Peeve Farm

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Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets

  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.

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Sunday, February 3, 2002
14:50 - We're sorry, Japan! We really are!	(top)
Topsy Turvy was on one of the movie channels yesterday-- it's the movie about Gilbert and Sullivan and how The Mikado came to be written. It's a fun movie-- a great little glimpse, whether accurate or not, into the lives of the pompous, straight-laced lyric writer and his long-suffering composer. It also provides a look at the weird fascination Britain had with Japan at the end of the nineteenth century-- a fascination that led, predictably, to some really stupid presuppositions and a comic opera that shaped Europe's idea of Japan as some funky bastardization of China for decades to come. I think Japan looked at The Mikado, boggled, reeled for about thirty years, and then said, "Okay, let's get back at those people." Thus was anime born. Hey, I'm not really being facetious here. What would you do if a bunch of Martians came down to America, looked around smiling bewilderedly and saying things like "How extraordinary! So vulgar, yet so fascinating!", took some Americans on board their starship to study them, make them sing American songs, walk like Americans, dress like Americans, put on little stage shows so the Martians could titter and golf-clap... and then they sent you home and put on a musical production about "The Americans"-- people who dress like Beefeaters with Buckingham Palace shakos, with computers in their chests, miniature conestoga wagons on their feet, and with names like "Grundlebone Ycrberg" and "Slobber-Fabigus", all about how Americans are circus performers who wear funny clothes and shoot each other for sport but otherwise behave just like Martians-- well, you'd be a little put out, wouldn't you? In fact, you might be so taken aback that you'd just sit and wonder for thirty years, and then put on some ridiculous productions about the Martians? I mean, come on. One has only to look at the subtitle of The Mikado to see what I'm talking about: "The Town of Titipu". And look at the characters' names: Yum-Yum. Nanki-Poo. Ko-Ko. Katisha. Pish-Tush. Who wouldn't be offended by this? It's like G&S couldn't be bothered to figure out the difference between China and Japan-- and while the whole show is a ridiculous show of ignorance about any of the culture that they were so ostensibly fascinated by, it's made worse by the fact that the story is just a transplanted British idea done with funny clothes. I mean, why bother-- unless your specific purpose was to mock a culture that seemed just alien and faraway enough that they wouldn't mind? Like posting websites making fun of the Amish, because they'll never find out? So I think that anime, with its giant eyeballs and its big spiky multicolored hair and its giant exploding space robots, is directly intended as a retaliatory strike against the West-- it's their way of getting back at us. Certainly much more effective in the long term than bombing our military bases. So I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize, on behalf of the British of the 1890s, for The Mikado. We're sorry... we're really sorry. We've seen a lot of anime now, and we get the joke now. Ha ha, well done. Nicely played-- you sure got us there. Boy, there's egg on our faces. In any case, I guess I'm not really that much of a fan of musical theater, new or old; the only modern production I've really enjoyed and respected is The Scarlet Pimpernel. Sure, theater is a really fun experience, and a good way to get away from the crap of daily life. But some of it, even the supposed classics, really stink.