o m g

[thene]

IT'S OKAY GUIZE there is a good sci-fi movie out now and it's Cloud Atlas.

So good I don't even know what to say about it. I haven't seen a new film anything like this good in at least two and a half years and this one is better. It is unbelievably full of stuff and time, has the best scene transitions I've ever seen, the central conceit - six different stories in which a bunch of actors each play several roles that vary across age, race and gender - works astonishingly well, the pacing is perfect, the tension is perfect, I loved almost everyone, there are boys kissing and Asian Lady RoboJesus, and by the end I wanted to hug everything ;_;

And then Chris said it has, what, a 55 on MetaCritic? Oh my god, these are the same dumbasses who thought Looper was good. (I would like to reiterate what a sack of sexist shit Looper is.) No. I know, I have a tendency to love gratuitously ambitious story structures & themes more than anything ever but this is really good and the only consistent complaint any of us had was that we could have done with subtitles for some of the more mumbly/esoteric characters. So see this, but you might thank yourself for going to a closed captioning screening, whatever, it deserves your love and money.

Comments

[vi]

I don't feel the same way about POC-to-white racebending than I do white-to-POC (see: unequal power dynamics and frequency of one versus the other, given the history of white-POC racebending and POC who have had to assimilate into whiteness in order to survive). I certainly understand that the racebending is a deliberate, artistic choice in this movie - but I still don't agree with their choice.

I'm not going into the artistic reasons because I have not seen the movie or read the book, and further, whatever reasons they have are irrelevant to me. It turns into arguing about intentions (e.g., deliberate choice vs casual slight, the directorial considerations that kyrias speaks of below), which cannot be proven. So I judge on the consequences of white people playing Asian characters (and other POC), which to my mind are, generally:

- Adding to a long history of yellowface
- (stealing from text in the above link) Non-Asian bodies controlling what it means to be Asian on screen and stage, particularly in lead/major roles
- Asian actors/directors/screenwriters etc. not getting work and/or being typecast into stereotypical roles (after all, white people can play us better than we play ourselves!) - there are few opportunities for multifaceted representation on our own terms
- Shaping how media consumers learn about race etc and how we POC feel about ourselves
- Perpetuating harmful stereotypes that are dehumanising and have real consequences for Asian people (e.g., violence, loss of work, acts of racism, self-esteem issues, etc)

I have no smart arguments. But I do think it's valid to critique and not support something because it contributes to my own oppression and to the real oppression of others, regardless of the intent with which a work is made (i.e., sure, it may be a deliberate and integral part of what the film was doing, but the effect is still the above). Perfect may be the enemy of done, but it is still valid to push for "better" when the track record has been so poor.

As a side note, I can't help but think of Doctor Who and his many reincarnations in different actors' bodies, or of child actors portraying their older counterparts - continuity is provided, and very little confusion ensues because it's clear in other ways (physical resemblance, similar verbal and nonverbal mannerisms) that it is the same spirit.

Kyrias wondered about other Asians' perspectives on this, and I'm about to post some links in response to their comment if you're interested.

[kyrias]

Thank you for your words, Vi.
I think part of my struggle is not just the consciousness of oppression and the consciousness of wrong, but sometimes I choose to disregard those thoughts for the sake of ...dare I say, art.
And this is where my privilege comes in, both my privilege and part of the tangled roots of being Chinese in a setting where the worst I can usually be is the "model minority". For most people this isn't something they can push aside, even temporarily, and I wonder at myself that I can.
Cloud Atlas was stunning, and I don't regret seeing it. I might have regretted, slightly, not seeing it -- from an artistic standpoint. And I waver, between wanting to support these directors who took something and went to the line with it and feeling like I'm supporting the sort of mindset that allows yellowface. I was originally going to considering seeing it again at the theaters, but my thought has been shaken.

[thene]

I think part of my struggle is not just the consciousness of oppression and the consciousness of wrong, but sometimes I choose to disregard those thoughts for the sake of ...dare I say, art.

I always figured this was pretty common - god knows there's enough sexist artworks I love, not least because there are never enough non-sexist artworks, and the situation is so much worse when it comes to homophobia that more often than not it's a choice between problematic or nothing. We pick our battles with our cultures.

[kyrias]

*flails* But where is the LINE? I don't even know where my own line is, and being someone who navel gazes as a hobby, that is somewhat disturbing.

[thene]

It's the upsides that tend to register for me, plus the (totally subjective) level of interference that the problem causes for those upsides. Like, Looper and Bunraku were about equally sexist and for similar reasons but Looper's sexism was integral and everything else about it also sucked, whereas Bunraku's sexism was peripheral and everything else about it was new and wonderful, so it still managed to be by far the best film that came out in 2011. Cloud Atlas, you just know there's going to be some people proudly boycotting it and then going out to see some nice unproblematic film all about straight white people instead...

[vi]

[nods] We can't fight everything. There will be some things that I will put up with because I just cannot be angry all the time, and there are some things that I won't swallow. I happen to be at the stage where I'm consciously trying to imbibe media produced by (and for) other POC because at this point, I'm sick of the damaging messages. It's a privilege to be able to watch what you want and not be hurt somewhere along the line, to love so uncritically -- me included for other axes of oppression. What I hate are people who cannot recognise this minefield or its damage, nor appreciate that some people have to navigate it with a more discerning eye. I thought this post about how to be a fan of problematic things put it well.