Comments

1
I've got a little list.....
2
The Mikado is a fine piece of light Victorian comic opera with as much relevance to Japan as Turandot has to China (or a spaghetti western has to the United States, or 300 had to ancient Greece, for that matter.) It's set in mythical Japan, not historical Japan. Enjoy it for what it is, or leave it be. If you don't like it, don't buy a ticket.
3
@1: I don't think he'd be missed.
I'm sure he'd not be missed.
4
the mikado is NOT about japan. it was written as a satire of british society and politics, which was G&S's whole point. repeat: this is NOT about cultural appropriation. this is satire. the Seattle G&S society has been doing the Mikado for decades. why all the fuss now? or is brendan doing his usual drumming up of page hits?
5
Gentlemen of the Japanese town of Titipu are gathered ("If you want to know who we are"). A wandering musician, Nanki-Poo, enters and introduces himself ("A wand'ring minstrel I"). He inquires about his beloved, the maiden Yum-Yum, a ward of Ko-Ko (formerly a cheap tailor)

This sounds so fucking wack regardless.
6
@2 You can set a show in mythica Africa and design your actors in black face and musical hall caricatures and it still wouldn't be cool.
8
Yeah, The Mikado isn't an appropriate subject for this kind of hand-wringing, unless they're planning on singing the full, original text with no changes or cuts - something almost never done because the N-word is in one of the work's most popular songs.
9
Is she more annoyed that the play isn't even remotely culturally sensitive (which, well, yeah) or that it's being staged with white cast members? I was kind of confused on that point.

The Mikado is very much a relic of its time, but that shouldn't prevent it from being staged.
10
Yup, NO PROBLEMS HERE: File:BabMikadoTeeth.jpg">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BabMik…
11
Related: any comment on that blackface band Emily Nokes promoted last week?

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/that-…
12
"Adventures of Huckleberry Finn should be shut down if the character of Jim, an African American, were played by a white actor with shoe polish smeared all over his face."

Sharon can't distinguish a play from a minstrel show.
14
@ 13 That's because we're not a hive mind. Different people have different opinions about different stuff.
15
@14: Deleting all comments that reference that photo suggests otherwise.
16
Just another response of how this author judged a book by it's cover. Now about a piece of literature before you speak on it. The complaints in the article are what G&S were trying to speak on when they wrote it. Take a look at the opening number, it's not disguised. Hack writing here.
17
@14 Pshaw!
18
Oh, please. The Mikado is a Japanese opera like Olive Garden is an Italian restaurant. It's a satire, and the Japanese setting was probably an attempt to capitalize on England's turn-of-the-century Far East craze. At a time when so much of our entertainment is produced by and for retards, it's heartening to see a show of such wit performed at all. No need to kill it with unnecessary political correctness.

Also, watch Topsy Turvy which examines the relationship between Gilbert and Sullivan at the time the Mikado was written and produced.
19
So, if I make a satire of the Obama administration by comparing the White House to the president of a South American nation, and use every Latino stereotype under the sun to illustrate the point about Obama's problems, it wouldn't be considered offensive to the Latinos?

Nice to know.
20
The only people that should be offended are those being accused of going to see the production and coming away with negative views about Japanese people and culture. I think a theater-going audience should get a lot more credit than that.
21
@ 19, are you saying that The Mikado uses "every type of Asian stereotype under the sun"? Because it doesn't. No buck teeth, no characters running arounds saying "ah-so," no thick glasses, no dialogue that sounds like "ching chong chung," no chopsticks... Shall I go on?

Intent matters, and G&S never intended to make an imperialist commentary on those funny orientals. Again, the only really racist thing in it is a verse from the Mikado's song where the N-word is used, and that verse has been routinely excised from performances for decades now.

First rule of taking offense on the behalf of minorities to which you don't belong: Make sure your comparisons aren't absurd.
22
I hope everyone with an issue here at least goes to see the show. Then come back and tell us how offended you were, or weren't.

https://www.pattersong.org/tickets?qt-ti…

23
To add to what other fine folks have written here (see especially @2, @4, @8, @18) Try to imagine what the presentation of any cultural significance would look like if it were sanitized to the current set of acceptable discourse. Writers and artists from centuries previous simply cannot be understood or appreciated or learned from if you cleanse, suppress, or bowdlerize their works. Need an example? scrub Shakespeare of his treatment of women. might as well never perform any Shakespeare.

Fergawdsakes, have someone walk out prior to each performance and explain (to those few who might not already understand) the historical context.

Stop hanging a fig-leaf over our cultural history! We need to appreciate from where we came so we can calmly judge where we would like to go.
24
I'm equally confused about her complaints about how it shows Barbaric Japanese. I guess a bit about an executioner with a big sword is Barbaric. Cutting off people's heads is Barbaric. And pretty common in 1870 when the show was written. The author is so sensative to Japanese culture that she's not aware that Japanese soldiers were carrying out the practice at least up until 1945.

An there's the bit about how the executioner is a pacifist/afraid of bloodshed that he refuses to carry out his orders and is a little worried about losing his own head as a result. And that bit about him being a prime candidate that he should behead himself except that suicide is a capital offense.

I guess Ms. Chan sees every person depicted on stage as a true representation of actual people. Man, I went and saw CATS and I was PISSED when I couldn't get my cat to to something Jellicle. It was so sweet that President Roosevelt asked that little orphan girl to stay in the cabinet meeting. That was a great moment in history.

25
@23

Yep. It's possible to know that Song of The South is deeply racist and still think zip-a-dee-doo-dah is a damn catchy song.
26
There's a lot of whitesplaining going on here. Thanks for that, Seattle.
28
@26 you mean "context?" Yes. Apparently people are committing the terrible crime of giving the context and history of the actual operetta itself.
29
These discussions are not going to go away.

I don't think the critique of G&S here is accurate, BUT I can't argue with any Asian woman or man who wants to say that even humorous representations like this one interfere with their ability to break a broad array of stereotypes that are impacting them today. And I certainly can't tell someone not to be offended just because the intent of the production is not to offend.

On the other hand, I can't believe that anyone under the age of 40 is still engaging with Gilbert and Sullivan, but I remember enjoying it in my childhood on the record player.

Seeking an Asian cast or whatever would be taking it way too seriously and making something out of it that it is not. Perhaps it is better to just put it aside. There are lots of other G&S musicals.

On the other hand, the "never would be missed" tune has often come up in my mind, in response to both the comical and the tragic.
30
@ 26, appropriate, since it's white people making the complaints.
31
@29 that is to say, just because someone has a right to be offended by what they are offended by, it doesn't mean we have to respond to it in the way say they want.
32
@26 Swing and a miss, dickhead.
33
At the time this became a play, Victorian ideals were coming to terms with their brutal actions in China and Japan: for it's time it was one of the few positive images of Asians as being "like us"

And considering what the US was doing in the South and did during WW II and after we can't go and stop doing productions of Steamboat just because you want.
34
@31 ...but we might be racist assholes if we don't.
35
I am Asian American and want to see Mikado for myself, but honestly it's too expensive on my budget. To all of Mikado's defenders, please bear in mind that there is a historical context for the intense anger by Asians to any anything coming remotely close to yellowface. The facts of what G&S intended or how their loyalists view the play, truthfully, are secondary in terms of our immediate emotional response to such portrayals. It's a visceral reaction tied to deep-seated wounds that often have to be managed and mitigated everyday. It also triggers the related frustration we have with the persistent lack of balanced representation of Asian Americans in entertainment media. The dismissive responses to sentiments like Ms. Chan's also fuels a sense that many AAs have, which is that many non-Asians believe AAs do not experience "real" racism as other minorities do.

I personally get frustrated by the knee-jerk outrage, as has been manifested in the whole Colbert and Cloud Atlas fiascos, where the intent of the creators was clearly not purporting stereotypes but were, in fact, subverting them. However, I still understand the reflexive negative reactions. When I heard Colbert talk in chop suey English, I felt he'd gone too far, but he kept going and because I knew the context of the joke, I actually wound up crying in cathartic response. Between both extremes on this topic, I think there are many Asian Americans who have a more nuanced view of these type of representations than are usually voiced in the media, or in comment boards for that matter. I usually restrain myself from entering the dialogue, because I can't stand when there is no give-and-take.

This is all to say, I really wish our culture had a more respectful place for AAs, and by 'respectful,' I mean seeing us as we are and not through the lens of old stubbornly pernicious stereotypes. That said, I wish the dissenting voices would pick their battles a little better and utilize a bit more emotional intelligence, because the blind outrage paints such voices as fringier than they actually are. In other words, see the darn play and then cast judgment (if you can afford it), instead of going by a few pictures on the internet. We will have a much sturdier platform to stand on.
36
"It's always been done this way! Why change now?" Is about the stupidest argument against social change ever.
37
The value of the show is in the music, lyrics, and satire, which can still be valid and interesting today. It is widely accepted as one of the best operas G&S wrote and it is still quite popular. It can't just be taken out of the rotation. (I was part of a G&S society a number of years ago, and our financial model was based on doing one of The Mikado, HMS Pinafore, and The Pirates of Penzance every three or four years so the sell-out profits could finance 20% houses for something like Patience or Iolanthe.)

The main issues with any modern presentation of The Mikado can be addressed in production design. It isn't that hard a show to PC-up. Step 1: Use the expurgated list song. Step 2: NO YELLOWFACE. For extra credit, try to do something about Katisha.

The picture accompanying this article illustrates this - put the actors in western hairstyles and makeup, tone down the Orientalism of the sets and costuming, and it would look a hell of a lot less jarring.
38
@ 23. This is a footnote, but I totally disagree with your analysis of gender in Shakespeare. One of the reasons people keep coming back to him is his curious way of making many of the women much more clear-eyed (and brave and clever) than the idiot men around them. He was writing in a time when the assumption was that women were inferior but he regularly subverted that: Rosalind, Lady Macbeth, Juliet, Beatrice, Portia, Cleopatra, Viola... the list goes on and on.
40
@38 you certainly took a dramatically different set of English lit courses than I did. I was carefully directed to appreciate all the subtle, and not so subtle jabs, "at the weaker sex" (performed at the time by some fair young lad, of course). To pour over every word of Hamlet's Gertrude, the nurse from Romeo and Juliet, Imogen in Cymbeline, Desdemona... the list goes on and on.

Beautiful words all, and quite discordant to our current social understanding; and that's what would be unfortunate, if we weren't allowed to experience the older view. Paper over from whence we came. There is great beauty in the cultural museum, but not if we try to make it like it never happened.
41
@38 You're Cherry picking. I see your Cleopatra et al and raise you The Taming of The Shrew's Kate, Hamlet's Ophelia and Othello 's Desdemona. And on and on.

And Portia? Maaaaybe. I mean, she's a great character. But I hardly think Shakespeare subverted anything with her. Frankly, I think you've got some very biased blinders on.

G&S, just like Shakespeare, are the products of their times - good and bad. And the point is those stories are open to our interpretations.
42
Oops. He beat me to it. @40 is right.
43
As an Asian American, I would like to apologize to all you white people that I'm messing up your enjoyment of this play with my problems over some hurtful depictions. I have no excuses for my insensitivity towards such culturally important issues like this.
44
@43: I am genuinely interested to know: Do you think the problems with the depictions in this play can be addressed by not using stereotyped hair, costumes, makeup, etc., on white performers? Or do you think there are issues with the text itself that may be offensive or hurtful?
45
An all Asian cast of the Mikado has been done, in Japan no less.

Google "Chichibu Mikado"
47
The Asian characters in Mikado are portrayed as being petty, cowardly, vain, bubble-headed and stupid as a bag of rocks. Equally offensive is that the female English characters in G&S plays are _also_ portrayed as being petty, cowardly, vain, bubble-headed and stupid as a bag of rocks. This is in vivid contrast to the _male_ English characters in Gilbert and Sullivan plays who are portrayed as being petty, cowardly, vain, bubble-headed and stupid as a bag of rocks.

As for how bad it is for actors of the "wrong" race to be playing the roles, I'm willing to be educated. Does it make a difference that these are not meant to be anything other than stand-ins for the stuff-shirt Brit bureaucrats who are the true target of the satire? I think maybe it does, but... the picture accompanying the post made me more than a little queasy, I have to admit. Commenters on this thread who are quick to dismiss the complaint should go back for a closer look.
48
@44: I understand that G&S tried their hardest to make the play authentic, and that this is a send up of British rather than Japan, and (insert rest here). So, I'm not questioning the intention and authenticity of the play -- in fact, I think it hurts a little more precisely because the intelligence behind it is clearly remarkable, their dedication in their research was praised many times over, yet, they still use patronizing things like "Titipu" and "Nankipu," or lyrics that paints the stereotypical image of the effeminate Japanese man.

But despite my snark, I'm actually relatively ambivalent about the play. It's written around the 1900's, what did we expect, you know?

What I'm more disappointed with is how someone raises an issue over the insensitivity for Asian cultures, and we get a bunch of people saying it's making a fuss out of nothing, and that it's the way the play was written. I can understand looking at something through historical context; but then, at least acknowledge that that same historical context is pretty damning when you turn it around.
49
@23: ... have you ever actually read any Shakespeare?
50
@37 FTW.
51
@49 not to niggle but Shakespeare was a playwright. His plays are meant to be performed and watched. Not read.

I don't know about #23 but I HAVE read all of the Shakespearean canon. And #23 was spot on.

They are, by todays standards, sexist as hell (and let's not forget all female roles were played by men).

That said, judged by his OWN time, some of WS's depictions of women are fairly progressive. Most however are not. Not to a clear dispassionate eye. Nope. Not.

BTW. G&S were progressive for their time as well.
52
That a whole country of people is reduced to a vessel for satire is problematic, especially since there is a persistent dearth of empowering/multidimensional/realistic representations of Asian cultures and non-white people in general.

But I think it would be so much worse to have "real" Asian people (actors whose physical attributes seem to confirm what we perceive as biological race) play the characters in The Mikado because it would take this satirical play that was written by a bunch of British guys who professed no claim to represent Japanese culture, and try to retroactively attach it to the contemporary construction of "authentic" Asianness.

The best corrective would be to make more space for cultural works that radically critique these historically entrenched ideas of race, the orient, etc. (try M. Butterfly, for example), and to redistribute the reins of cultural production to more minorities (non-white, non-cis/hetero-male, non-wealthy, non-abled, etc) so that there's more self-representation and so that we don't just hear the same old story of intellectually-elaborated Western guy and exotic other again and again (I'm sure such stories will be more interesting in moderation).
53
@14 its called an editor. Also you seemed pretty hive minded with macklegate a couple weeks ago, so its not crazy for your readers to think wtf when slog promotes a band performing in blackface. For once hold your writers to the same standard you constantly hold other to. Does the stranger stand for anything any more or is just a place for mostly white male writers to complain about the actions of other white males so us white male readers can agree or disagree in the comments, driving up page hits and bringing in money for the stranger white male owners.
54
In another part of the review, Ms. Chan says that the cast is 40 white actors, 2 of whom are Latino. I guess only an angry woman of ancestry would say that Latinos are 'white' in our society. Ms Chan, does it depend on the hue of their skin, which can vary from very light to very dark? How could you tell what was under their pasty, white makeup?

She also says "The opera is a fossil from an era when America was as homogeneous as milk, planes did not depart daily for other continents and immigrants did not fuel the economy."

Ok, I agree that planes did not depart in the 1800s, but the other two parts of the sentence are ridiculous. Of course immigrants fueled the economy, from the 1600s to this day. And as for being as homogeneous as milk, it seems to me that there were always substantial numbers of non-whites in America.
55
In another part of the review, Ms. Chan says that the cast is 40 white actors, 2 of whom are Latino. I guess only an angry woman of ancestry would say that Latinos are 'white' in our society. Ms Chan, does it depend on the hue of their skin, which can vary from very light to very dark? How could you tell what was under their pasty, white makeup?

She also says "The opera is a fossil from an era when America was as homogeneous as milk, planes did not depart daily for other continents and immigrants did not fuel the economy."

Ok, I agree that planes did not depart in the 1800s, but the other two parts of the sentence are ridiculous. Of course immigrants fueled the economy, from the 1600s to this day. And as for being as homogeneous as milk, it seems to me that there were always substantial numbers of non-whites in America.
56
So, while we're at it let's scrap every previous performance and recording of Madame Butterfly. While we're at it let's also erase all performances and references to M. Butterfly because even association with a banned work of art will contaminate our perfectly promised future.
57
I saw it with an Asian friend. We both loved it. It's silly and clever and a bit bubble-headed, and big and beautiful and fun. The whole thing is fun, really, that's the main gist of it - the characters are basically all bungling but likable fools. It's like a big keystone cops musical. It really has very little reference to Japan - all the characters are very British in their sensibilities. And you know what, there really are good reasons to criticize the setting of the play, but it's okay to enjoy it and still at the same time wrestle with the anachronisms. I still love to go swing dancing, and I think sometimes about how absurd it is that all these white people are doing a dance that had its origins in a very different place. But it's still okay to dance.
58
@55 "there were always substantial numbers of non-whites in America."

It's also worth remembering that a lot of groups considered white (and part of the cultural homogeneity, for that matter), were the undesirable "others" of the time.

See Nell Irvin Painter's "The History of White People", if this is surprising.
59
Anyone who supports yellow face in the name of art ... LAME

Why are white people so offended that Asians are offended by this? lol
Do they own all Asian people's rights to be offended by something? I dunno ... for some reason I thought we had free will.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.
60
Funny that no one is complaining about the censorship of racist lyrics regarding black people and blackface from The Mikado... I mean, if you're going to argue that the racism is perfectly acceptable because it was a product of a different time, you should have the balls to go all in on that.
61
@ 60, you would have to demonstrate that the two are equivalent, and you would have your work cut out for you if you want your case to be convincing.
62
@60 What a stupid strawman.

Nobody is arguing that the racism is "perfectly acceptable."

There is vast chasm between portrayal in god damned Fiction (particularly 100+ year old Fiction at that) and acceptance or endorsement.

I guess if you liked Breaking Bad or Pulp Fiction then you "accepted" drug dealing and murder?

Look. You may want to filter all your art because it doesn't immediately reinforce every single social justice checklist in an obviously tenuous world view, but the rest of us have a little more robust integrity.

We like a little challenge, intelligence, and sophistication from our art.
63
@61 Your case for why they aren't is because that blackface is far worse than yellowface..? Because that's really the only rational reason why all mention of the n-word and blackface were scrubbed from the Mikado (without any sort of backlash) while the inaccurate yellowface depictions are somehow still acceptable.

@62 Horseshit. Did you really just compare Asian people and drug dealers? Because that's a pretty piss poor comparison on a myriad of levels, the least of which being that Breaking Bad did a great job of portraying well-rounded characters, while The Mikado uses yellow face caricatures (that aren't even remotely honest to Japanese people) in order to cash in on a 19th century British fad.

NEWSFLASH: Just because something is a 100+ year old 'classic' doesn't excuse it from current social norms. I can appreciate Breakfast at Tiffany's, but that doesn't mean I automatically accept and excuse the horrible Japanese impersonation by Micky Rooney just because it was acceptable at the time.
64
@61

So if you have a play in which there is an elderly Wasp character then the actor must in fact be Wasp?
How much Wasp? Full-blooded?
Is 1/8 Italian or Jew or Pole or Native American OK?
Do we require racial certification?

Utter BS.
65
Oops, I meant @63
66
@64- when have you seen a non-white woman portraying a waspy white woman in a negative manner? No no, I'm serious- I would love to know, because I honestly can't think of any. The closest I can get is The Wayan's White Chicks... and if you want to shriek about how terribly oppressed white people were by that movie, you go right on ahead.
67
@66
My remark had nothing to do with negative or positive portrayals.
The issue (one among several on this topic) is whether it's "ok" to show e.g. an Othello played by a blond actor.
68
Did you really just compare Asian people and drug dealers?


@63 Oh for fuck sake. Really? HAHAHA. Now I know I can ignore you.
69
Sharon Chan: Racism sucks and ignorance shouldn't be tolerated, it should be re-educated. We're in Seattle, so everyone tacitly agrees, to that degree. However: I've seen racism, experienced racism, and this, ma'am, is no yellowfaced racism. Mickey Rooney and Bugs Bunny run circles around Mike Storie and his summerstock band of thespian anglophiles. Gilbert's script is vaguely culturally insensitive, and only if you completely remove it from context, intent, and out of the frame of fictional theatre arts. In other words, for an audience to take this productions as being malicious and promoting making fun of Japanese heritage or culture, you'd have to be stupid & ignorant enough to be a bigot already.

@6, oh you mean like demote all the African characters to animals too, instead of people? And make the elder an actual baboon? Yeah, that's called
THE LION KING.

@20 hear hear: Sharon's first mistake is to try to critique theatre in this town, especially without first SEEING the show in question.
Her second is to presume a) that the Japanese-heritage people in this town want or need a Chinese-American to be our WhiteKnight champion,
and b) we can't see theatre for what it is: metaphoric reflection of society. If there's something on stage you don't like or agree with, it's because theatre is showing you a portrait of America & you. It's not meant to be sanitized to attempt the impossible and please everyone all the time.

@35: My family has Japanese heritage (mixed) and I'm not offended by The Mikado, nor 47 Ronin, nor Avatar/the Last Airbender. Maybe being 'hapa' means I have less potential sensitivity on the subject of racism, or maybe it gives me a perspective to better see multiple sides, I can't say for sure. But my issei Japanese grandfather saw the last round of G&S's Mikado and went away saying "Ha! Funny show! Fucking british people!"

@49. what 51 said. WS wrote Plays, not mommyporn.
@55 - Felt the same way about her latina comment. Also, this show is not a fossil from America at all, yet maybe she'd like to infer it is? Also, at that time, among culturally bigoted, "non-whites" included Irish, German, Italians, Poles, Turks, and Jews. So, I agree: #historyfail
@57 WIN
@67 you mean like the acclaimed 1997 Patrick Stewart Othello? Yes, that was more than ok.
70
What disgusts me and fills me with utter contempt for Chan's op-ed is how she trivializes real injustice such as this:

"Struggling to Keep Afghan Girl Safe After a Mullah Is Accused of Rape"
http://tinyurl.com/m8ffvey

71
@69: I don't see how your comment is directed specifically at my comment, but coincidentally enough, my adoptive mother was Japanese. I don't think she ever saw a production of The Mikado but she really liked Jurassic Park and Peter Gabriel. If I had to guess, she would probably laugh at many parts of The Mikado, knowing her sensitivity to slapstick and silly facial expressions.

She was in Japan when the atom bombs were dropped and subsequently married an American G.I. She didn't have the vocabulary nor the emotional support to even be fully aware of the racial inequality that bore upon her when she moved to the states. In the era she lived in the U.S. from the 1960's through the 1990's, particularly in conservative states like Florida where I grew up, the Asian-American populace was prescribed a tacit policy of absolute cultural assimilimation that people of her era and background wound up internalizing until the day they died. Speaking Japanese in public was considered offensive and there was no such value as Asian cultural pride. The culturally prescribed habit of deference and suppressing personal grievance is a hallmark of many Asian Americans from that era and has a legacy in succeeding generations. It was a matter of survival. (When I left Florida in 1999, there was still commonly open disdain for citizens who had the audacity to speak languages other than English in a Wal-Mart check-out line.)

That is why sitting quietly on the sidelines as the Asian American community's experiences are dismissed is anathama to I must conduct myself in the present, i.e. there is ultimately no payoff to pretending that depictions of yellowface don't cut deeply at my core, just for the sake of trying not making waves. Furthermore, none of this should convince anyone one way or the other whether I believe The Mikado should continue being produced. I saw The Mikado tonight and thought it was anachronistic but not nearly as upsetting as the comments I've read about it online. My main beef is with people who characterize the hurt caused by yellowface to be absurd and completely illogical. My suggestion is to stop looking at the question of what is rational and to start looking at history. If your ethnic group has been struggling for generations to correct socially and spiritually destructive stereotypes, why would you stand casually by as those stereotypes were resurrected, even if the immediate potential for damage was minimal? Why would you not be on high alert?

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