It ’s official : Cloud Atlas is a flop . At least in the United States . Made for a reported $ 100 million , the Word of God adjustment scantily fret $ 10 million in its opening weekend — butsome observers say the pic could make a respectable profit overseas , where most of its funding came from . Still , it ’s hard not to ask : Did the pic ’s controversial usage of “ Yellowface ” — white actors wear clumsy constitution to make them Asiatic — alienate its natural audience Stateside ?
After all , this is a motion-picture show with a freehanded political message , about “ stick it to the human . ” And the Wachowskis have a bounteous following among lefties — but sticking people like Hugo Weaving into Asiatic roles seems just assure to push aside the movie ’s born constituency . ( Although view the irony — the film ’s distributer are ostensibly look it to make insane amount of money in China , where it will be shown over the Chinese New Year . )
Last hebdomad , when we were emailing with Asiatic American fan aboutIron world 3 ’s new scoundrel , we also need them about Cloud Atlas , and how self-aggrandizing a job its “ Yellowface ” actually is . Here ’s what they told us :
https://gizmodo.com/how-big-is-iron-man-3s-fu-manchu-problem-5955239
Jeff Yang , editor of Secret Identities and Shattered , two anthology of Asiatic American superhero comics :
My take : it ’s a wildly challenging , creatively reckless mess , and at the same time a tour First State force . The racefacing is highly distracting — it ’s a stunt , designed to generate response — but I do n’t think it ’s nauseating so much as goofy . The Wachovski sibs and Tywker were attempt to make a point and the whole moving-picture show was in the armed service of that point ; the horrid makeup antics were a part of that point . Do I agree with the point ( which looks like that subspecies , gender , etc are just a thin surface bed over our universal and unending souls , as transposable as latex prosthetics ) ? Sure , I ’d care to . But that form of ethno - utopianism is usually painfully reductive , and CLOUD ATLAS is as hangdog as any oeuvre of simplify the complexities of identicalness in a agency that ignores sure historical realities and significant nuances . The stunt prosthetics play up that flattening effect . I tend to recall they could ’ve made the same point maybe more effectively by having the actors play their roles WITHOUT the distracting make-up and let the playing speak to the difference of opinion . But still : I get what they were trying , and you know , nice try .
Michael Le , Racebending.com :
As the Good Men Projectpoints out , the Korea sequence is especially knotty because it portrays many real Asiatic women as servile all - look - same ringer . Meanwhile , any Asian men with real dialogue , character reference , or substance are really white men . The whole premiss of the dysopian Korea play into a multitude of stereotypes about the submissiveness of Asian women and an tyrannical patriarchy of Asiatic humankind . The fact that the only “ actual ” Asians ( theatrical role with profoundness , yield the opportunity to reincarnate , who are n’t replicant clones ) are blanched men is unbelievably nettlesome .
I waffle to even call the film an “ experiment ” because in the broad throw it does nothing specially dissimilar . blanched men predominate the primary cast , women of people of colour are permit to meet in quixotic roles normally sate by white actress , and yellowface is used as a means of excluding factual Asiatic people . I ’ve see that the scene on the slave ship are actually suppose to have Polynesian / Pacific Islanders , so it ’s troubling that black actor have been swapped in as though brownish sept are all standardized .
From my view , the casting option made emphasize that white workforce have undefendable access to any persona , women of color are satisfactory as intimate partners for ashen men , and that brown world are a troubling tortuousness take millions of dollars in special core and war paint to efface .
The whole message of a post - racial utopia is deploy here , perhaps with serious intentions , but with the same end - result . The trick Hollywood wants to pull up is to continue business as usual – racism , sexism , and excommunication – but to claim it ’s groundbreaking and inclusive .
Tony Le , Racebending.com :
Cloud Atlas is awfully offensive , drawing up all the Asian stereotypes that have stalk Asian Americans in media since media has live . That ’s not to say that the movie is a unsound or terrible movie — it ’s not . Cloud Atlas is a beautiful moving picture . It is well - directed , with stunning colors and scenery — but that does n’t dress up any of the racial stereotypes that exist needlessly within the flick .
In Neo - Seoul , Papa Song serves up fast intellectual nourishment and genetically organise Korean cleaning woman to patrons . These Korean women are only slightly varied in appearance and features , being genetic clones of one another , easily manufactured and interchange . Not only does this reenforce the idea that all Asians are the same , but it also reinforces that stereotype of the beautiful lotus blossom , the beautiful Asian harlot whose doll - like show admit her to be swapped for another someone . The Asiatic woman are stripped not only of their personal agency , but of their forcible agency as well — they are bias from birth to depend and act a sure direction , to be used for the pleasure of mankind who reckon them as objects and consumer token . Somni-451 even state , “ honour thy consumer , ” which sound suspiciously like the Biblical saying , “ honour thy father ” but also the Confucian ideal of honor one ’s class .
Cloud Atlas ’ depiction of Asian women is not one of its only faults , however . Jim Sturgess , Hugo Weaving , and James D’arcy are depicted in yellowface . Their eyes are made to look minute and slight and their noses changed . Jim Sturgess plays Hae - Joo Chang , a subverter who frees Somni-451 from her daily routine of being a degenerate food for thought waiter . While this is a typical storyline in a dystopic story , its signification becomes eclipsed in Hae - Joo Chang ’s unearthly resemblance to Adam Ewing and the other graphic symbol Jim Sturgess play because , unlike the other characters Jim Sturgess flirt , Hae - Joo Chang is Korean while Jim Sturgess is not .
These days , make - up and 3D effects improve plastic film and television by leaping and bounce . What was previously impossible has become potential . That does not mean that filmmakers should throw all care to the tip . Yellowface was offensive in The Good Earth , when White actors and actresses play Asian characters , and yellowface is still offensive now , when a dead good Korean actor could have played Hae - Joo Chang . It is even more insulting when one takes the other yellowfaced character into consideration . The Archivist , the one interviewing Somni-451 as she recalls her life and involvement with Hae - Joo Chang , is played by James D’arsy . There is no reason why he could n’t have been played by a Korean actor .
Hugo Weaving ’s character , the Prescient , is even more distressful . His first show in Neo - Seoul is as a looming authority figure , robed in fateful . As a White man make for an Asiatic character , Hugo Weaving ’s menacing role recalls Fu Manchu : dictatorial , menacing , and above all — evilness .
In the plastic film , Somni-451 says , “ To sleep together thyself is only possible through the eye of the other . ” She says this to uncloak the truth of Neo - Seoul to its habitant , but it also unmasks the stereotypes of the photographic film . Asiatic Americans watching the screen can only see themselves through the eyes of the White actor , which is to say — it is merely an illusion : a trick of the light , a brush of make - up here and there — and the movie has created an veritable Asian , with no factual Asian actors postulate .
Which only mean — why Neo - Seoul at all ? Neo - Seoul did not wreak a big part in the growing of the tale . Neo - Seoul could have been Neo - Manhattan or Neo - Los Angeles , and it would n’t have pull up and reiterated the unfortunate Asiatic stereotype that play out every day in other medium . The only thing that Neo - Seoul added were the signs , write in Korean . Why then , could n’t they set this part of the story in another metropolis ? That would have prevented the need for yellowface completely while still bring the same social commentary . * * The only reason that the picture show seems to let in Neo - Seoul is because of the style it present an alien world to the looker , dissimilar and glum , concluded with neon lights and signs in a different terminology .
Neo - Seoul did n’t have to be so , and it ’s cross that it is , rendering a well - crafted film like Cloud Atlas unnerving and worrisome — and this is only touching the gratuity of the iceberg lettuce .
Cloud AtlasLana WachowskiMoviesPoliticsWachowskis
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