Japanese internment camp movie:
Very white saviory. It reminded me of Baracoon by Zora Neale Hurston, which was released just recently even though Hurston was a writer from the Harlem Renaissance. Baracoon has a very dubious history, it was an interview of an old ex-slave from Africa and it was funded by the notorious “Godmother” Charlotte Osgood Mason. Baracoon is held under scrutiny because Hurston never wanted to get the work published and for the Godmother’s involvement. The Godmother was known to be coercive toward those she patronised and she had a racist agenda of spiritually healing white civilization through “primitive peoples.” She had tight control over the works she produced and was known to censor and manipulate. Anyways, Baracoon is suspicious because it had Kasula (the interviewee) overzealously praising the white people who threw him bones throughout his life (even his slave owner) while the majority of his complaints were directed at black people (Africans from his country and African Americans). The book was full of white saviors and highlighted black on black violence all the way throughout. Similar to this movie, where a lot of white people were shown being sympathetic and compassionate while Japanese on Japanese violence and aggression was highlighted.
The main character reminded me of when the dad character in South Park spends whole episodes engaging in forced fantasies of living like a hero archetype at the expense (and eye-rolling) of those around him. He makes an ass out of himself and keeps jumping at every opportunity to play the hero while accomplishing nothing. Seemed like he’d go out of his way to get himself injured too, from the very beginning it looked as though he intentionally burned himself to fuel his ego as a hero.
Also, he was very creepy and predatory. This was gone over in class, but it was kind of fucky how he, the handsome white savior, was set up to save the Japanese lady from getting married to the old pervy Japanese dude.
Presentation notes:
The presentation was decent I thought, especially due to the short time they made it in. I think a different topic would’ve been better for this class though, especially because there’s so many other topics they could’ve done. Maybe I just say this because almost none of the information was new to me? It was pretty show-offy of Studio Ghibli even though most of the class is probably familiar with it. The only thing I didn’t know was Troma Films association with Studio Ghibli in distribution. I used to watch Troma Films in high school, they’re free on youtube and they are shamelessly stupid.
Lunch Notes:
I talked a lot at lunch with Isaac and AJ. AJ was having trouble finding sources for his project. I think Isaac and I helped him with finding more places to look for more connections? I could come up with a long list of areas he could research for his “Monster Hunter” project. There is so much history, mythology, media, and pop culture related to monsters and monster hunting from all over the world.