not follow the story of a low-income black teenager  living in an urban American setting to see what would happen if he obtained a death note? Because these adaptations are afraid to take creative risks, film executives cast white actors and make superficial changes to the plot, resulting in lazy storytelling.   

Times have changed. Audience members want diverse movies and television shows, and we won’t be appeased by content that has one or two characters of color or erases the diversity of existing characters. To appeal to an increasingly diverse audience, film and television executives must hire more casts and crews who reflect the diversity of the country. In addition, existing creators should go out of their way to educate themselves on the ways in which negative portrayals of people of color and members of other minority groups are perpetuated. Without this awareness, they are bound to recreate the same tropes repeatedly. The Netflix series Orange is the New Black has come under fire in the past year for killing one of their only black queer female characters in an act of police brutality. While the show has been heralded for its diverse cast, the writers’ room is mostly white. Without adequate training in the media representation of marginalized groups, it’s inevitable that writers will recreate and sustain harmful tropes and stereotypes.

Thankfully, there are now alternative routes such as web series and diversity fellowships that people from marginalized backgrounds can take to enter the entertainment industry, though more must be done. In addition, audience members have more control over their response to a lack of diversity. We can refuse to give money to productions that whitewash roles. We can boycott films that rely on lazy stereotypes. We can work hard to enter the film and television industry and create the stories that we were unable to see as children. We can actively support (with our money or viewership) films and television programs that, like Get Out, bring distorted reflections to light.

Unanswered Questions: A Review of the Film Ida

Film Review: "Ida" (2014)

Paweł Pawlikowski’s 2013 film Ida raises several questions and offers few answers, frustrating any attempts to find closure at the end of the film.

Set in post-World War II Poland, the film follows the journey of a young woman who strives to learn about the life and death of her parents. After her parents’ death, Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska) is raised in a convent to become a nun. However, before taking her vows, the mother superior decides that Anna should meet her only living relative, Wanda Gruz (Agata Kulesza). She sets off across Poland to meet her aunt, only to discover that her entire life has been a lie. Her name is not Anna; it’s Ida Lebenstein. She is the orphaned child of a Jewish couple killed during the Nazi occupation of Poland. Wanda and Ida travel across the country to learn about the true fate of Ida’s parents.

Ida and Wanda are polar opposites. Wanda has several strings of one night stands (including one man who is there the day Ida arrives), drinks too much, and smokes constantly, all to numb her guilt over the role she played in the communist resistance during the occupation and the death of her infant son during the Holocaust. Ida, on the other hand, is rarely seen without her nun’s habit. She denies having any sexually impure thoughts and doesn’t drink or smoke. For much of her life, Ida’s world has been constricted by the walls of her convent. Unlike Wanda, Ida has never lived through war; she is innocent and naive. While their stark differences could easily paint one character as a “sinner” and the other as a “saint,” both defy overly-simplistic categorizations.

The film dances around the most interesting issues and subplots, leaving much of the film’s potential untapped. Though Ida and Wanda spend the bulk of the film searching for answers about the death of Ida’s parents and Wanda’s son, the film never tells the audience what happened. We learn that while staying with the Skiba family to evade capture, the Leibensteins were lured into the woods and murdered by the son, Feliks Skiba. It is unclear why he did it. Did he kill them in order to protect his own family and avoid a legal dispute? Was he anti-Semitic? The audience is given no resolution.

It’s possible that the uncertainty surrounding the Lebensteins’ death – at least, for Wanda and Ida – might be reflective of the time. There are millions of people for whom the exact details of their deaths during the Holocaust will forever be unknown. For the surviving immediate family members, it’s possible that knowing the truth wouldn’t provide closure at all. While the film stubbornly refuses to offer audience members any sense of closure, perhaps that’s a parallel to life, where oftentimes questions have no answer and sometimes tragedy strikes in a way that can only be described as inexplicable.  

Other instances of vagueness and ambiguity in the film are not as easily rationalized. Throughout the course of the film, I found myself asking one question in particular: though Ida was raised Catholic, should she continue to practice Catholicism given the fact that her parents and millions of her people were killed in a mass genocide because they were Jewish? The film has the potential to broach this topic, but never does. We learn towards the end of the film that Ida was only able to survive the war because she passed for Anglo-Saxon even as an infant. In a twisted way, Ida was able to evade persecution as a Jew by assimilating into the dominant culture through Catholicism. While we see Ida eventually begin to question her interpretation of Christianity, it’s unclear if she ever becomes curious about Judaism. The possibility of Ida exploring Jewish culture, which she could participate in without converting to Judaism, is also never explored. I find it strange that in this coming-of-age film the protagonist expresses no curiosity toward the religion and culture faced with such persecution that it lead to her parents’ death.

The ending of the film itself is yet another mystery. The audience sees Anna dressed in her habit, walking along the road wearing a confident expression after her one night stand with Lis. While it’s tempting for audience members to interpret this as Anna returning to the convent, is that truly the case? In the other scenes involving travel to and from the convent, the audience can clearly see buses. In that case, why is Anna walking at the end of the film? Does the look of conviction across her face refer to her decision to return to the convent or her decision not to return?

Ultimately, the film Ida is widely praised because it contains many of the elements consistent with good stories: dynamic characters, an engaging plot, a deep history. However, the film refuses to delve deeply into its most engaging issues and ignores opportunities for character development. Because of this, many audience members will finish the film with a sense of deep dissatisfaction, wondering to themselves, “Is that it?”

 

Almost Human

Feature article
Image of the outside of the Miraikan Museum
The National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation Japan (Miraikan) in Odaiba, Japan

Androids are robots designed to look human. I developed an interest in them while studying technology in an upper-level Japanese language course at Wellesley where we watched videos of androids that served as receptionists and held basic conversations. These machines that had once only existed in the realm of science fiction are now a reality. Naturally, while studying abroad in Japan, I leapt at the chance to see multiple androids up close at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation Japan (Miraikan) in Odaiba, an island near Tokyo.

A long, steep escalator led to the exit of the train station (Tokyo Teleport Station) where the island of Odaiba came into view. I spotted a giant Ferris wheel off in the distance. Much closer stood a large, rectangular building that was more than seven stories high. Beside the building was a giant Gundam statue from the anime Mobile Suit Gundam that was nearly as tall as the building itself.  I couldn’t help but notice how futuristic everything seemed.

Further down the road sat Miraikan, a large building with floor-to-ceiling windows along all sides and a giant chrome globe protruding from the front. Scattered around the museum were several pools, and through the water, you could clearly see the illuminated granite surface.  

Inside, passing several interactive exhibits about robots, climate change, and infectious disease, I spotted a group gathering excitedly around a demonstration that seemed about to begin.

This exhibition area looked like a minimalist living room. There were two white couches facing one another. On one of the sofas sat Otonaroid, a young female android. Otonaroid was designed to look like the average Japanese woman. She had long black hair and was dressed in black slacks and a white vest. As an employee of the museum, she also had a badge with her name on it pinned to her chest. Her entire body was coated in a beige material similar to skin, and even her eyes glanced around in a humanoid fashion. As I watched, she came to life. “Who here thinks I am human?” she asked. Her voice sounded realistic, except for a faint hum that betrayed its mechanical origin. Her question was followed by peals of laughter from the audience at its absurdity – especially as a few children raised their hands, so confused were they by the realistic android before them. “Who here thinks I can move my arms and legs?” continued Otonaroid. She went on to explain that she could not move her legs; she was designed to facilitate communication between humans, so she didn’t need to walk. A moment later, a museum employee exited a booth next to the exhibit to explain that Otonaroid could not talk independently either. Instead, humans use a microphone in the connected sound booth to speak through her. In fact, depending on who was voicing her, she could either sound male or female. Later I discovered that her creator, Hiroshi Ishiguro, has said that he believes that his androids are the future of telecommunications.

After the presentation, I wandered along until I found another exhibit. This one was tucked inside a large room that sat toward the end of the hall. I stepped inside and found myself in a dark room divided in half by a wall. In the middle of this wall was an opening that ran its length, just below eye-level. I crouched down to look inside. The second half of the room was painted white. On a stool in the center sat Kodomoroid, a young girl android with short black hair, wearing a white dress. Kodomoroid had one simple task: reading the news. She sat in that room all day and read the news online; the intention was to force the adults listening to think about the state of the world by viewing it through the eyes of a child. She spoke in a sing-song voice that mimicked that of human children; in fact, if you squinted at her or closed your eyes altogether, it would have proved difficult to distinguish Kodomoroid from a real child. I left the room deeply disturbed. In fact, I left the entire Miraikan pondering philosophical questions that would have seemed ludicrous before my visit, but, now that I had seen the pinnacle of android technology, seemed all too real.

Did these androids have feelings? Of course, the people who created them would say that they didn’t, but what if they did? In that case, should androids also have rights? It would be illegal to force a “real” girl to sit alone in a dark room day in and day out, reading world news, isolated from the outside world. It was ok – or maybe it wasn’t. What if “she” had feelings that humans simply dismissed?  I thought back to the Japanese children who were too young to understand that Otonaroid wasn’t like us, she wasn’t human. I thought about Kodomoroid, who seemed more humanoid than android. Of course androids don’t have feelings. But what if someday they could?