The rant about "whitewashing"
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — The Forest
xystophoros — 9 years ago(September 08, 2016 02:48 AM)
I just read the rant that's been reposted everywhere (including this forum), written by a guy who goes by the name "The Love Life Of An Asian Guy" on Wordpress and Facebook.
It's a mind-bogglingly absurd argument and a misguided, reckless accusation of racism against filmmakers who clearly didn't do anything wrong. Accusing someone of racism is a pretty heavy thing, and shouldn't be done lightly unless you're a hack web writer who wants to stir up controversy for clicks.
First, the obvious the real name of the guy who wrote the rant is Ranier Maningding.
He's not Japanese
, he doesn't live in Japan, he doesn't speak Japanese, and he wasn't brought up in Japanese culture. He's Filipino. His culture is as alien to Japanese culture as German is to an Alaskan Inuit.
So we have a case of a guy being offended
on behalf of another culture
, and presuming to speak on behalf of people he doesn't know. The irony is that the Japanese do not see themselves as part of some pan-Asian coalition of the aggrieved. We're not hearing from anyone in Japan who's angry about this movie.
Plenty of Japanese movie fans have posted making it abundantly clear that they don't see anything wrong with the movie, and if The Forest was an egregious case of whitewashing, that must be news to the Japanese actors and actresses who comprise the majority of the film's cast.
But more than anything, The Forest is an original story. It's not based on a pre-existing franchise, or a manga series, or a novel. Natalie Dormer wasn't cast in a role meant for an Asian actress. No white people took roles from Japanese actors and actresses.
So in effect, what this Ranier Maninding clown is saying is that a filmmaker cannot tell a story about a foreigner going to Japan's "suicide forest." According to him, any kind of story involving an American or British traveler in a foreign country is by default racist and should be condemned.
And for the people who agreed with Maninding, this is the kind of ridiculous logic you're supporting. -
Wookieebitch — 9 years ago(September 11, 2016 10:28 AM)
And for the people who agreed with Maninding, this is the kind of ridiculous logic you're supporting.
People are always looking for a reason to be offended. We've turned into a species of cry-babies.
I agree with your point. -
mwgfgrey — 9 years ago(September 24, 2016 12:31 AM)
He apparently doesn't know anything about his own (Filipino) culture. If he did he wouldn't care about people whitewashing a Japanese film. My bro's ex in-laws are Filipino and the dad-in-law was always sour towards the Japanese after what they did to the Filipinos in WW2. To me it sounds like that guy was trying to cause a controversy.
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taramarie-08431 — 9 years ago(September 25, 2016 09:16 AM)
Completely agree!! Everyone is so offended nowadays and can't wait to call someone or something racist! There is nothing racist about this film at all. The locals were all Japanese and the tourists were white. What is racist about that? Is it racist just to be white now?
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AlexanderAnubis — 9 years ago(October 03, 2016 10:08 AM)
Thank you for providing a refreshing, articulate and sensible retort to The Love Life Of An Asian Guys florid complaints. The only statement I disagreed with was: [the] filmmakers who clearly didn't do anything wrong. What they did wrong was to make a very bad, silly film but that is really a question of taste, not racism.
Along the same lines: Plenty of Japanese movie fans have posted making it abundantly clear that they don't see anything wrong with the movie certainly proves that there are Japanese people who are not particularly bright. One of Love Lifes, (LL), complaints seemed to be that the Japanese are incorrectly viewed as being uniformly intelligent, wealthy and free from mental disorders. Far from criticizing the film, LL should be overjoyed that its existence is puncturing some of these myths.
When I was a little kid I used to watch Speed Racer on television. By the time I was six years old I had lost any illusions that the Japanese were all brilliant, rich and possessed of perfect mental hygiene. I didnt need to see any tentacle porn to learn that Japanese people are human beings and therefore can have issues just like everyone else.
One or two other points about LLs screed were particularly striking, and frankly made me wonder if the whole thing was just an elaborate prank:- LL implies quite clearly that authorities in Japan are anxious to minimize publicity about a suicide rate of supposedly epidemic proportions, and the forest that many people use as a place to end their lives. This may very well be true, and if it is, then the first place LL should be directing his passionate, fervent, evangelical fire is toward those very authorities. They are in a far better position than just about anyone else on the planet to assess the matter and do something constructive about it.
With that in mind, consider what happens in the film: the sister (twin 1) who lives in the US receives a telephone call from some unidentified official in Japan telling her that her sister (twin 2) was seen going into a forest where many go to kill themselves. And thats it. Twin 1 tries to get more information, find out how long twin 2 has been missing, if anybody is looking for her, and so on, but the official (in a bizarre, almost German or Serbian accent) only verbally shrugs his shoulders, says there is nothing to do and hangs up. This unsatisfactory exchange is the films primary rationale for why twin 1 feels the need to jump on a plane immediately.
After arriving in Japan twin 1 wastes time wandering around looking for a good sushi bar and snuggling up to her computer in bed to look at old pictures of the missing twin 2 and other such nonsense, instead of knocking down the doors of the police, pestering the US Embassy, looking for a good private detective, or even just a translator since she doesnt speak Japanese.
(This part of the film did betray some technological bias: to wit, according to much of Movieland, every damned laptop in the universe is made by Apple, and they always make sure you know it, too but thats really another matter.)
Now, when twin 1 finally gets to the forest she encounters the same attitude: nobody can help her, and more importantly, nobody is interested, except an American journalist, based in Australia, (apparently just so he can use the term walkabout once and not sound too fatuous), who picks her up in another bar. Lo & Behold, he is going into the forest with a Japanese guide the very next day and takes her along. This supposedly accidental encounter is how twin 1 is able to actually look for twin 2 at all. Whats striking is that, up to this point, apart from the initial telephone call, no one of Japanese descent is really involved at least not in a pragmatic way.
The film becomes even more ridiculous and while watching it, I took the above plot points to simply be sloppy writing. But perhaps the filmmakers were reflecting and highlighting the officially indifferent attitude LL griped about. Far from adding to the problem, if anything, the film called attention to it.
Furthermore, the film was almost exclusively shot (both studio and location) in Serbia. I think only two or three very brief scenes at a grammar school, an airport and a hotel view were actually shot in Japan. Maybe a street scene or two, as well. I have no doubt it was less expensive to shoot the film in Serbia, (it seems Eastern Europe and the Balkans are all the rage for mid-to-low level horror movie locations these days).
But now I wonder if another reason the production wasnt in Japan was because the filmmakers got a chilly reception when the folks who supply filming permits and such things learned what the movie was going to be about. I doubt the producers of Lost in Translation (2003) had many difficulties of this type. If there really is any whitewashing (in the traditional sense of the term) going on here, it seems to be by the Japanese authorities.
Once again, LLs criticisms of the movie are on a very unstable
- LL implies quite clearly that authorities in Japan are anxious to minimize publicity about a suicide rate of supposedly epidemic proportions, and the forest that many people use as a place to end their lives. This may very well be true, and if it is, then the first place LL should be directing his passionate, fervent, evangelical fire is toward those very authorities. They are in a far better position than just about anyone else on the planet to assess the matter and do something constructive about it.
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randomlynx — 9 years ago(October 16, 2016 04:43 PM)
Do not follow the Internet yurei, do not listen to them they are not real. They will tell you lies, they will cry fake tears, they will claim transgressions that never happened they will do all this hoping it destroys you. Beware.