Hit and misrepresentation
With the release of the movie of Memoirs of a Geisha, some criticism has been voiced over the fact that the main characters, who are supposed to be Japanese, are played by Chinese actors: Zi Yi Zhang, Michelle Yeoh and Li Gong. (For example, the Sydney Morning Herald reports that one journalist in The Financial Times wrote that “casting a Chinese actor in a Japanese role was akin to having a Palestinian play an Israeli” [Source].)
But I can't help thinking, “What's the big deal?” At least Hollywood is getting closer to the mark. It wasn't that long ago that Asian leads were played by Caucasian actors, with Asian actors being told they didn't look “Asian enough” for the part. (Have a read of the biography of the first Chinese American movie star Anna May Wong for an interesting slice of Hollywood history). Being Asian, I'm more pleased about the fact that this means there will be more Asians on the silver screen and on TV (with women like Lucy Liu and Sandra Soh appearing more in big-budget productions, and Michelle Ang joining the cast of Neighbours for a season) than whether or not these Asians are the right kind of Asians.
Of course, we care more about representation when it has something to do with us. If I was Japanese, would I be up in arms about the casting of Memoirs? If I was black, would I be jumping up and down about the fact that Ged was played by a white guy in the miniseries of A Wizard of Earthsea? If I was homosexual, would I be lobbying to see more gays on TV? If I was male, would I grumble every time I went to see an action movie and the heroine played the role of Decorative Useless Love Interest, and would I care about the fact that The Wind in the Willows has virtually no female characters? (For that matter, would it bother me that most of the men on TV are boorish, lazy and stupid—needing to be distracted by a trail of lingerie around the backyard so that their wives can drink their tea in peace?) And if I was a non-Christian, would I get annoyed about all the hillbilly bigoted lunatic Christians on The West Wing?
We *want* art to imitate real life. Chinese people are not Japanese people. Girls can do more than look pretty in revealing clothing and scream for help. And there are Christians in the world who are actually very nice, who don't hate President Bartlett and the things he stands for, and who would never send his granddaughter a Raggedy Anne doll with a knife through its throat for saying she's pro-choice.
But at the same time, we don't want art to imitate real life. We want the world to be populated with beautiful people who are immune to acne and don't know the meaning of the word ‘flab’. It doesn't matter to us that the original Battle of Stirling was fought on a bridge and not the famous field you've seen in Braveheart. We really don't care whether there really is an island populated by dinosaurs and ruled by a giant gorilla. We want the hero to escape alive; we want the underdog to triumph over the villain; we want the girl to get the guy; we want truth, love and justice always to prevail ... really, sometimes we just want to be told a good story and be entertained.
So does it matter? With regards to Memoirs, there will be Japanese people who will make a fuss and there will be Japanese people who won't care. With certain action films, the heroine's intelligence quotient will bother some audience members more than others. And it's likely you won't care about The Wind and the Willows as much as I do ...
I'm afraid I don't have an answer. I know that a true representation of reality is not always possible, not always called for and therefore not something we should always expect. But I hope you'll pardon me if watching Kirsten Dunst play yet another brainless bimbo makes me want to throw popcorn at the screen.