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"People in Japan worship white people." Fascinating GitS Roundtable

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Sunster

Member
Even in the middle east it's the same. Aside from being considered the most beautiful people around, they're often regarded as smarter and more capable than any local person can be, and are usually given much higher salaries than a local in an equivalent job. Whether or not they actually are doesn't matter, as long as they bring that fancy accent and attitude.

my friends in the Philippines have told me something similar. That Filipinos have a sort of inferiority complex with Americans but also other Asian countries, Japan and Korea.
 

Akainu

Member
I guess I could have explained that better, but you'd think she went through slavery and jim crow etc. with the end result ending in her hating them.
I totally kind of sort of get you now. But umm could you explain some more please? Here you might need this.
vupc8oQ.jpg
 

Line_HTX

Member
Yoshihara: "Even my ex-boyfriend, who is Asian American, said, ”What Asian lady has a body like Scarlett Johansson?"

n3SE40n.gif


Like, seriously, what in the FUCK IS THIS THINKING...
 
And other people of color?

I can confirm that black folk do NOT worship white people, but are indeed greatly influenced by embedded definitions of beauty. Straight hair, lighter complexions are often envied and consequently preferred.

Fortunately, this is not a problem I have.

They don't live close enough to enough varieties of ethnicities to know better not to put them on a pedestal.

They don't live close enough to many darker skinned peoples either, but many have no trouble looking down on them as quickly as they would look up to someone white. I'll pass on the excuses.
 

EVOL 100%

Member
East Asian people do have a problem with putting white people on a pedestal and treating other ethnicities like shit, but worship is going a bit far.

I don't claim to know what it was like in Japan or China, but in Korea, pale complexion was a desirable physical trait at least since medieval times.

Also, if you take a look at pictures which show women who were considered beauties in the 1920s:

xM6yEM1.jpg


E2jZgKb.jpg


They're not that different from what is considered beautiful in modern Korea.

Being treated like shit just for having a darker complexion is a real problem though, not going to deny that. But I wouldn't necessarily find it's roots from worship of white people.

This is why video games and anime are most likely resemble white people

Not this shit again
 
Too bad her perfect white body couldn't save the trainwreck of an anime adaption. Hollywood needs to stop making these.

Wait, what other anime adaptations have we had? lol

I just wish all of this was handled better, because underneath it all, GitS 2017 is actually a decent movie and has some amazing sets, art direction, costumes and music. I doubt we will ever get such visually striking film that pays homage to a 90s anime with this kind of budget again. Yeah, the story may be a bit of a mess, but they tried to dumb it down for the typical Hollywood-action audience.

To be fair though, even if they had gone with a true adaptation in terms of story, people still would have been bored and it still would have bombed. American audiences aren't looking for that kind of movie in the shell of a live action anime.
 

Ridley327

Member
Yoshihara: Even my ex-boyfriend, who is Asian-American, said, “What Asian lady has a body like Scarlett Johansson?”

Well, I could give examples, but I think we're trying to keep this thread relatively SFW.
 

Fuchsdh

Member
I was kind of iffy on that part of the interview, but there's a lot of great content in there in addition to that.

This part is just sad:



It's hard to discuss this article without spoiler tags though because the ending twist is a main subject.

Yeah that part stuck out to me as well. I don't think "sad" is the right word, but it gets to the heart of where east vs. west culture sometimes clash in ways that aren't really apparent to a lot of people unless you're in that culture itself. It's like bad accents—it may be hard to explain to a British guy what makes a bad American accent, but I'll know it when I hear it, and vice versa.

Asians in Asia want to look white but not be white

That's my contribution to this thread

People in Asia have been wanting to look whiter long before serious contact with the West. It's why you can't really have the same conversation about beauty standards and race in America and expect it to apply in the rest of the world (or in much more homogenous societies.)
 

BocoDragon

or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
East Asian people do have a problem with putting white people on a pedestal and treating other ethnicities like shit, but worship is going a bit far.

I don't claim to know what it was like in Japan or China, but in Korea, pale complexion was a desirable physical trait at least since medieval times.

Also, if you take a look at pictures which show women who were considered beauties in the 1920s:

xM6yEM1.jpg


E2jZgKb.jpg


They're not that different from what is considered beautiful in modern Korea.

Being treated like shit just for having a darker complexion is a real problem though, not going to deny that. But I wouldn't necessarily find it's roots from worship of white people.

You are right. Many cultures independently come to privilege pale skin over dark, because the upper classes tend to be literally sheltered indoors, while the lower classes actually do work out in the sun. See also India, etc.

It's really another negative side effect of economic stratification.
 
She has emotions but they come across "robotically"/ungenuinely, as the English voice acting is poor.

Major in the '95 GitS is a textbook example of the horrible voice acting of 90's anime dubs. She's got that same generic voice and lifeless delivery that almost every anime received during that period of time.
 

Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
East Asian people do have a problem with putting white people on a pedestal and treating other ethnicities like shit, but worship is going a bit far.

I don't claim to know what it was like in Japan or China, but in Korea, pale complexion was a desirable physical trait at least since medieval times.

Also, if you take a look at pictures which show women who were considered beauties in the 1920s:

xM6yEM1.jpg


E2jZgKb.jpg


They're not that different from what is considered beautiful in modern Korea.

Being treated like shit just for having a darker complexion is a real problem though, not going to deny that. But I wouldn't necessarily find it's roots from worship of white people.



Not this shit again

Weren't the Kisaeng slaves for a millenia?
 
Major in the '95 GitS is a textbook example of the horrible voice acting of 90's anime dubs. She's got that same generic voice and lifeless delivery that almost every anime received during that period of time.

Gott agree. And I really hate all the exposition that they throw out at you. But I still love it.
 
I can confirm that black folk do NOT worship white people, but are indeed greatly influenced by embedded definitions of beauty. Straight hair, lighter complexions are often envied and consequently preferred.

Fortunately, this is not a problem I have.



They don't live close enough to many darker skinned peoples either, but many have no trouble looking down on them as quickly as they would look up to someone white. I'll pass on the excuses.

Not in my experience. Black women tend to get straight hair, but I never seen anyone try to be like White Americans. "Acting white" is considered to be a bad thing and is looked down upon and light skinned AAs are sometimes looked down on in the community.

Black Americans, despite being around the same time as White Americans have been in this country and were basically outsiders and mostly tried to develop their own identities.
 

Dabanton

Member
The pale skin thing for a lot of women in Asian countries is wild.

When I was in Thailand a lot of women would approach my SO on the street, in restaurants even at the watts and say they loved her 'amazing' pale skin and were asking for tips to maintain white skin.

You'd see women walking round with umbrellas and these huge sun visor hats. So they wouldn't tan. I understand the original thinking was if you were visibly tanned you worked a 'menial' job outside. If you were pale you were either a lady of leisure or someone who worked in good office job.
 

Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
I'm not sure what this has to do with what I was saying, but Kisaeng were not prostitutes, if that's what you're implying

I said slave, not prostitute lol (though some did provide sexual services incidentally). They were of the lowest class in Korea. Then made slaves of the Government.
 

kswiston

Member
They don't live close enough to many darker skinned peoples either, but many have no trouble looking down on them as quickly as they would look up to someone white. I'll pass on the excuses.

Many regions of Asia already had their own messed up views of skin pigment back when they outclassed Europe in most measures of civilization. I think colonialism was able to graft onto that, and there's no doubt that western fashion aesthetics took over.
 

sandy1297

Member
My fiancee and most of her friends are always trying to avoid the sun. Some of them have even used whitening injections. They're Indonesian, where I guess some people associate darker skin with outdoor labor.

Can vouch for this. Skin whitening cream sells like hotcakes here and most of the celebrity are fair skinned
 

orochi91

Member
That level of inferiority complex is stunning.

I've come across several fellow Asians who are way too eager to throw our own people, and other PoC, under the bus, especially when it comes to whitewashing; always siding with the studios' controversial casting choices.

It's so pathetic

:/
 

EVOL 100%

Member
I said slave, not prostitute lol (though some did provide sexual services incidentally).

Touche.

Kisaeng had weird social positions. They were technically part of the lowest caste of commoners, and were indeed slaves, but had privileges that most commoners didn't have.

I really don't understand what that had to do with my post though (not trying to be confrontational, I'm genuinely curious where you're going with this train of thought)
 

Nabbis

Member
I don't like how this is centered around "white people" while the number one foreign-born factor to these beauty standards is the fact that most of the world consumes US media.

If you really want foreign influence to stop in another country then the only way is to make US less relevant to the world. Suppose Hollywood and other media gets it's head out of it's ass and promotes more color variants, the only result would be the same fascination with a person from US but now with the addition of those other color variants. Sure, it's great for US but this would solve nothing in regards to the local ethnicity getting sidestepped.
 
I don't like how this is centered around "white people" while the number one foreign-born factor to these beauty standards is the fact that most of the world consumes US media.

If you really want foreign influence to stop in another country then the only way is to make US less relevant to the world. Suppose Hollywood and other media gets it's head out of it's ass and promotes more color variants, the only result would be the same fascination with a person from US but now with the addition of those other color variants. Sure, it's great for US but this would solve nothing in regards to the local ethnicity getting sidestepped.

I'm not sure your logic supports your conclusion. In fact, I'd venture to say it supports the exact opposite. If people from foreign countries started seeing their fellow countrymen, actors, faces in Hollywood movies, that would most definitely solve the issue and dilute the image that white is the standard of beauty. People want to see representation, even if they aren't necessarily demanding it.
 
Thread title aside, the women in the article do a good job of pointing out why the twist felt so much like a shoehorned excuse to me. The movie has zero interest in exploring race and the perceptions that come with being someone Japanese vs someone white. The Major
finds out she used to be Japanese
and the movie has nothing to say about that other than some vague nebulous message about how it's not our skin color or ethnicity or physical appearance that defines us, but rather our actions.
 
Here's some PC Magazine covers back in the day and an ad. Sorry for the bad quality.

TQQtxcp.jpg


wyNNbZ7.jpg


Sometimes in modern times if the girl isn't "light enough" heavy use of photoshop is used. Hell, photoshop is used like crazy anyways since it can create a mask. You'll notice this in any semi professional cosplay images. I feel bad for the poor bastards buying porn over there. It's like Russian roulette with whether the girl will look the same as she does on the cover.
You don't even need ads.

Looks at someone from Hokkaido or "rural" Japan compared to young girls from more urban areas.

It's striking how their standards of beauty differ to the point of basically skin bleaching.
 
She has emotions but they come across "robotically"/ungenuinely, as the English voice acting is poor.

Major in the '95 GitS is a textbook example of the horrible voice acting of 90's anime dubs. She's got that same generic voice and lifeless delivery that almost every anime received during that period of time.

I mean, maybe I have a stronger tolerance, and bias, for dub performances but it didn't come off as bad to me.
 
I feel like there isnt a month that goes by where there isnt a GAF thread about some website posting an article demeaning Japanese people and their culture. After a while it becomes hard not to feel there's a racist undercurrent to the trend.
 

Madness

Member
Isn't it the same in China and south Korea as well?

Pretty much the same worldwide. Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, India etc. It is the dominance of white culture worldwide whether through soft power, hard power, colonialism and cultural dominance. Naturally though as economic, political and military power finally shifts from the US/Europe the West to Asia, you will see this change.
 
I feel like there isnt a month that goes by where there isnt a GAF thread about some website posting an article demeaning Japanese people and their culture. After a while it becomes hard not to feel there's a racist undercurrent to the trend.

...the article is literally a transcription of a discussion taking place between four Japanese women.
 

Nabbis

Member
I'm not sure your logic supports your conclusion. In fact, I'd venture to say it supports the exact opposite. If people from foreign countries started seeing their fellow countrymen, actors, faces in Hollywood movies, that would most definitely solve the issue and dilute the image that white is the standard of beauty. People want to see representation, even if they aren't necessarily demanding it.

I really don't buy this. Asian Americans are not "fellow countrymen". Perhaps it's baffling to someone from US but the way, for example, Chinese and Japanese regard each other is as if they come from different planets. And the point is not the white standard of beauty but that it's a standard from a foreign culture that is perhaps sidestepping local culture.
 

_mail

Member
I guess I could have explained that better, but you'd think she went through slavery and jim crow etc. with the end result ending in her hating them.
If you're in America, then she has a pretext to. You should read up about the history of Chinese immigrants in the US, specifically on the west coast.

Besides that, the history of China being fucked over by white people (opium wars!) is quite lengthy.
 

Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
Wanting some features people associate with being white people doesnt mean they want to be white

Asians have straigter hair than white people, and ive seen plenty of shatp small nose asians

Egh, I've seen plenty of Asian people with curly hair.
 
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