Article: 'Sayuri' by any other name is still a sexist whitewash

'Sayuri' by any other name is still a sexist whitewash

By ROGER PULVERS
Special to The Japan Times

Stereotypes die hard, and none more so than outsiders' stereotypes of
Japan. Time and again, they are not so much reinvented as recycled,
using potent but often semi-mythical symbols from a potpourri of
favorite bygone eras. In the end, they tell us more about the
foreigners who have dredged them up than about anything genuinely
Japanese.

As with the samurai, in whose image of stoic fearlessness many Western
men see a kind of quiet, macho ideal, the geisha is stood on a
pedestal as the acme of an artful and exquisite femininity. She is, in
this view, the embodiment of genteel, refined expression.

This notion of the geisha has been rehashed in several works of
fiction and non-fiction in recent years, the most successful being
Arthur Golden's mega-bestseller, "Memoirs of a Geisha." The film
version of the novel, directed by Rob Marshall, opened on Dec. 10 in
Japan (under the title "Sayuri") and some two weeks later in the
United States. This coming week will see its release in Britain.

"Memoirs of a Geisha" has been written up on these pages in an
excellently argued and incisive film review by Kaori Shoji ("Welcome
to Kyoto, California," Dec. 15, 2005). But this film as a phenomenon
of misunderstanding and misinformation bears further examination.

As its Web site tells us, the movie is "set in a mysterious and exotic
world" of geisha houses before, during and immediately after World War
II. It is a fairytale take on what was at best a demeaning and
soul-destroying institution. Yet among the many popular
misrepresentations of Japanese reality since the country came out of
its international isolation 150 years ago -- from "Madame Butterfly"
to "The Last Samurai" -- this is one of the most blatantly pernicious.

A chance encounter
In short, its storyline focuses on a determined and sympathetic little
girl named Chiyo (later Sayuri) who is sold by her destitute parents
into the okiyacho (red-light district). As a servant-girl she is
abused by the madam, as well as by the cruel geisha in the house. A
chance encounter on a bridge with a kindly entrepreneur, who gives
Chiyo his handkerchief, leads her on a lifelong pursuit to gain the
status necessary to approach this generous gentleman once again.

Two key themes of prewar Japanese life are whitewashed in "Memoirs of
a Geisha."

First, the entire system of recruiting young girls for work in the
okiyacho was one of institutionalized slavery. While it is true, as
the film points out on a number of occasions, that the elite among the
geisha were not prostitutes (though many, as the favorites of wealthy
patrons, were kept women), the institution lent an aura of cultural
legitimacy to the enslavement of hundreds of thousands of girls and
women who were forced into the sex trade in the major cities and
virtually every provincial town in arch-sexist traditional Japan.

Sayuri's enemies are other women, who show only a sadistic
vindictiveness toward her. Even her patroness, Mameha, supports her
because a wealthy man has paid her to do so. The two male protagonists
are positive characters, depicted as tender, if sometimes gruff or
aloof, gentlemen.

Imagine a story set in United States in the pre-Civil War South in
which the slaves are portrayed as locked in internecine in-fighting as
one of them, the most innocent, longs to be rescued by a Prince
Charming in the guise of a noble white plantation owner. Would there
be anything mysterious and exotic about the everyday life of the
slaves? This is analogous to what "Memoirs of a Geisha," transposed to
20th-century Japan, is doing.

The second issue arises from a gross omission. The generous
entrepreneur, known as The Chairman, is beholden to his
comrade-in-arms, Nobu. The latter's face has been disfigured in
battle. Nobu apparently saved The Chairman's life when they were
fighting for the Imperial cause in Manchuria. In fact "Memoirs of a
Geisha" skirts the issue of war responsibility entirely, save for a
few voice-over broadcasts of Hitler's progress through a distant Europe.

A vicious military occupation
However, the Japanese military establishment was the major customer of
the okiyacho around Japan, and tens of thousands of women were forced
to be so-called comfort women by and for the Japanese military, having
to endure mass rape in Japan and its far-flung colonies for the glory
of the empire.

Nowhere in the film is there mention of the fact that the two
admirable gentlemen were getting rich thanks to a vicious military
occupation of continental Asia.

After the war, most of the geisha, of every rank, were forced by the
Japanese police into the service of Allied Occupation soldiers. The
only thing that had changed was the color of the uniform flung hastily
onto the tatami.

The reasons for Westerners choosing mystery over reality have varied
since Japan's abandonment of the policy of national isolation.

In the Meiji Era (1868-1912), the West, for the most part, wanted to
keep Japan quaint, picturesque -- and on its knees. Virtually all
Westerners allied themselves with the most reactionary social
institutions and their propagators, seeing that as a sure way to
arrest Japan's entry into the West's exclusive club of the Great Powers.

But what obliges film producers like Steven Spielberg to spin a sick
little tale like "Memoirs of a Geisha" now that Japan is in many
respects a full-fledged member of the Western club? Spielberg, who in
his movies generally deals with bizarre fantasies and heroic
historical figures, seems to have inadvertently mixed the two together
in this film.

Whatever the filmmakers' motive in recycling an antiquated
fabrication, there was nothing mysterious or exotic about the world of
the okiyacho to those who were chained to its walls. By producing this
visual and moral euphemism, its creators have not only prettified and
distorted what was a ruthless institution akin to the modern
trafficking of women; they have also raised yet another opaque screen
in front of what Japan once was -- and what it is today.

The Japan Times: Jan. 8, 2006
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