memoirs of a geisha
stereotyping and mysogyny

Internet message boards have recently taken an ugly tone about the upcoming Columbia Pictures film "Memoirs of a Geisha". Based on the best-selling novel by Arthur Golden, it chronicles the life of a young Japanese girl growing up in a geisha house in mid-1900s Japan.

The cause of all this is the casting of Chinese actress Xiang Xiyi and Malaysian Michelle Yeoh as the Japanese lead characters.

This has resulted in two basic positions online: the first, held by Asian-Americans, claims that "casting non-Japanese actresses in this film demonstrates insensitivity towards all Asians." The second position, held by non-Asian posters, is that "an actor's skill is more important than their nationality."

The two sides have not extended their sociological imaginations very far at all. Here is what both groups should realize:

• To the NON-ASIAN posters: please understand, Asians in America generally define themselves by the Asian nation of their ancestors. This is why Asian-Americans of Japanese ancestry call themselves "Japanese-Americans" above all other labels. Issues of race are unimportant; issues of language, culture, and history are paramount.

• To the ASIAN posters: please be tolerant of the non-Asian Americans and their tendency to define their selves by every conceivable criterion EXCEPT ancestry. Issues of race, color, even sexual orientation are considered far more important than one's ancestral nationality.

That being said, I believe both groups are completely missing the far more serious issues of stereotyping and mysogyny encompassed by the novel.

Throughout Golden's book, women are portrayed as passive victims. The main character (Sayuri) is the worst offender: not once does she effect any change, make any decision, or put forth any effort to take control of her own life -- the very picture of a weak-willed female.

The stunningly weak conclusion of the novel only emphasizes these issues. Sayuri apparantly was moved to New York City by her new patron male, The Chairman, to protect her from the jealously of her female geisha peers. I had been awaiting this point in the novel, to see how this meek, shy, unassertive character could possibly transform into the strong, dignified, successful woman introduced on page one.

Instead, the book simply ended. The one chance to make the protagonist a real, interesting character was never explored.

While it is possible that Golden wanted to show the tragedy of being nothing more than a prettily-dressed doll of a woman trapped within an exotic, fanatically insular society, nothing in the book supports such a conclusion.

Golden apparantly had no interest in showing how a woman could succeed in such a difficult business. Rather, he only showed us a woman who was moved pawn-like around the chessboard of life, falling into favorable situations through no volition of her own.

Finally, by writing the book in an affected gentle feminine tone -- which I would think all women should find unconvincing and distasteful -- Golden completed his exoticization and objectification of Oriental females, successfully filling Sayuri's personality with every offensive American stereotype of Japanese women.

The real issue of the book "Memoirs of a Geisha" is not one of race. It is its possibly mysogynistic attitudes towards women, and Japanese women in particular.

When I read this book, my first concern was that it would undo all of the work of American Asians since World War II. Indeed, of all "ethnic" Americans. We should be proud that our American culture has come farther than any in history in evolving beyond its own stereotyping. No longer are Cherokees portrayed as taciturn, half-naked men who precede every sentence with "Ugh." More and more women are earning positions as corporate officers, rather than being trained only to raise children and make Jell-O molds. Compare that to any other country in the world, and you'll see that we Americans -- while not perfect, of course -- are way ahead in terms of providing equal opportunity and discarding old stereotypes.

I am afraid that this book and upcoming film will encourage Americans to restore at least one of these stereotypes. To see Japanese women -- and by association, all Asiatic women -- as nothing but gentle, delightful, passive, and utterly powerless little personal servants of men.

Seems a lot more important an issue than the nationality of the actress playing Sayuri.

Keisuke Hoashi is an New Yorker-American-Japanese-LA-based writer and actor with more than 50 commercial, theatre, film, and television credits.