I've been going over this a bit, trying to figure out exactly how to say what I want to say.
I'm not particularly concerned by appropriation. Is it possible that much of a viewing audience will look at this movie, no matter what it ends up looking like, and think it is essentially identical to the original? Yes, absolutely. But so what?
(And also, how many people think the same thing about Journey to the West itself?)
The only people who will be fooled into thinking that are people who are unfamiliar with the actual original. Anyone who is actually interested in the story will, by hook or crook, come across information that will set them straight. Anyone who isn't actually interested won't much affect anything.
Those people will have a picture of the story that isn't directly based on the original. Lots of people do, about the works in the literary canon. It essentially impossible that a viewer of this film would be able to claim to speak with authority about the original material without being set straight first, unless they were solely in a community of people who didn't know about the material. The story never corrupts the original, and anytime the two come in contact the first one has the weight of verifiable fact.
There was a historical time when this was not so, but this is no longer the case.
The real danger that you describe is not frightening to me, because it boils down to some people being wrong about something they don't think about or discuss.
When you talk about culture, I start to feel like you're speaking a different language. I don't know what "invested cultural interest" means. I'm automatically skeptical whenever someone says that belonging to a culture confers some kind of ownership. (Though, for an interesting treatment of, among other things, that concept, I'm reminded of Roger Zelazny's masterful ...And Call Me Conrad.) Culture is a canon of experiences and references and common context that influences the way you approach something, but there's no reason a part of one canon can't be taken and mutilated into a new part of another. Just ask Shakespeare.
Irritation is natural, because we have a vision of a story and it annoys us when it turns out someone else views it differently. But that experience is hardly unique to intercultural transmission; in fact, I think it's a transposition of the same reaction we so often ridicule from authors.
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Date: 20 Mar 2011 04:02 am (UTC)I'm not particularly concerned by appropriation. Is it possible that much of a viewing audience will look at this movie, no matter what it ends up looking like, and think it is essentially identical to the original? Yes, absolutely. But so what?
(And also, how many people think the same thing about Journey to the West itself?)
The only people who will be fooled into thinking that are people who are unfamiliar with the actual original. Anyone who is actually interested in the story will, by hook or crook, come across information that will set them straight. Anyone who isn't actually interested won't much affect anything.
Those people will have a picture of the story that isn't directly based on the original. Lots of people do, about the works in the literary canon. It essentially impossible that a viewer of this film would be able to claim to speak with authority about the original material without being set straight first, unless they were solely in a community of people who didn't know about the material. The story never corrupts the original, and anytime the two come in contact the first one has the weight of verifiable fact.
There was a historical time when this was not so, but this is no longer the case.
The real danger that you describe is not frightening to me, because it boils down to some people being wrong about something they don't think about or discuss.
When you talk about culture, I start to feel like you're speaking a different language. I don't know what "invested cultural interest" means. I'm automatically skeptical whenever someone says that belonging to a culture confers some kind of ownership. (Though, for an interesting treatment of, among other things, that concept, I'm reminded of Roger Zelazny's masterful ...And Call Me Conrad.) Culture is a canon of experiences and references and common context that influences the way you approach something, but there's no reason a part of one canon can't be taken and mutilated into a new part of another. Just ask Shakespeare.
Irritation is natural, because we have a vision of a story and it annoys us when it turns out someone else views it differently. But that experience is hardly unique to intercultural transmission; in fact, I think it's a transposition of the same reaction we so often ridicule from authors.