PART I THE GOVERNMENT AND FILMS
Films:
Film:
PART II OUTSIDE PRESSURES
Some terms:
Ethnocentrism: Using ones own culture as the analytic tool for other cultures (no moral judgment) Cultural Relativism: The idea that each culture is its own integrated whole and needs to be analyzed in its own terms
The original code had many parts some of which dealt with sex, violence, crime, obscenity, vukgarity, costuming, dance and so on. Compare Jane's costume in Tarzan pre and post code:
(http://forums.dealmac.com/read.php?6,2843730,2843741)
There have been questions about language use - profanity and so on. Is this how some group speaks or isn't it? What about dialect in performance? Do people use profanity and if so shoud it be included or excluded These distinctions are important in looking at the motion picture code and its statements about upholding morals without saying whose morals. Some aspects (can not be positive to breaking laws) become difficult (what about laws that are unjust?) Sklar and others hold that the middle class morals and values are behind the code.
Non governmental censorship can from "pressure" groups:
The use of language became a major problem in Emperor Jones and also was somewhat of a problem in Showboat. Some of the actors wanted the words changed but the author, Eugene O'Neill wanted them left alone.
The problem of stereotypine was a problem in Song of the South since it showed "happy" post Civil War Blacks on the plantation. Worse was the equation of African Americans as "primitive" in Emperor Jones although in both instances people have argued the reverse. Similarly arguements about Prissy (Butterfly McQueen) walking along the street in Gone With the Wind saying she doesn't know anything about "the birthing of babies" has been held by some to be vile sterotyping, while others have held it was a reasonable depition of passive aggression.
One question is does the depiction of any group in a film or work of art tell us more about the group, the people who made the film or the people who censor it?
The major issues revolve around whether censors what films to depict the world as they would like it to be rather than how it may actually be. Consider a film like Pleasantville.This film about television's presentation of a typical Middle American town indicates the conflicts that occur between the image and the movie maker's idea of reality. Is that idea of reality more or less real than the people who "made" the "TV program" Pleasantville
Some questions have been raised: about censorship
Acting
Video: Michael Caine on Acting in films
WEEK TWELVE AND THIRTEEN
Women, Ethnic and Sexual Minorties
Ethnic minorities as they accumulate more power become more capable of influencing the film makers. Basically African Americans and Hispanics have had the most coverage. Asian run a far behind third while Middle Easterners, Polynesians, American Indians and other 4th world peoples have had even less impact.
The discussions tend to revolve around two different but interrelated approaches - the first having to do with acting and the second having to do with economics. In terms of acting, there are questions about whether or not people who are not members of the ethnic group can in fact play members of that group without becoming just stereotypes. Some Asians argue that Sydney Toler, Warner Oland and Roland Winters who all played Charlie Chan would never have been taken as really Chinese. Some even commented on the problems of having an "obvious" white patriarch who seems to have produced a dozen Chinese children. This was seen as ludicrous and offensive, yet is exactly what is argued in terms of color blind casting. People will not notice these things..
There are questions which can be raised about whether what is at fault here is bad acting, bad screen writing, bad make-up or what. It also raises questions about what acting is - that is acting is a performer being what they are not. As has been pointed out, Japanese and Chinese actors often portray people from the opposite culture, with no objections.. That is to say that people being "Asian" is enough - they don't have to belong to the specific cultures involved. On the other hand it is not clear how much one needs to be in the culture - even broadly. Yul Brenner is not Siamese (although his birthplace is given variously as Mongolia, Sakhalin Island and so on) If the birthplace is Asian does he qualify to be Siamese in The King and I? Warner Oland who plays Charlie Chan in some films, is actually 1/4 Mongolian. Is this enough to qualify him as "Asian" enough to play Charlie Chan?
Economic questions arise in two areas. One is that even when the main character and many supporting actors are Asian, the main character is portrayed by a non Asian in most cases, while supporting roles are handled by people of Asian descent. The earliest Charlie Chan was actually portrayed by an Asian actor, and the argument is standardly made that an Asian actor cannot bring in a large enough audience to risk the film financially on them. This is a complex economic problem since the film companies are out to make a profit and the artists are interested in art, not profit, except as it relates to their ability to work and get paid. Since Asians, unlike Blacks and Hispanics are rarely cast in roles which are not specifically Asian, there is a problem about denying them access to roles which ARE specifically Asian (like Charlie Chan).
So the two parts of the discussion are somewhat related. Economically Asian actors are discriminated against in not getting hired for jobs which are unmarked racially or ethnically, and are denied leading roles in films which are specifically Asian. As a result, the depiction of Asians in the films is often stereotypic since the actor cannot rely on their appearance to indicate their racial background and hence are forced to produce a kind of "bastardized" ethnicity to indicate what they are.
The analysis of the behavior of the characters is another aspect of the films in that analysis is often (if not always) in the mind of the beholder. The argument that Charlie Chan's children's behavior is used for comic belief because it shows that "you cannot really become American" could just as easily be interpreted as "Their comic behavior is an indication that giving up one's heritage makes you a buffoon" Does the analysis tell us more about the analyzer or more about the characters?
Sexual minorities (mainly gays and lesbians - it is not longer clear whether gay refers only to males given organizations like the Gay and Lesbian Alliance) have also been depicted in very specific ways and this has produced an outcry from people in those groups.
These arguments take two forms - one that the general population believes "these people" are all like the images in the films. The other is that people take on their identity from the films. These too are complicated positions in which arguments need to be carefully scrutinized and non apocryphal data presented. Do people really get their identity from the movies? How many do?
Whatever the situation is, it is clear that the film makers have made attempts to include more minorities as performers in the films and to write more diverse parts for people who are specifically members of those minorities. There are serious questions about how possible is it to show people from a different culture as they see the world. The members of the film's audience carry with them a world view through which they interpret the film. The result is that cultures are decontextualized and recontextualized into the film maker’s idea of those people. This happens presumably with all people in any given film. The problem raised by members of minorities is that there are not many different images of them over all, whereas other groups have "multiple" faces. Is this true? Are southern sheriffs for example ever depicted as much more than stupid bigoted rednecks? Are Vietnam era veterans ever depicted as people without problems or without being drug addicted or psychologically off kilter?
Many stereotypes of European ethnicities also exist - Italians, Scots, French, and German and so on. People have often produced ethnic stereotypes as a kind of humor. Does humor have some function here which is to look at certain things in a certain way.
These problems are very complex and raise many issues. Some complaints have led to the "pulling" or an attempt to pull certain films from being circulated (Birth of a Nation, Song of the South, some of the Charlie Chan films, Cruising etc.). One can ask if this constitutes a form of censorship and how it relates to the problems discussed in relation to that topic.
WEEK FOURTEEN
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