How Japanese women are depicted in American movies - Essay Example

Film Text Analysis. The history of Hollywood's cinema repeats itself with yet another movie on a geisha who suffers gender conflict when she does not want to conform with what is expected of her. She is treated as an object of sexual desire in a subordinate role and there are many scenes whereby her flesh is exposed to satisfy the male audience's viewing pleasure for voyeurism. Laura Mulvey has traced this trend of stereotyping the Japanese Oriental woman in Hollywood and derived at her theories of Hollywood using dominant male spectatorship, voyeurism and fetishes (Mulvey 1975). In the movie, Memoirs of a Geisha (2005), the young Chiyo is the object of the desire of the Chairman when he singles her out to perform an act of kindness for her. During this scene of the first and fateful meeting, he sees her fall and comes to her rescue to help her feel better. He tells Chiyo that there is 'Nothing to be ashamed of. We all stumble from time to time'. It is an act of masculinity and paternity as the Chairman tells Chiyo that 'My children wait for me to eat dessert'. We admire the Chairman because we are in with him in this act of masculinity. They are interrupted when a group of geisha walk past. Chiyo could have been subtly hinting of what she could become for him when she said diverts his attention towards herself when she said, 'Look! I'm a geisha!' Although the attention is shifted back to Chiyo, the male gaze remains on the female; as practiced by the ideology of Hollywood cinema. The Chairman exhibits another two of Mulvey's ideas on the male gaze being voyeuristic and fetishistic (Mulvey 1975). He praises Chiyo when he asks, 'How did you come by such bright eyes' See how nothing escapes the seeking eyes of the male voyeur. The Chairman maybe having a fetish for a young girl like Chiyo when, as a parting request, he asks Chiyo to 'Smile for me', after which, the Chairman rewards her with some money to 'buy you supper'. Chiyo's subtle offering to become the Chairman's geisha is dismissed as the Chairman maybe feeling some masculine gender role conflict. He has mentioned he has children so perhaps he is uncomfortable with the idea of seeing the young Chiyo as a geisha. Golden has written in the theory of Orientalism using Edward Said's idea that although the oriental culture is different from the west, it is able to homogenize with the western culture. The values of masculinity, kindness and paternity exhibited by the Chairman belong to both Oriental and western cultures (Golden 1997). Memoirs of a Geisha also demonstrates Gina Marchetti's Theory which said that the West uses Oriental gaze to depict Japanese women as being ready objects to satisfy a man's voyeurism, fetishistic and other desires. The Oriental submissiveness has empowered the West to take advantage of the Asian's subjugate will (Marchetti 1993). One of the first scenes of Hollywood's devised voyeurism for the male audience occurs during the initial apprenticeship training of Sayuri. Mameha, an experienced and beautiful geisha, is Sayuri's mentor. Mameha introduces one aspect of the gender role conflict to Sayuri when she tells Sayuri to assume the multiple roles of a geisha, an artist and a moving work of art. This scene shows the novice geisha's preparations in many areas. Sayuri is shown with a lot of skin exposed in soft light to emit a sexy allure. This is Hollywood's accommodation for the male audience who like to watch the feminine form in compromising positions of servile obedience to please. The geisha are taught to dance and seduce by capturing the attention of the male gaze. The slow erotic dance that calls attention to the feminine form also wants to entertain the masculine gender by giving him plenty to see. This conforms to Mulvey's research study that said that the cinema offers scopophilia; or the pleasure of viewing. Mameha tells Sayuri that 'Geisha are not courtesans and we are not one. We sell our skills, not our bodies. We create another secret world.....a place, only of beauty.' On one hand, Hollywood portrays the geisha Sayuri as a sexual object trained for gratification. On the other hand, Sayuri is shown to be taught by Mameha, her fellow compatriot, to distance herself and become the passive female when the active male looks. This is what Mulvey meant when she said that the woman is the image and the man is the bearer of the look. The geisha's world of beauty is created for the male gaze. This confirms the patriarchal superiority of the male over the female as he constantly portrays the Japanese Oriental as a submissive object for pleasure (Jones 2003). Mulvey's article seeks to analyze pleasure or beauty of the image of woman. She hoped that this would destroy the traditional history of taking pleasure in the viewer's ego. She wanted to conceive a new language of desire. By applying Mulvey's theories to Memoirs Of Geisha, we hope to better understand how to apply her theories towards breaking the Hollywood stereotypical portrayal of women. The End. References. Cardiff, J.(1962). My Geisha. Paramount Pictures. Golden, A.(1997). Memoirs of a Geisha. University of California Press. ISBN-10 0679781587. ISBN-13 978- 0679781585. Marchetti, G.(1993). Romance and the "Yellow Peril": race, sex, and discursive strategies in Hollywood fiction.ISBN 0520084950. Marshall, R.(2005). Memoirs of a Geisha. Sony Pictures Releasing, DreamWorks SKG. Mulvey, L.(1975). Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. London: Longman. Said, E.(2004). Interviews with Edward W. Said. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 1578063663. Jones, A.(2003). The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader.UK: Routledge. Read More