FOX pulls Charlie Chan movies. Thoughts?

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/3035078.stm

FOX Movies have pulled the season of twenty odd Charlie Chan movies due to potential complaints about the racist content of the films.

I have very mixed opinion on this. On the one hand its using todays morality on a different age and hence a touch disingenuous. At the same time we should be using todays morality on todays output. At the same time this kind of thinking will exorcise a lot of cinematic history - including nearly every Western up to 1968. Is it airbrushing history, should we remove them from the entertainment arena altogether and just seem them as anachronistic reminders of their time. (Bigger question therefore, how much can you enjoy racist/sexist literature - literature with a different set of ethics).

Secondary question, is Charlie Chan a derogatory stereotype? What about No.1 son?

― Pete (Pete), Tuesday, 1 July 2003 14:53 (twenty-two years ago)

By the standards of their day the Chan films weren't especially derogatory. I wonder if they'll pull the Will Rogers comedies with Stephin Fechit now; those are definitely potentially more offensive.

I don't see any actual harm coming to anyone if these were broadcast, especially not if they were preceded by some sort of statement. The Asian stereotypes that the Chan films indulges aren't really prevalent any more, so they wouldn't seem to threaten to deepen current stereotypes.

But I also don't see a cable channel pulling Chan films as being an event of world-historical significance.

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 1 July 2003 15:01 (twenty-two years ago)

I would've sworn this would be a Calum thread, BTW.

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 1 July 2003 15:01 (twenty-two years ago)

I'll take that as a compliment.

The problme with preceeding a film with a statement is that most people flicking won't actually hear it - leaving them to associate FOX movies with oddly anachronistic films with white people with artificually slanted eyes pretending to be Chinese.

― Pete (Pete), Tuesday, 1 July 2003 15:05 (twenty-two years ago)

You're right, and that's why something like this is understandable in a broadcast context. I'd be sad if film festivals and the like stopped showing Fritz Lang's SPIES and HARAKIRI because of similarly antiquated Asian stereotypes.

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 1 July 2003 15:08 (twenty-two years ago)

When I was a kid in the South, one of the local TV affiliates used to regularly have a "Tarzan week" as part of its afternoon/afterschool movie programming, aka "The Early Show." I used to love those old Johnny Weismuller movies. Anyhow, at some point the station announced another Tarzan week, only to pull it at the last minute and replace it with "equal time" from regional black nationalists (this was the '70s) basically explaining why the movies were so offensive. Most of the explaining went over my head, and, of course, I was very disappointed. In retrospect, though, I learned a lot from the incident--not least that there were black nationalists in East Tennessee.

― Lee G (Lee G), Tuesday, 1 July 2003 15:28 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't think this will be the case at film festivals - but even there political pressures will take a bearing. I still find it very weird hearing the lead character in The Dambusters call his dog at teatime on a SUnday afternoon (when its on).

― Pete (Pete), Tuesday, 1 July 2003 15:31 (twenty-two years ago)

There is a current translation/reprint series of Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy comics, which faces some of the same issues - some are 50 years old and pretty dodgy. There is a sensible intro page explaining that no one is likely to produce this kind of thing these days, but this stuff is of enough artistic worth and historic importance that they are worth preserving nonetheless. The problem is with a style of caricature of races, rather than of real bigotry in the stories - a major theme is against prejudice, admittedly cast as anti-robot feeling, but treated in the same way as racism.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 1 July 2003 16:55 (twenty-two years ago)

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