tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1658138279766595241.post7825914985945194300..comments2024-01-04T04:31:00.481-05:00Comments on Mixed Race America: Cloud Atlas Review Part 2: Yellowface & OrientalismJenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13261371053113519712noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1658138279766595241.post-48348773550529501752013-01-12T16:57:52.540-05:002013-01-12T16:57:52.540-05:00MetaCitizen,
Thanks for your comment. I don't...MetaCitizen,<br />Thanks for your comment. I don't know that this is actually the case. I've read CLOUD ATLAS and there isn't a suggestion that the people living in Neo-Seoul are supposed to be a hybrid mixture of Caucasian and Korean ethnicities--quite the contrary, I'd say that the idea in the novel, at least, is that the rest of the world has imploded/exploded due to environmental degredations and that Korea (and hence Koreans) are one of the few stable nation-states left around in the dystopian future.<br /><br />Certainly in the film I don't think there's a sense of hybridity (beyond the fabricant sort of course).<br /><br />As for recoloring the actor's skin--the concept of "yellowface" isn't that you are actually changing the skin tone of white actors to look yellow (after all, I've never seen a "yellow" Asian person before). Rather, it's the idea that you can change the race of a person using prosthetics and makeup--like eyes.<br /><br />At any rate, I think we have a very different view of how race was handled in this film. As for what the directors and producers were going for--I think anytime you are consciously changing the race of one actor to portray the race of another--when you are engaging in racial masquerade--you have to be aware that there's a whole history of doing this--and in the case of white actors portraying Asian people, it's called "yellowface."Jenniferhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13261371053113519712noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1658138279766595241.post-58861175708022584772013-01-12T02:04:23.960-05:002013-01-12T02:04:23.960-05:00These actors were playing NEO-Koreans, a racial mi...These actors were playing NEO-Koreans, a racial mix of Korean and white, and whatever else could happen to a race over a 130 year period, they did not recolor the actors skin because they were not going for "yellow face" at all. Just the eyes to suggest that there had been some change in the look of people over a very very large period of time. MetaCitizenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14539476314506544783noreply@blogger.com