For my project I’m going to examine Asian-American identity through the framework provided by the video game series Metal Gear. As Japanese games inspired heavily by American movies (Escape from New York, North by Northwest, Planet of the Apes, etc.) the “pop culture crosscurrent” is readily identifiable, and thematically the series has a lot to say about the nature of identity and the things we use to construct it. From genetic heritage, to the passage of information between generations, to the time and place a person is born and raised, each game in the series deals with a different facet of identity. My plan is to take these ideas and do the research to apply them back to the Asian-American experience. The final theme that my project will deal with is a harder one to define, but it has to do with how our will is carried out after we are gone (which doesn’t necessarily mean death to be clear, though it often does), and how a will can be misinterpreted. To bring it all to a conclusion I’ll tie this idea into the seeming inevitability of an American film adaption of Metal Gear, and how the intent and meaning of the original material is unlikely to stand up to the process of being recast into a different medium, though it will almost certainly happen anyways. The reason I selected this for my project is because it’s quite different from the work I’ve done before in a way that sounds fun and exciting, seems to run very close to the themes this program is meant to cover, and provides plenty of creative opportunity regarding how to handle the multimedia component of the project.
I’m actually incorporating Metal Gear into my final project as well. I think Metal Gear is one of the video game series that best captures the phenomenon of Japanese developers’ fascination with American culture. In terms of connecting it to the Asian-American experience, I’m really interested in how you might explore the Japanese-American character Kazuhira Miller and how his experience mirrors that of many Asian-American war children.
The inevitable Metal Gear adaptation you brought up reminds me of a good analysis I saw on why the American Akira adaptation will certainly be disconnected from the original’s themes and intents.
https://kurapikawithagun.tumblr.com/post/184044314063/i-was-about-to-write-about-my-problem-with-this
I have heard my partner and friends talk about this game, or series. I am very excited to see what you have in store here! I have kinda looked through your sources (as I am late to the party here) but wow am I even more curious now! Good work on what you have so far!
The concept of translation changing the meaning of a work (both from John Carpenter to metal gear and from metal gear into weird American metal gear) reminds me of the work of the literature collective OuLiPo.
They often used translation as a creative form in itself. For instance taking a piece of writing and translating every noun into the noun 7 places above it in the dictionary or changing each sentence of a piece to mean exactly The opossite of its original meaning.
Or translating famous passages from books to mean the same thing without using words with the letter E in them.