Hannari: Geisha Modern is a documentary that I truly wanted to like. After all, it was both the production of the 2005 Memoirs of a Geisha and the 2002 The Last Samurai that inspired first-time documentary filmmaker Miyuki Sohara to make this film.
Sohara who had a small part in the Tom Cruise flick as a geisha, was, according to the production notes for this documentary, "disappointed to learn that the producers of Memoirs of a Geisha had no interest in faithfully reproducing the artistic elements of the geisha culture, such as their dance."
Like her, I was disappointed with the Cruise flick which I saw and the snippets of Memoirs of a Geisha which I have not seen. I had read the book and that was quite enough. The trailers for Memoirs of a Geisha inspired me to write an open letter to Steven Spielberg.
For those who don't know, originally the studio people responsible for the opening party of The Last Samuraisent an infamous email to a local college asking for young, attractive Asian women to dress up and be party favors or eye candy. No pay involved as well as no Asian men required. That email made the rounds nationwide and the studio quickly backtracked.
Later, when Memoirs of a Geisha came out as a movie, the book and the movie seemed to indicate how little Asian and Asian women had really progressed, even after the successful Joy Luck Club--both 1989 book and 1993 movie.
Golden's novel followed a woman and her experiences prior to World War II, an explosive period in both Japanese history and the history of the United States in terms of societal change and racism and sexism. Golden, like Sohara, focuses on Kyoto geisha, but Sohara's documentary concentrates on modern geisha as the title implies.
Beginning in 2005, Sohara, a TV announcer and radio DJ and sometime actor, spent three months interviewing and filming geisha in the Gion district. This was, notably, after Mineko Iwasaki had filed a lawsuit against Arthur Golden regarding his 1997 novel Memoirs of a Geisha in 2001. Iwasaki, who does not read English, did read the Japanese edition.
Sohara doesn't answer any questions that The Last Samurai and both the book and the film of Memoirs of a Geisha broached. Instead, Hannari: Geisha Modern occupies a curious space beyond and apart from recent history, insulating itself from both Sohara's original catalyst and the world at large, both Japan insiders and the people who are willing to believe in the geisha fantasy.
Some of the cinematography shows her inexperience. The lighting is wrong and the colors are off--typical of photography or filming inside where the lighting is too yellow and goes uncorrected by film or filters.
Sohara had access to the geisha community that hasn't been granted before, but the vital missing ingredient is the critical eye and view. We are told why a dance instructor believes that many women do not make it to the apprentice maiko stage but we don't hear from those that quit.
We learn that where geiko (as geisha prefer to be called) used number in the thousands and now only 300 currently work in Kyoto. Originally, most of the geiko came from the Kyoto area, but now many come from outside and other areas of Japan. We don't hear why Kyoto women reject that lifestyle, we only hear why women have decided to train. We don't hear how the families of these women consider this choice. What do their parents think? What do their siblings, particularly other sisters think?
Moreover, we never hear from Mineko Iwasaki, the woman who sued Arthur Golden and his publisher and went on to write her own book, Geisha: A Life, in 2002. We also do not hear what those interviewed think about Golden, Iwasaki or either book. Iwasaki reported quit early in her career because of her frustration with the traditional system.
If Hollywood's damningly mistaken portrayal of the geiko was the impetus for this documentary, then it is equally odd that we never hear what anyone thinks about big budget Hollywood portrayals, even though two of the women interviewed were in the 1957 movie Sayonara. All we have are these two women recalling they sat near a young and virile Marlon Brando and wondering if Miyoshi Umeki won an Oscar for her role as the ill-fated wife of an American airman played by Red Buttons.
For the record, that movie won Buttons and Umeki supporting actors Oscars. Brando was nominated for Best Actor despite his odd Southern accent. Also notable is Ricardo Montablan playing a Japanese named Nakamura. What did the Japanese think of that?
Brando had played a Japanese Okinawan in the 1956 movie The Teahouse of the August Moon. Surely if everyone is a critic a few critics of that performance could be found in Japan.
These connections aren't followed up by Sohara, making the resulting conversations trite. Big names are dropped but related hard issues are not picked up. One of the more famous geiko of yesteryear is also brought up, Yuki Kato Morgan (1881-1963), but the social issues surrounding her are not.
Supposedly, both the Morgan family and the Kato family disapproved of the match between the young geiko and George Morgan, nephew of J.P. Morgan. Yuki and George Morgan were not welcomed in the United States despite the Morgan family money. They settled in France. Morgan died 10 years later in 1914. Yuki returned to Japan in 1938.
According to a December 1947 article from the Time magazine archives, while most English news sources called her a famous geiko, in a fictionalized account of her life and romance run in 260 installments in three Japanese newspapers, she was depicted as a second-class geiko who accepted Morgan's proposal only after her Japanese lover married someone else. Morgan bought her from the teahouse for what amounted to $20,000 at that time.
Yuki refused to see the book's author and did not read the accounts. Surely, since Sohara had access to the Kato family, there was some issues--social prejudice in Japan and the U.S. and sensationalization of geiko on both sides--that could have been explored but were not.
Because of this non-critical feel-good supportive stance of the movie, it feels more like a travel guide than a documentary. As the former, Sohara succeeds. As the later, one can only sigh and consider so many missed opportunities.
In Japanese with English narration and subtitles.
On the prowl in this locale since 22 June 2008:
Showing posts with label Women's Issues. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Women's Issues. Show all posts
27 June 2008
MOVIE COMMENTARY - Dear Mr. Spielberg: Why Update an Outdated Stereotype? (Reprint)
Dear Mr. Steven Spielberg:
What can one say to one of the most powerful men in Los Angeles when he continues to show what seems to be a biased sense of social responsibility?
You've received awards and accolades for taking on social issues. You produced and directed the 1992 Schindler's List, giving a new phrase to the modern world. Anyone who saved people's lives during the Holocaust became a Schindler instead of a Raoul Wallenberg. For that, you got an Oscar for best picture and best director and Bundesverdienstkreuz mit Stern for a responsible representation of German history. If only there were an award for irresponsible misrepresentation of Asian or Oriental history.
As a director and a producer, you brought a bit of American history to light with your 1997 Amistad, increasing our awareness about the public debate and socio-political aspects of slavery and racism in the mid-1800s. You had earlier shown a sensitivity toward black Americans in the 1985 The Color Purple. So you showed concern for the politically powerful black American. Kudos to you.
You've shown us the savagery of war in both the overt sense in your 1998 Saving Private Ryan and the 2001 mini-series that you produced, Band of Brothers. You've shown the ability to see the brutality of war when it is covert in your current controversial film, Munich.
You've shown a sense of social responsibility toward our World War II veterans, the Jewish victims of the Nazi Germany and black Americans under the oppression of racism and slavery, yet what you haven't shown is a sensitivity toward Asians and Asian Americans.
You chose to produce (and almost directed), Memoirs of a Geisha. Was this just because it was a popular book? Couldn't a man as powerful as you have found a vehicle that enlightened the American public about heroic Japanese men or women?
Since the turn of last century, Japanese women have been haunted by the Western man's fantasy of the geisha. During the height of their popularity, the women involved in geisha were only a little over 1/1000 of the total population (roughly 80,000 geisha in the 1920s compared to the total population of 54,000,000 in 1920). Samurai only made up about 8 percent of the population of Japan.
Yet Americans and Europeans are still fascinated by both the samurai and the geisha. And at a time when the history of Japan and the Japanese culture is more readily available to Americans, we still get more about geisha instead of the extraordinary women who made history or advocated change.
Americans, like you, seem to prefer Akira Kurosawa to Juzo Itami or Yoji Yamada or Kon Ichikawa.
There were certainly noteworthy women, women who do not fit the stereotype of the passive, demure Japanese butterfly. What about Masako Hojo? What about Tomoe Gozen? What about Hangaku Gozen? What about Noe Ito? What about Suga Kanno? What about Waka Yamada? What about Raicho Hiratsuka?
I have not seen the movie, Memoirs of a Geisha, yet from the trailers I know that authenticity was not an important aspect of the production. The hairstyles and the dance were far from authentic.
I wasn't the only one who thought so. My suspicions were confirmed when I read a review by a woman who had spent part of her childhood in the geisha district. The Japan Times critic, Kaori Shoji, wrote:
Further, the casting of ethnic Chinese actresses not only seemed to signal a disinterest in authenticity, but also an insensitivity to the socio-political conditions of Asia. Japan, unlike America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, is not dominated by a population made up of the descendants of immigrants from Europe. Japan was a country that had, like Korea, been closed up for hundreds of years, opening up by force in the mid-1800s. Japanese, like many East Asians feel they can tell nationality.
Keeping the war movies produced in the 1940s in mind, it would seem hardly surprising to see Chinese playing Japanese. World War II was a time of booming business for Chinese American actors in Hollywood. Oddly enough, there had been a concerted effort at the beginning of hostilities to distinguish our enemies (the Japanese) from our allies (the Chinese). Life magazine had an article called, "How to Tell Japs from the Chinese," in December of 1941.
The reality is that one can't always tell. Some Japanese can pass as Chinese. Some Chinese can pass as Japanese. Some Japanese have a hard time passing as Japanese. Yet this shouldn't be a surprise. Tony Curtis and Kirk Douglas are both Jewish, but can pass for other ethnicities.
Yet, the casting of three Chinese actresses in the lead roles seems to support this concept that all Asian look alike as far as Hollywood is concerned. Do these women have the typical Japanese look? Not really. One wonders why such a powerful people as you, Spielberg, weren't willing to take the same chances that the people behind the Harry Potter series took where all the leads were British. One of the movies that is beating Memoirs of a Geisha features British lead actors who are unknowns - Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.
To say that perhaps Japanese actresses weren't comfortable auditioning for an American movie because of their English is a bit of Hollywood amnesia. Universal's 1999 Snow Falling on Cedars had no problem finding a brave Japanese actress (Youki Kudoh) to portray an American of Japanese descent. She spoke accented English, perhaps in keeping with a stereotype that Americans of Japanese descent weren't quite American. You can see her in Memoirs of a Geisha playing the role of Pumpkin.
I'm not the only person who somewhat disbelieves the PR line being fed the media that the choice was based on international recognition and acting ability. As one writer, Philip Brasor, who based in Japan wrote for the Japan Times:
Despite what Marshall claims, Brasor has another salient point:
Sayuri is the title used in Japan for Memoirs of a Geisha. I guess the PR people have found that for American audiences Asian women all do look alike or their names are just too hard to pronounce and remember.
Brasor apparently attended the press conference and wasn't impressed by Rob Marshall's explanations. As for authenticity, you didn't have live in the geisha districts or be a Japanese culture scholar to discern authenticity in the movie. Brasor assesses it in this way:
As the Japan Times critic Shoji points out, Marshall met the challenge by making a Kyoto in California that "reeks of a souvenir shop extravaganza." You don't have to be an Asian woman or even an Asian American woman to see that point either.
Perhaps you, Mr. Spielberg, feel somewhat vindicated because the Japanese press hasn't been so critical if you cared what the Japanese press said at all. However, Brasor points out:
The Japan Times critic, Kaori Shoji, wasn't deterred by the studios apparently. Her review was savage.
For those that don't know or remember, Yuniyoshi was played by Mickey Rooney.
I would further suggest that perhaps many Japanese actresses weren't auditioning because they knew that there had been a defamation suit against the author of the book and the publisher in both Japan and the US. The lawsuit was settled out of court and the person in question, Mineko Iwasaki, has written her own story. The author of the book publicly used a real person's name when exploiting the titillation factor to sex up his book signings--he mentioned her name when talking about the bidding wars to buy her virginity. This would have been considered inappropriate behavior for an American about an American woman so how are we to consider the author who would do so? The defamation suit also makes it clear that the author also displays a very implicit misunderstanding of the Japanese culture.
As was reported in the Japan Times:
Golden comes off as a cad and a man who either didn't care about his so-called friend, the famous geisha, or truly didn't understand Japan and the geisha culture. Why else would he subject a friend to public humiliation and calls for ritual suicide? Even in America, a friend wouldn't reveal another friend's intimate secrets just to sell his book or sex-up his book signings. Even America, such a man would be called a cad.
Was this then, a really good choice for a major movie about a specific subculture in another culture? Will this elicit a greater understanding between Americans and Japanese or Americans and other Asians?
This movie, as did the book, renewed interest in the geisha in a way that is oddly nostalgic - looking back at a time when the only way, the only world where women had control of their lives and the possibility of financial independence was by humoring and entertaining wealthy men.
As another writer, Roger Pulvers, for the Japan Times writes:
Mr. Spielberg, I've seen your 1987 Empire of the Sun, but I wonder if your concept of Asia--and what used to constitute the so-called Orient--isn't stuck in the 1930s-1940s. I am sure Egyptians and Arabs weren't thrilled with Young Sherlock Holmes which seemed to hark back to the 1939 Gunga Din as did your feast of chilled monkey brains at the Pankot Palace in the 1984 Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
I spoke with a man who recalled being questioned by his classmates about eating monkey's brains. Like the TV series Kung Fu, that has become a part of the American cultural view of Asia to a certain extent. I have read some reviews of people who feel that Memoirs of a Geisha is an authentic rendering of the Japanese culture and have no idea about the lawsuit and the social implications it might also engender. Roger Ebert prefaces his review with: "I suspect that the more you know about Japan and movies, the less you will enjoy Memoirs of a Geisha." Ebert was also troubled by the nostalgia evoked for a past system that emphasized how oppressed women really were in a society. Would the 1978 movie Pretty Baby ever be remade with a sense of loss that such a world - where 12-year-olds had their virginity auctioned off - had passed?
Why, in this day and age, make a movie that works best when the viewer knows nothing about the culture? Why make a movie that laments the passing of the geisha system as represented (or misrepresented according to Iwasaki) by Golden?
Another question that I longed to ask was also put forth to the man who produced Amistad by Pulvers:
Would you, Mr. Spielberg make such a movie and suggest a sense of loss? Mr. Spielberg, you have brought the realities of the European war and American slavery to the screen and yet, Pulvers wonders, much like myself, why chose fantasy over reality in the case of Japan?
Pulvers suggests there are some explanations:
As an Asian American woman, I wonder how far-reaching this movie's imagery will be and how long Asian and Asian American women will be haunted by the West's nostalgic view of geisha.
There is more to Japan than the geisha and the samurai. I guess someone else, some other producer will have to bring that to the screen some day.
Reprinted from 1 January 2006. Originally published on the blog magazine Blog Critics and my old now-defunct blog.
What can one say to one of the most powerful men in Los Angeles when he continues to show what seems to be a biased sense of social responsibility?
You've received awards and accolades for taking on social issues. You produced and directed the 1992 Schindler's List, giving a new phrase to the modern world. Anyone who saved people's lives during the Holocaust became a Schindler instead of a Raoul Wallenberg. For that, you got an Oscar for best picture and best director and Bundesverdienstkreuz mit Stern for a responsible representation of German history. If only there were an award for irresponsible misrepresentation of Asian or Oriental history.
As a director and a producer, you brought a bit of American history to light with your 1997 Amistad, increasing our awareness about the public debate and socio-political aspects of slavery and racism in the mid-1800s. You had earlier shown a sensitivity toward black Americans in the 1985 The Color Purple. So you showed concern for the politically powerful black American. Kudos to you.
You've shown us the savagery of war in both the overt sense in your 1998 Saving Private Ryan and the 2001 mini-series that you produced, Band of Brothers. You've shown the ability to see the brutality of war when it is covert in your current controversial film, Munich.
You've shown a sense of social responsibility toward our World War II veterans, the Jewish victims of the Nazi Germany and black Americans under the oppression of racism and slavery, yet what you haven't shown is a sensitivity toward Asians and Asian Americans.
You chose to produce (and almost directed), Memoirs of a Geisha. Was this just because it was a popular book? Couldn't a man as powerful as you have found a vehicle that enlightened the American public about heroic Japanese men or women?
Since the turn of last century, Japanese women have been haunted by the Western man's fantasy of the geisha. During the height of their popularity, the women involved in geisha were only a little over 1/1000 of the total population (roughly 80,000 geisha in the 1920s compared to the total population of 54,000,000 in 1920). Samurai only made up about 8 percent of the population of Japan.
Yet Americans and Europeans are still fascinated by both the samurai and the geisha. And at a time when the history of Japan and the Japanese culture is more readily available to Americans, we still get more about geisha instead of the extraordinary women who made history or advocated change.
Americans, like you, seem to prefer Akira Kurosawa to Juzo Itami or Yoji Yamada or Kon Ichikawa.
There were certainly noteworthy women, women who do not fit the stereotype of the passive, demure Japanese butterfly. What about Masako Hojo? What about Tomoe Gozen? What about Hangaku Gozen? What about Noe Ito? What about Suga Kanno? What about Waka Yamada? What about Raicho Hiratsuka?
I have not seen the movie, Memoirs of a Geisha, yet from the trailers I know that authenticity was not an important aspect of the production. The hairstyles and the dance were far from authentic.
I wasn't the only one who thought so. My suspicions were confirmed when I read a review by a woman who had spent part of her childhood in the geisha district. The Japan Times critic, Kaori Shoji, wrote:
Marshall and his crew (and let's not forget that Steven Spielberg is the executive producer) never pause for breath as they bombard us with pathos, intrigue, fury, sex and passion. The capper is a geisha dance scene that's straight out of Broadway. Never mind that no young geisha in the prewar period would wear glitter eye-shadow and dance solo, on a stage with artsy blue lighting, her hair flowing hip and loose and her limbs contorting to snazzy, modern ballet movements.
Further, the casting of ethnic Chinese actresses not only seemed to signal a disinterest in authenticity, but also an insensitivity to the socio-political conditions of Asia. Japan, unlike America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, is not dominated by a population made up of the descendants of immigrants from Europe. Japan was a country that had, like Korea, been closed up for hundreds of years, opening up by force in the mid-1800s. Japanese, like many East Asians feel they can tell nationality.
Keeping the war movies produced in the 1940s in mind, it would seem hardly surprising to see Chinese playing Japanese. World War II was a time of booming business for Chinese American actors in Hollywood. Oddly enough, there had been a concerted effort at the beginning of hostilities to distinguish our enemies (the Japanese) from our allies (the Chinese). Life magazine had an article called, "How to Tell Japs from the Chinese," in December of 1941.
The reality is that one can't always tell. Some Japanese can pass as Chinese. Some Chinese can pass as Japanese. Some Japanese have a hard time passing as Japanese. Yet this shouldn't be a surprise. Tony Curtis and Kirk Douglas are both Jewish, but can pass for other ethnicities.
Yet, the casting of three Chinese actresses in the lead roles seems to support this concept that all Asian look alike as far as Hollywood is concerned. Do these women have the typical Japanese look? Not really. One wonders why such a powerful people as you, Spielberg, weren't willing to take the same chances that the people behind the Harry Potter series took where all the leads were British. One of the movies that is beating Memoirs of a Geisha features British lead actors who are unknowns - Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.
To say that perhaps Japanese actresses weren't comfortable auditioning for an American movie because of their English is a bit of Hollywood amnesia. Universal's 1999 Snow Falling on Cedars had no problem finding a brave Japanese actress (Youki Kudoh) to portray an American of Japanese descent. She spoke accented English, perhaps in keeping with a stereotype that Americans of Japanese descent weren't quite American. You can see her in Memoirs of a Geisha playing the role of Pumpkin.
I'm not the only person who somewhat disbelieves the PR line being fed the media that the choice was based on international recognition and acting ability. As one writer, Philip Brasor, who based in Japan wrote for the Japan Times:
Three of the four geisha characters in "Sayuri" are played by Chinese or ethnic Chinese actresses. The producers could have found capable Japanese had they really put their minds to it, but I have yet to hear a Japanese media person say as much. It's a Hollywood project, which means it has little to do with Japan. Anyone who watches the final product can see that for themselves.
Because Japanese film critics are professionally beholden to local distributors, they aren't going to complain about it in their reviews. Even the occasionally caustic TV talent-cum-movie-critic Osugi called "Sayuri" a "gorgeous fantasy" in his ready-made blurb, thus telling readers they shouldn't expect anything remotely authentic. The producers were selling this same line back in January at the first Japanese news conference for the movie, when director Rob Marshall called it a "fable" in an effort to pre-empt possible criticism that he wouldn't know a geisha if she hit him in the face with her shamisen.
Despite what Marshall claims, Brasor has another salient point:
Zhang Ziyi and Michelle Yeoh may have been cast because they were in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," the biggest Asian box-office success on U.S. soil, but the vast majority of moviegoers don't know them. Apparently, their names weren't even mentioned in the American trailers for "Sayuri."
Sayuri is the title used in Japan for Memoirs of a Geisha. I guess the PR people have found that for American audiences Asian women all do look alike or their names are just too hard to pronounce and remember.
Brasor apparently attended the press conference and wasn't impressed by Rob Marshall's explanations. As for authenticity, you didn't have live in the geisha districts or be a Japanese culture scholar to discern authenticity in the movie. Brasor assesses it in this way:
"The challenge for me as a Westerner," Marshall elaborated, "was to bring this world to life. . . . It was really an artistic impression of that world." In other words, a personal fantasy.
As the Japan Times critic Shoji points out, Marshall met the challenge by making a Kyoto in California that "reeks of a souvenir shop extravaganza." You don't have to be an Asian woman or even an Asian American woman to see that point either.
Perhaps you, Mr. Spielberg, feel somewhat vindicated because the Japanese press hasn't been so critical if you cared what the Japanese press said at all. However, Brasor points out:
The mainstream Japanese press isn't as opinionated in its coverage. For that you'd have to go to the blogs or the online magazines, like Ryu Murakami's Japan Mail Media, whose New Jersey-based correspondent, Akihiko Reisen, wrote a dense article on the movie. Interestingly, he mentioned the use of English dialog as being one of its main drawbacks, but not for the obvious reasons. Having everyone speak English turned the story into a "flat-sounding play," he wrote, as if it were being put on by a high-school troupe.
Reisen's main complaint, however, was that the movie reinforces Japanese "gender stereotypes," especially the male characters "who speak very little, but still control all the females." It's difficult to know what he means by this — if anything defines a geisha's position it's her subservient relationship to the men she's entertaining — but it may be a reaction to Ken Watanabe's "Chairman," a character that Marshall referred to as "mythic," but in cinematic terms is a big bore. Reisen found Watanabe an embarrassment. He didn't assert himself as an actor the way he did in "The Last Samurai." In contrast, Reisen thought the Chinese actresses tried hard to make the material their own, even if they were doing it wrong. Gong Li and Zhang Ziyi, he said, "dominate their scenes."
The Japan Times critic, Kaori Shoji, wasn't deterred by the studios apparently. Her review was savage.
There are just so many things wrong with the whole package, which is plastered with kitschy oriental cliches. We're talking about a Chinese actress speaking in that stilted Hollywood Asian-English (immortalized by Mr. Yuniyoshi in "Breakfast at Tiffany's") in the role of a Japanese geisha during the Sino-Japanese conflict of the 1930s. It's hard to know how to handle this: go ballistic, start apologizing, giggle nervously or what?
For those that don't know or remember, Yuniyoshi was played by Mickey Rooney.
I would further suggest that perhaps many Japanese actresses weren't auditioning because they knew that there had been a defamation suit against the author of the book and the publisher in both Japan and the US. The lawsuit was settled out of court and the person in question, Mineko Iwasaki, has written her own story. The author of the book publicly used a real person's name when exploiting the titillation factor to sex up his book signings--he mentioned her name when talking about the bidding wars to buy her virginity. This would have been considered inappropriate behavior for an American about an American woman so how are we to consider the author who would do so? The defamation suit also makes it clear that the author also displays a very implicit misunderstanding of the Japanese culture.
As was reported in the Japan Times:
Mineko filed suit last Wednesday [The article was printed on 1 May 2001] in a New York court, claiming Golden's use of her name constituted breach of contract and wrongly linked her with episodes in the book that she calls inaccurate and defamatory.
She first raised objections to the mention of her name, and that of her husband, shortly after receiving galley proofs of the book in English, a language she does not read.
"I complained and asked him what he thought he was doing," she recalled. "I demanded that he take my name out. But he said that he felt personally obliged to acknowledge me. 'I've made you famous,' he told me. I told him that it didn't matter how he felt, I was bothered."
According to Mineko, photos she supplied Golden of her kimonos and other private possessions began appearing in promotional articles for the book without her consent. She was mentioned prominently in interviews Golden gave to the media in which he said Mineko had been sold by her parents to a geisha house and her virginity had been auctioned off for the sum of 100 million yen, things she said are patently false. But in the public's mind, the link between the book's main character and her had been established.
It wasn't until the 1999 publication of the Japanese translation, titled Sayuri, that she began to consider legal recourse. What most readers perceived to be an informed and sensitive portrayal of a world she had known from the age of 6 appeared to her a lurid depiction of geisha as scheming prostitutes. She also found many inaccuracies.
"Everything is wrong," she said. "In the book, a geisha was beaten with a hanger and crippled. There is a very strict rule that 'maiko' (apprentice geisha) and geisha should never be beaten. We are precious goods and the livelihood of the 'okiya' (geisha houses) depends on us."
Golden comes off as a cad and a man who either didn't care about his so-called friend, the famous geisha, or truly didn't understand Japan and the geisha culture. Why else would he subject a friend to public humiliation and calls for ritual suicide? Even in America, a friend wouldn't reveal another friend's intimate secrets just to sell his book or sex-up his book signings. Even America, such a man would be called a cad.
Was this then, a really good choice for a major movie about a specific subculture in another culture? Will this elicit a greater understanding between Americans and Japanese or Americans and other Asians?
This movie, as did the book, renewed interest in the geisha in a way that is oddly nostalgic - looking back at a time when the only way, the only world where women had control of their lives and the possibility of financial independence was by humoring and entertaining wealthy men.
As another writer, Roger Pulvers, for the Japan Times writes:
As its Web site tells us, the movie is "set in a mysterious and exotic world" of geisha houses before, during and immediately after World War II. It is a fairytale take on what was at best a demeaning and soul-destroying institution. Yet among the many popular misrepresentations of Japanese reality since the country came out of its international isolation 150 years ago — from "Madame Butterfly" to "The Last Samurai" - this is one of the most blatantly pernicious.
Mr. Spielberg, I've seen your 1987 Empire of the Sun, but I wonder if your concept of Asia--and what used to constitute the so-called Orient--isn't stuck in the 1930s-1940s. I am sure Egyptians and Arabs weren't thrilled with Young Sherlock Holmes which seemed to hark back to the 1939 Gunga Din as did your feast of chilled monkey brains at the Pankot Palace in the 1984 Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
I spoke with a man who recalled being questioned by his classmates about eating monkey's brains. Like the TV series Kung Fu, that has become a part of the American cultural view of Asia to a certain extent. I have read some reviews of people who feel that Memoirs of a Geisha is an authentic rendering of the Japanese culture and have no idea about the lawsuit and the social implications it might also engender. Roger Ebert prefaces his review with: "I suspect that the more you know about Japan and movies, the less you will enjoy Memoirs of a Geisha." Ebert was also troubled by the nostalgia evoked for a past system that emphasized how oppressed women really were in a society. Would the 1978 movie Pretty Baby ever be remade with a sense of loss that such a world - where 12-year-olds had their virginity auctioned off - had passed?
Why, in this day and age, make a movie that works best when the viewer knows nothing about the culture? Why make a movie that laments the passing of the geisha system as represented (or misrepresented according to Iwasaki) by Golden?
Another question that I longed to ask was also put forth to the man who produced Amistad by Pulvers:
Imagine a story set in United States in the pre-Civil War South in which the slaves are portrayed as locked in internecine in-fighting as one of them, the most innocent, longs to be rescued by a Prince Charming in the guise of a noble white plantation owner. Would there be anything mysterious and exotic about the everyday life of the slaves? This is analogous to what Memoirs of a Geisha, transposed to 20th-century Japan, is doing.
Would you, Mr. Spielberg make such a movie and suggest a sense of loss? Mr. Spielberg, you have brought the realities of the European war and American slavery to the screen and yet, Pulvers wonders, much like myself, why chose fantasy over reality in the case of Japan?
Pulvers suggests there are some explanations:
In the Meiji Era (1868-1912), the West, for the most part, wanted to keep Japan quaint, picturesque - and on its knees. Virtually all Westerners allied themselves with the most reactionary social institutions and their propagators, seeing that as a sure way to arrest Japan's entry into the West's exclusive club of the Great Powers.
But what obliges film producers like Steven Spielberg to spin a sick little tale like "Memoirs of a Geisha" now that Japan is in many respects a full-fledged member of the Western club? Spielberg, who in his movies generally deals with bizarre fantasies and heroic historical figures, seems to have inadvertently mixed the two together in this film.
As an Asian American woman, I wonder how far-reaching this movie's imagery will be and how long Asian and Asian American women will be haunted by the West's nostalgic view of geisha.
There is more to Japan than the geisha and the samurai. I guess someone else, some other producer will have to bring that to the screen some day.
Reprinted from 1 January 2006. Originally published on the blog magazine Blog Critics and my old now-defunct blog.
11 June 2008
MOVIE REVIEW: A Better Life Without the King
They have Coca Cola. They have great palaces. They have a rapping princess. They have a great tradition that they have reclaimed once they gained independence from Great Britain.
The king has been visited by Nelson Mandela, Prince Charles and Michael Jackson--great honors for a landlocked country about the size of New Jersey, located in Southern Africa.
A largely Christian nation (40 percent Zionist--a combination between Christianity and native beliefs--and 20 percent Catholic according to the CIA Factbook), Swaziland is also plagued by deep poverty and HIV/AIDS. The estimated life expectancy is 31.7 for men and 32 for women. It has the world's highest HIV/AIDS rate in the world, resulting in high infant mortality rates and low life expectancy.
The world's last absolute monarch, King Mswati III, is the king of the title of Michael Skolnik's grainy but thought-provoking 2007 documentary, Without the King. There are no princes in this film although we know that his eldest daughter, Sikhanyiso, has a brother.
We are introduced to Mswati III on his coronation day. He is 18, handsome and shy. The year is 1986. He was the second of 67 sons; his father had 70 wives at the time of his death in 1982. Mswati III was educated in England at the Sherborne School. From 1983 until his coronation, two of his late father's wives served as regent.
In comparison to his late father, he has a modest number of wives: 13. His first two have sons but none of them, according to tradition, can become king.
Sikhanyiso is the eldest daughter of his third wife who married Mswati when she was 16. She is a college student in California and although we see her in the movie, we do not see her elder half brothers or her brother. It is unlikely that she would replace Mswati III as some reviewers have projected.
She is seen as a rebel princess, a title that she also mentions in the documentary. Tradition requires that a special counsel choose a wife and the crown prince. How will she be able to serve her country under another half-sibling's rule? We don't know.
Footage of Sikhanyiso, her mother and Mswati III are intercut with scenes of poverty, and angry protesters who say they will prevail against tear gas and bullets.
She does mention the king's solution to the HIV/AIDS crisis--a five year ban on sex for women under the age of 21. The ban was ended a year early and did nothing to stop the rate of HIV/AIDS infection. During that time, the king took another wife under the age of 21.
As a woman comments, it's hard to contain HIV/AIDS when "they look at him...why does the king continue...taking more wives" and feel that they can take more wives.
The documentary touches on the discomfort of a daughter whose father marries a woman younger than her but we do not see this new bride. The documentary doesn't mention how two of Mswati's wives have left him. That would have made interesting commentary.
The documentary does touch on accusations of forcing young girls to marry him and Sikhanyiso comments,"...a lot of the girls want to be there anyways."
Of course they do. Poverty and HIV/AIDS on one side and extravagant luxury on the other side? What kind of choice is the culture giving women?
Both Sikhanyiso and her mother touch on the paranoia that exists, accusations of murder attempts and threats, in a world where there is little future and prosperity outside of the royal family and who becomes the next king will have a great deal of control. One wonders if the many children--cousins and half-brothers and sisters of the current king also live in luxury or have fallen on hard times.
While the documentary ends with Sikhanyiso lamenting how the government has money but has deserted a small village, saying that her country will "turn around" in "her time" is hopeful and somewhat misleading.
She is 18. Her father is in his forties. She has brothers and uncles to contend with. Her father, once a bashful youth making his first public speech has grown soft and self-indulgent--a quality that Sikhanyiso seems to share in her view of a king and his responsibilities. At least she doesn't say something like let them eat cake.
In the end, this documentary glosses over some issues to emphasize the HIV/AIDS crisis and poverty, but stands as strong commentary against monarchy and polygamy.
The king has been visited by Nelson Mandela, Prince Charles and Michael Jackson--great honors for a landlocked country about the size of New Jersey, located in Southern Africa.
A largely Christian nation (40 percent Zionist--a combination between Christianity and native beliefs--and 20 percent Catholic according to the CIA Factbook), Swaziland is also plagued by deep poverty and HIV/AIDS. The estimated life expectancy is 31.7 for men and 32 for women. It has the world's highest HIV/AIDS rate in the world, resulting in high infant mortality rates and low life expectancy.
The world's last absolute monarch, King Mswati III, is the king of the title of Michael Skolnik's grainy but thought-provoking 2007 documentary, Without the King. There are no princes in this film although we know that his eldest daughter, Sikhanyiso, has a brother.
We are introduced to Mswati III on his coronation day. He is 18, handsome and shy. The year is 1986. He was the second of 67 sons; his father had 70 wives at the time of his death in 1982. Mswati III was educated in England at the Sherborne School. From 1983 until his coronation, two of his late father's wives served as regent.
In comparison to his late father, he has a modest number of wives: 13. His first two have sons but none of them, according to tradition, can become king.
Sikhanyiso is the eldest daughter of his third wife who married Mswati when she was 16. She is a college student in California and although we see her in the movie, we do not see her elder half brothers or her brother. It is unlikely that she would replace Mswati III as some reviewers have projected.
She is seen as a rebel princess, a title that she also mentions in the documentary. Tradition requires that a special counsel choose a wife and the crown prince. How will she be able to serve her country under another half-sibling's rule? We don't know.
Footage of Sikhanyiso, her mother and Mswati III are intercut with scenes of poverty, and angry protesters who say they will prevail against tear gas and bullets.
She does mention the king's solution to the HIV/AIDS crisis--a five year ban on sex for women under the age of 21. The ban was ended a year early and did nothing to stop the rate of HIV/AIDS infection. During that time, the king took another wife under the age of 21.
As a woman comments, it's hard to contain HIV/AIDS when "they look at him...why does the king continue...taking more wives" and feel that they can take more wives.
The documentary touches on the discomfort of a daughter whose father marries a woman younger than her but we do not see this new bride. The documentary doesn't mention how two of Mswati's wives have left him. That would have made interesting commentary.
The documentary does touch on accusations of forcing young girls to marry him and Sikhanyiso comments,"...a lot of the girls want to be there anyways."
Of course they do. Poverty and HIV/AIDS on one side and extravagant luxury on the other side? What kind of choice is the culture giving women?
Both Sikhanyiso and her mother touch on the paranoia that exists, accusations of murder attempts and threats, in a world where there is little future and prosperity outside of the royal family and who becomes the next king will have a great deal of control. One wonders if the many children--cousins and half-brothers and sisters of the current king also live in luxury or have fallen on hard times.
While the documentary ends with Sikhanyiso lamenting how the government has money but has deserted a small village, saying that her country will "turn around" in "her time" is hopeful and somewhat misleading.
She is 18. Her father is in his forties. She has brothers and uncles to contend with. Her father, once a bashful youth making his first public speech has grown soft and self-indulgent--a quality that Sikhanyiso seems to share in her view of a king and his responsibilities. At least she doesn't say something like let them eat cake.
In the end, this documentary glosses over some issues to emphasize the HIV/AIDS crisis and poverty, but stands as strong commentary against monarchy and polygamy.
21 January 2008
Diamonds Are DeBeers' Best Friend
Diamonds are according to Mohs scale the hardest mineral, ranking 10 with talc--that stuff you use as powder, at number one. Yet despite the price that diamonds command, they aren't that rare.
Diamonds as big and blue as the infamous 45.52-carat Hope Diamond are indeed rare, but even the odd red glow that results after it's exposed to ultraviolet light isn't rare. Rather, it's a characteristic of all natural blue diamonds.
There are far rarer stones, some coming from exotic locales like California, yet due to great public relations and marketing, we think of diamonds before color-changing alexandrite, emeralds or the California blue-colored gem benitoite. For that, we can thank DeBeers, a company based in South Africa.
This is not to say that diamonds weren't actually rare from an Occidental point of view at one time. There are no major diamond mines in Europe. For centuries, diamonds were found in India and then Brazil. That was up until the mid-19th century. Diamonds were discovered in South Africa in 1867. By 1880, Cecil Rhodes created the DeBeers Mining Company to oversee his large holdings of diamond claims in that country and by 1887, the company was the sole owner of the diamond mines in South Africa.
If you're not familiar with the history of South Africa, in the 17th and 18th centuries it was a Dutch possession. They imported slaves from their colonies in Indonesia, Madagascar and India. Great Britain took over the Cape of Good Hope in 1795 as a stop on the ship route to Australia and India. It was returned to the Dutch and then after the Dutch East India Company went into bankruptcy, the British annexed the Cape settlement in 1806 and encouraged British colonization. The Dutch colonists resisted British rule which resulted in the Boer Wars.
DeBeers is thus a remnant of European imperialism, specifically the expansion of British Imperialism. It was under the 1902 Treaty of Vereeniging that granted sovereignty to the UK with certain conditions, including agreeing not to press for native voting rights until self-government was achieved (granted in 1994) and the Boer republics would accept the British monarchy until they were eventually granted self-rule. South Africa would become a union in 1910, then complete independence (1926 and 1931) and finally became a republic in 1961.
Yet DeBeers has a presence in diamond mining in about 25 countries, including Botswana, Nambia and Tanzania. Mining in Botswana is via the company Debswana as a 50-50 joint venture with the government. Nambia and Botswana border South Africa. The British government placed Botswana under its protection after hostilities escalated between the native tribes and the Boers. Namibia was called South West Africa when it was under German control in the 19th century and later came under South African control during World War I. The East African country of Tanzania was a German colony in the 1880s and then became a British mandate in 1919.
Unlike pearls which dropped from being a precious gem to semi-precious when the Japanese (Kokichi Mikimoto and Tokichi Nishikawa) discovered a process to make cultured pearls, diamonds have maintained the image of being rare. DeBeers has been highly successful in convincing Americans that "diamonds are forever" and that after the engagement ring, you can follow that up with an eternity ring and a trilogy ring. Women who, for whatever reason, aren't married, can always buy a right-hand ring. Everyone needs a diamond.
The control that DeBeers maintains over the fine jewelry diamond distribution hasn't been a big secret. Gemologists and rock hounding hobbyists have known it for years. Only recently has legal action been taken against the company and its monopoly over the trade. This diamond cartel has been threatened by discoveries of diamonds in Angola, Canada, Australia and Russia and so far DeBeers has been able to form alliances over the years. It is calculated that DeBeers holds 70 percent of the diamond mines in Africa and 40 percent worldwide.
Yet in 1994, though, the US Department of Justice filed a charge against DeBeers, charging that DeBeers and General Electric had conspired to inflate the prices of industrial diamonds. As a result, DeBeers paid a $10 million fine in 2004.
Although DeBeers has not admitted to any wrongdoing, there's a class-action settlement in the works where people who bought diamond jewelry between 1994 and 2006 can benefit--notice how absolute their control is that it doesn't seem to matter from what store. The settlement will have DeBeers paying out an estimated $295 million. To file for payment, consumers should call 800-760-5431.
How much you can receive, apparently depends upon how much you spent and how many people file a complaint.
Marilyn Monroe sang,"Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend,"but in reality diamonds have been DeBeers' friend and DeBeers' hasn't been a particularly good friend to Africa and the miners. In the future, with Australia and Canada entering the diamond market and the sometimes economically-challenged Russia possibly repeating its 1980 and 1990 slip outside of its uneasy alliance with DeBeers, diamonds might not always be as valuable. People may finally realize how common they are and the world diamond market could potentially become more competitive.
Diamonds as big and blue as the infamous 45.52-carat Hope Diamond are indeed rare, but even the odd red glow that results after it's exposed to ultraviolet light isn't rare. Rather, it's a characteristic of all natural blue diamonds.
There are far rarer stones, some coming from exotic locales like California, yet due to great public relations and marketing, we think of diamonds before color-changing alexandrite, emeralds or the California blue-colored gem benitoite. For that, we can thank DeBeers, a company based in South Africa.
This is not to say that diamonds weren't actually rare from an Occidental point of view at one time. There are no major diamond mines in Europe. For centuries, diamonds were found in India and then Brazil. That was up until the mid-19th century. Diamonds were discovered in South Africa in 1867. By 1880, Cecil Rhodes created the DeBeers Mining Company to oversee his large holdings of diamond claims in that country and by 1887, the company was the sole owner of the diamond mines in South Africa.
If you're not familiar with the history of South Africa, in the 17th and 18th centuries it was a Dutch possession. They imported slaves from their colonies in Indonesia, Madagascar and India. Great Britain took over the Cape of Good Hope in 1795 as a stop on the ship route to Australia and India. It was returned to the Dutch and then after the Dutch East India Company went into bankruptcy, the British annexed the Cape settlement in 1806 and encouraged British colonization. The Dutch colonists resisted British rule which resulted in the Boer Wars.
DeBeers is thus a remnant of European imperialism, specifically the expansion of British Imperialism. It was under the 1902 Treaty of Vereeniging that granted sovereignty to the UK with certain conditions, including agreeing not to press for native voting rights until self-government was achieved (granted in 1994) and the Boer republics would accept the British monarchy until they were eventually granted self-rule. South Africa would become a union in 1910, then complete independence (1926 and 1931) and finally became a republic in 1961.
Yet DeBeers has a presence in diamond mining in about 25 countries, including Botswana, Nambia and Tanzania. Mining in Botswana is via the company Debswana as a 50-50 joint venture with the government. Nambia and Botswana border South Africa. The British government placed Botswana under its protection after hostilities escalated between the native tribes and the Boers. Namibia was called South West Africa when it was under German control in the 19th century and later came under South African control during World War I. The East African country of Tanzania was a German colony in the 1880s and then became a British mandate in 1919.
Unlike pearls which dropped from being a precious gem to semi-precious when the Japanese (Kokichi Mikimoto and Tokichi Nishikawa) discovered a process to make cultured pearls, diamonds have maintained the image of being rare. DeBeers has been highly successful in convincing Americans that "diamonds are forever" and that after the engagement ring, you can follow that up with an eternity ring and a trilogy ring. Women who, for whatever reason, aren't married, can always buy a right-hand ring. Everyone needs a diamond.
The control that DeBeers maintains over the fine jewelry diamond distribution hasn't been a big secret. Gemologists and rock hounding hobbyists have known it for years. Only recently has legal action been taken against the company and its monopoly over the trade. This diamond cartel has been threatened by discoveries of diamonds in Angola, Canada, Australia and Russia and so far DeBeers has been able to form alliances over the years. It is calculated that DeBeers holds 70 percent of the diamond mines in Africa and 40 percent worldwide.
Yet in 1994, though, the US Department of Justice filed a charge against DeBeers, charging that DeBeers and General Electric had conspired to inflate the prices of industrial diamonds. As a result, DeBeers paid a $10 million fine in 2004.
Although DeBeers has not admitted to any wrongdoing, there's a class-action settlement in the works where people who bought diamond jewelry between 1994 and 2006 can benefit--notice how absolute their control is that it doesn't seem to matter from what store. The settlement will have DeBeers paying out an estimated $295 million. To file for payment, consumers should call 800-760-5431.
How much you can receive, apparently depends upon how much you spent and how many people file a complaint.
Marilyn Monroe sang,"Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend,"but in reality diamonds have been DeBeers' friend and DeBeers' hasn't been a particularly good friend to Africa and the miners. In the future, with Australia and Canada entering the diamond market and the sometimes economically-challenged Russia possibly repeating its 1980 and 1990 slip outside of its uneasy alliance with DeBeers, diamonds might not always be as valuable. People may finally realize how common they are and the world diamond market could potentially become more competitive.
30 December 2007
OPINION - A Tale of Two Rapes
A young woman, in the company of men other than her family members, is raped. She is treated like a criminal. Only by appealing to a higher paternal figure does she get help.
In the case of one woman from Qatif who was 18 at the time, she was attacked at knifepoint and raped by seven men. She had broken Saudi law which segregates the sexes. She was riding in a car with a man who was not a relative in conservative Muslim Saudi Arabia. Her rapists were sentenced for the incident that happened in 2006.
In the case of an American woman, who was married and abroad, working with other Americans at an American company in Iraq, she was drugged and gang raped. Now over two years after the incident, the men are unlikely to be punished by their employer or by the civil courts.
Jamie Leigh Jones, a young woman and employee of KBR, the biggest military contractor in Iraq was 19 in July 2005 when she arrived a Camp Hope in Baghdad's Green Zone. During her first week there, she reportedly accepted a drink from a group of company firefighters. What happened next, was inexcusable. She woke up the next day and because she was bruised and bleeding between her legs, she went to a military hospital. There a doctor took photographs and prepared a rape kit that would be passed to KBR security police.
A day before her rape, Jones had requested safer housing feeling that living on the second floor in a coed barracks where she was subjected to catcalls and the women's bathroom was on the first floor was a "sexually hostile living environment." Her supervisors were unconcerned. Jones at 19, had already suffered sexual harassment from a supervisor stateside, Eric Iler, according to her lawsuit against Halliburton and KBR filed on May 2007. Only 19 at the time, she had done the responsible thing: She had reported it with evidence and requested a transfer. That transfer took her to Iraq.
Jones reported being taken to a shipping container under guard, without food or water or medical treatment. She was later able to contact her father when a sympathetic guard allowed her to use a cell phone. She spoke with her father who then contacted his US Congressional representative, Ted Poe, who contacted the State Department.
Her rape had been so savage that her breast implants were ruptured and her pectoral muscles torn. She required reconstructive surgery.
Since she went public, her Congressman Poe, R-Houston, said three other women have contacted him. Ten others made similar reports because Jones has again done the right thing: She formed a foundation to help other women. Unfortunately, KBR made arbitration a part of its employee contract and the evidence collected in Jones' rape kit which resurfaced in May, show signs of being tampered: photos and the doctor's notes are missing.
According to accounts by the Houston Chronicle the arbitrator found in favor of KBR 82 percent of the time. That coupled with the tampered rape kit makes Jones and the other cases likely to be a battle fought in vain.
This means, although Jones can name one of her assailants and the rape kit might have used DNA analysis to indicated who the other men were, it is unlikely that these men will be punished at all.
There was a great international outcry against Saudi law because the rape victim, nameless and only referred to as the Qatif girl, rising from the predominately Shiite-populated area of Al-Qatif in the Eastern province where she's from, was sentenced to six months in jail and 200 lashes for being in the company of the unrelated man. On Dec. 17, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia pardoned her and the man who was with her.
The Qatif girl had appealed the initial decision in 2006, but the judge had only increased the severity of her sentence. The rapists themselves were at first sentenced to one to five years for assault but that was also increased in November to two to nine years. If there had been witnesses or if the men had confessed, these men who have received the death penalty.
The Qatif girl's husband has praised the King's decision.
While we as Americans or as women can rage at the thought of a victim being punished, although not for the rape--so it isn't a case of punishing the victim--we must also wonder what happened to the American system? In the case of Jones and the other women with KBR stationed in Iraq, they claim they were threatened with employment termination if they reported their assaults. More than two years after the incident, Jones hasn't seen justice. Poe told the House subcommittee: "Iraq is reminiscent of the Old Western days and no one seems to be in charge. The law must intervene and these outlaws need to be rounded up and order restored."
It was during that time, the time of the Old West when it was the victim's fault and the common wisdom was: She asked for it. In America, we like to think that Islam is backwards and unenlightened compared to Christianity, that modernization, justice for women and democracy are impossible under Islam. Yet the international community might see it differently when they see how Americans in an American company that isn't under Iraqi/Muslim civil law treats its female employees and how much these women must fight for justice.
Before we criticize another country, perhaps we should imagine how we look to the international community, and then we should consider how KBR and its men in Iraq are treating the Iraqi women.
This tale of two rapes makes it apparent that the world isn't safe for women in the company of men because some men still feel that they have a right to rape a woman for whatever reason--and this is despite the differences between Christianity and Islam and the nation states that are predominately guided by those respective religious principles.
In the case of one woman from Qatif who was 18 at the time, she was attacked at knifepoint and raped by seven men. She had broken Saudi law which segregates the sexes. She was riding in a car with a man who was not a relative in conservative Muslim Saudi Arabia. Her rapists were sentenced for the incident that happened in 2006.
In the case of an American woman, who was married and abroad, working with other Americans at an American company in Iraq, she was drugged and gang raped. Now over two years after the incident, the men are unlikely to be punished by their employer or by the civil courts.
Jamie Leigh Jones, a young woman and employee of KBR, the biggest military contractor in Iraq was 19 in July 2005 when she arrived a Camp Hope in Baghdad's Green Zone. During her first week there, she reportedly accepted a drink from a group of company firefighters. What happened next, was inexcusable. She woke up the next day and because she was bruised and bleeding between her legs, she went to a military hospital. There a doctor took photographs and prepared a rape kit that would be passed to KBR security police.
A day before her rape, Jones had requested safer housing feeling that living on the second floor in a coed barracks where she was subjected to catcalls and the women's bathroom was on the first floor was a "sexually hostile living environment." Her supervisors were unconcerned. Jones at 19, had already suffered sexual harassment from a supervisor stateside, Eric Iler, according to her lawsuit against Halliburton and KBR filed on May 2007. Only 19 at the time, she had done the responsible thing: She had reported it with evidence and requested a transfer. That transfer took her to Iraq.
Jones reported being taken to a shipping container under guard, without food or water or medical treatment. She was later able to contact her father when a sympathetic guard allowed her to use a cell phone. She spoke with her father who then contacted his US Congressional representative, Ted Poe, who contacted the State Department.
Her rape had been so savage that her breast implants were ruptured and her pectoral muscles torn. She required reconstructive surgery.
Since she went public, her Congressman Poe, R-Houston, said three other women have contacted him. Ten others made similar reports because Jones has again done the right thing: She formed a foundation to help other women. Unfortunately, KBR made arbitration a part of its employee contract and the evidence collected in Jones' rape kit which resurfaced in May, show signs of being tampered: photos and the doctor's notes are missing.
According to accounts by the Houston Chronicle the arbitrator found in favor of KBR 82 percent of the time. That coupled with the tampered rape kit makes Jones and the other cases likely to be a battle fought in vain.
This means, although Jones can name one of her assailants and the rape kit might have used DNA analysis to indicated who the other men were, it is unlikely that these men will be punished at all.
There was a great international outcry against Saudi law because the rape victim, nameless and only referred to as the Qatif girl, rising from the predominately Shiite-populated area of Al-Qatif in the Eastern province where she's from, was sentenced to six months in jail and 200 lashes for being in the company of the unrelated man. On Dec. 17, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia pardoned her and the man who was with her.
The Qatif girl had appealed the initial decision in 2006, but the judge had only increased the severity of her sentence. The rapists themselves were at first sentenced to one to five years for assault but that was also increased in November to two to nine years. If there had been witnesses or if the men had confessed, these men who have received the death penalty.
The Qatif girl's husband has praised the King's decision.
While we as Americans or as women can rage at the thought of a victim being punished, although not for the rape--so it isn't a case of punishing the victim--we must also wonder what happened to the American system? In the case of Jones and the other women with KBR stationed in Iraq, they claim they were threatened with employment termination if they reported their assaults. More than two years after the incident, Jones hasn't seen justice. Poe told the House subcommittee: "Iraq is reminiscent of the Old Western days and no one seems to be in charge. The law must intervene and these outlaws need to be rounded up and order restored."
It was during that time, the time of the Old West when it was the victim's fault and the common wisdom was: She asked for it. In America, we like to think that Islam is backwards and unenlightened compared to Christianity, that modernization, justice for women and democracy are impossible under Islam. Yet the international community might see it differently when they see how Americans in an American company that isn't under Iraqi/Muslim civil law treats its female employees and how much these women must fight for justice.
Before we criticize another country, perhaps we should imagine how we look to the international community, and then we should consider how KBR and its men in Iraq are treating the Iraqi women.
This tale of two rapes makes it apparent that the world isn't safe for women in the company of men because some men still feel that they have a right to rape a woman for whatever reason--and this is despite the differences between Christianity and Islam and the nation states that are predominately guided by those respective religious principles.
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