I should've seen this coming.

[kaigou]

Two neighbors are heading to Japan for business trip. They'll have a coworker along as translator, but the neighbor's wife is working overtime to learn at least the basics of Japanese for the trip. As musicians, CP figured they'd enjoy Nodame Cantabile (live action version), so we take a copy for them. Meanwhile, the Japanese tutor recommends one of Miyazaki's sappier sobfests, and the neighbors decide they don't like anime at all. (I did point out this is like watching an episode of Cheers and deciding that all American television sucks -- sure, it's mostly suckage, as is most of Japanese animation and television for that matter, or any media anywhere -- but you can hardly say on the basis of one movie and and a few clips that all of it sucks.)

So, since the issue here is learning some basics of the language, I suggested several series that have significant cultural components in the folklore/myth areas (Spirited Away, Mushishi, even Mo No No Ke), that also have some of the bigger names among the seiyuu. I figured if it's listening comprehension, the seiyuu, like radio vs television, speak with greater enunciation and clarity than most live-action actors. And that if folklore/myths are an interest, than those series are more steeped in it than most.

Here's the reply from the neighbor. Several other comments not relevant here, and then this paragraph:

Very realistic city images in [the Durarara comparison clip]! What B--- and I don't "get" is why these anime artists make Japanese people look Anglo? The big eyes, etc. What is this? Some sort of self-loathing going on here? Anyway, I know it's blasphemous, but we really don't care for anime. *sigh*

Maybe I should've asked here, first, but I just couldn't process the statement, at first. I could handle the "they look white" thing, since I've seen that before. But taking it into the realm of concluding this is "self-loathing"... I think I wrote and edited about six different versions of a reply. I mean, I have the option of waving off the assumption, because it's not like I'm Japanese (or even Asian) so what have I got to lose if I just let it stand, right? But then, no matter how hard it is to have your privilege checked, after the fact I've always been glad to know I'm one step closer to not looking like a freaking ignorant moron.

So I replied:

Short version: Yes, they are. They don't. No. Definitely NO. Irrelevant.

Slightly longer version: Your statements below are running the perilous edge of something I just don't want to get into on a Monday morning -- or any morning. At all. So with an attempt at diplomacy, I'll rely instead on explanations from those who've said it better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKTvFhRbBt8

http://www.matt-thorn.com/mangagaku/faceoftheother.html

http://www.racialicious.com/2008/03/14/of-wacky-japan-and-the-myth-of-the-other/

http://nonsensicalwords.blogspot.com/2010/02/imaginary-asians.html

Just watch and read the links above, educate yourself, and then think twice about what you said.

Probably not the most graceful reply, but truncated down from the rant I wanted to launch into. CP's comment (after the fact) was that I should've clarified it as a 'hot button', but I dislike that term. It's too easy to trivialize 'hot button' as "oh, then it's just a personal problem". No, this isn't personal -- I just get offended when someone makes really fucking offensive statements around me. That's where the personal impact is: I'm hanging out with someone who's expressing racist notions, however innocently or ignorantly, and that fucking bothers me. It makes me look at myself and say, "am I the kind of person who'd let this go by? am I the kind of person who'd say, since it's not about me, I don't care?"

You don't even have to bet pizza money on this reaction. I was hoping for different, but...

An attempt at diplomacy?

The questions were asked very honestly and innocently, and we know well that these questions have been explored academically and thoughtfully, and not with accusations of racism.

Now that we have been accused of being racists, there will be no further communication with you.

So, you, my dear, think about what YOU have said.

I really really wanted to write back with simply: "I did think about it: I said your statements were offensive, and I stand by that." But instead, and again (maybe stupidity on my part, or just being too goddamned tired all around right now to care enough) I didn't run it past CP, my diplomacy expert. I just pondered and replied.

I sort of expected that response, but I'd hoped not.

Your assumptions about the Japanese -- made on the basis of watching what, a single movie and maybe a few clips? -- weren't personally offensive to me. I have the privilege, as a white american, of ignoring the offense since it doesn't impact me personally. But your words -- however innocent in their ignorance -- were offensive independent of my reaction. I had thought you, as an educated open-minded person, would prefer that I give you information such that you could realize what you'd said, and could learn from it, and realize your hidden (and, I believed, unintended and unaware) assumptions and their implications.

I strive constantly to check my own privilege at the door and don't always succeed, myself. I know it's not always easy to have someone else remind me of where I'm falling short, which is why I'm not all that shocked at your defensive anger. Been through it myself in the learning process, and that's why the diplomacy of a third party's words are, I've found, often a bit easier to handle.

I still believe you're capable of seeing this, and that you're not someone who'd enjoy learning long after the fact just what impression you'd given, no matter how innocent your words. I think you're self-aware enough to find that possibility uncomfortable, as you obviously do, but I'd also hoped you were mature enough to realize that the messenger is not at fault for pointing out how your words may appear to others.

Yeah. Maybe I'm an idiot for upsetting someone with an attempt at a polite, oh my god do you realize what you sound like, do you really mean to sound like such a racist ignorant idiot? Maybe I should've just ignored it, and dropped the topic altogether.

I mean, I could've. That's always an option, but it's not an option I can choose and still believe that I'm a good person. It's a freaking racist statement, and I do believe I have the right to say that I don't want to hear that shit. I tried to say it nicely (and yes, on rereading I'm aware I failed, but in final analysis that doesn't mean the message is false, in and of itself), and I'd hope the neighbor wises up, but if not...

Then again, this is the same neighbor who's spent a fair bit of time talking at me about Judaism despite me saying I'm damn near close to an atheist, have no interest outside vague cultural, yes I did study it in school but that doesn't mean I need a ten-minute lecture about observing a Sabbath for a religion I have never practiced and never will. I mean, really, when my half of the conversation consists of nothing but "mmm... nnnnh... mmmm..." kinda "yes, still here but not all that interested" -- how much blunter can I get?

Or maybe that's just an oddity of me, that I get more offended on behalf of generalized racist-cultural statements about someone else, yet state once and then give up and just tolerate the repeated "we're all believers here" attitude that offends me, personally.

Tell me I'm wrong, and I say that in a "tell me I'm damn well right to say something" meaning, because I could use the backup right now. A bit of reminder that it is important to stand up at times like these.

Now, I think I'll go out in the garden and dig up worms. Not to eat, but to have conversation with. Anything's got to be better than this morning's exchange.

Comments

[kaigou]

Heh. I've been thinking about the issue of not knowing about anime, so I figure maybe if we universalize it, you'll see where the dynamic is that's the offensive part(s).

Let's say the person had started off with the style observation: big eyes. Think of any art style and there's probably something in there that would make you say, on first reaction, "why is that drawn/portrayed that way?" Like, say, the trend in Hispanic art to have distorted perspectives on street scenes, or in Indian (Asia, not America) styles where the characters are always drawn in profile. Calling attention to this can be completely innocent, assuming the question isn't phrased like, "all the people drawn are wearing stupid flowery skirts, what's up with that?"

Thus, the offense isn't in noticing a specific element of the style, but in drawing a line (so to speak) between this element and similar in white/american culture. The Hispanic street scenes show american muscle cars: therefore, the inclusion of a white-identified object (Chevies, Harleys, etc) or a white-identified fashion (Levis, cowboy boots, NASCAR t-shirts), indicates a "wish to be white". It's in the eye of the beholder, this white-identification, and it requires a certain amount of proprietary assumption, too: "I consider this to be a white-person's thing or dress or style, thus, anyone else using it must be attempting to co-opt white culture."

That, in and of itself, is offensive enough, really, but most people I've met stop there. I've only heard of people going farther, and never had anyone actually take that next mind-boggling step [until now, that is]. That is, having concluded that the adoption of apparent white-identified (by the viewer) items/behaviors is mutually exclusive with one's own (non-white) culture, and that to exclude one's own culture therefore is an indication of self-loathing. It makes no sense, if you turn the argument inside out (which most people making it don't or can't): does this mean that when I hang a Chinese scroll on my wall, that I am 'adopting' Chinese culture and therefore by definition 'loathe' my birth-culture? Of course not, the speaker would reply, yet they can't seem to see the bind they're putting other cultures into: that to adopt/adapt (or even appear to adopt/adapt, as in the case of 'big eyes') white culture is automatically an indication of wanting to be white.

I know plenty of people who drive Volvos, but we don't go around assuming they must wish they were Swedish, nor do we knock them with accusations of hating America. (Well, some people do, but those people are xenophobic idiots.)

So it's not even that you need to know much about anime, so much as to see the steps involved, and see how these steps can show up for a variety of examples. It's basically, "I have identified X as something 'owned' by white culture," and then onto "someone non-white using this is trying to co-opt white culture" and from that precarious leap right into the racist mud of "you only co-opt white culture rather than use your own if you hate your own".

It takes a helluva stretch, and a whole lot of hidden racism to get you there -- well, it ain't so hidden if your audience isn't as racist as you are, that is. Then it's actually pretty much not hidden, and might as well be on a neon sign.

[dejla]

That's a great explanation, and now I really do get it. No, you weren't wrong, and the "self-loathing" thing is really out of line.

I can see that there is an anime school of drawing, as in Surrealist schools and Art Noveau schools of drawing, and once I got past that, I don't tend to "see" the style. I did see, years ago, Spaceship Yanamoto and Captain Harlock -- Captain Harlock was in Japanese, without subtitles, so I never really understood what was going on, but I can see those stylistic quirks in the modern anime too.