Man, they were racist back then. Weren't they?

[deleted]

Not a huge poster because of the flames and the immature attitudes of the boards (in general), but I do have to say this:

Throughout history, there has been racism of some sort played out in the popular media. Ok, our society has grown and learned that racism is bad... Sort of. However - and I simply can not stress this enough - we need to keep these films preserved as they were made. Disney will not release Song of the South for the fact that they use the "n" word in there, and there's the whole Tar Baby issue. If they did, they'd probably hack the movie to bits, and make it so PC it wouldn't be worth watching. But it would sell because it has the Disney name on it.

Yes, calling ppl these names is a bad thing! Singling out any race to be mocked is not right. It wasn't right then, and it definitely isn't right now. But if we stomp out every mention of racism in media, sugarcoat the truth, and hide the facts of how a group can be portrayed during a war, we condemn ourselves to a cliche:

"Those who do not remember their past are condemned to repeat their mistakes."
~ George Santayana

I think that today ppl underestimate the intelligence of their children. Parents and "do-gooders" want to protect children from everything bad that has happen, or will happen. Our children, if properly taught and respected (and not taught to be gluttonous brats) have the ability to make the most profound observations. Show something to a child where a black person (I use that term instead of African-American, because it's safer than mixing up someone's country of origin) is ostracized. Unless that child has been taught to hate ppl of color, the child will turn to the adult and ask why the person isn't liked. They do the same thing on the playground. Children don't see color, they simply see ppl.

Sorry for the ramble, but it makes me so mad when ppl want to edit and "fix" books, movies, plays, and all sorts of other written/drawn media to reflect today's standards. You can't do that and expect children to then understand about past racism, and why it's wrong. Anyone ever watch how Americans get portrayed in foriegn films at times of war? Yeah, it's the same on all sides. Don't George Lucas history. While it would be nice to fix it, doing so would just make those events happen again at another point in time. Doomed to repeat, you see.

Don't hide what was done in the past. Don't hold it on a shrine. Do use it as a learning tool for how not to act, and use it to compare with how things are handled these days.

PS: Did anyone ever read The Diary of Anne Frank, To Kill a Mockingbird, or Uncle Tom's Cabin in school? If you did, did you learn anything from it, or did you just brush these aside as "stupid" and "worthless" books the teachers were making you read for torture? I ask because these are classic books that are slice of life (whether fiction or non) of how times were. Truthfully, the time hasn't really changed much in the South of the USA, as shown by an incident my brother and his new wife had on their honeymoon, when she was called a nasty name by a white woman. These books are also amongst the most banned and controversial for the fact that they're truthful about how life was, and how it will be if we don't pay attention to them.

next time dont drop a bomb on pearl harbour.

jerks

You just have to understand the time that this was made. It's not an excuse, but back then it was not nearly as hateful to say something like "Jap". Today it is so much more shocking to use that term because only the most awful hateful scumbags ever would. But back then (especially during the war) it was quite common. So you can't think of those people in the same way you think of someone today who says such things. It was a cultural ignorance that we have supposedly overcome in todays day and age (though some, including myself, would disagree with that idea).

And as the terms "jap" or "nip" derive from Japan, and Nippon, which are the actual names of the nation, I myself have never really understood why they are thought of as so offensive. They didn't start out being intended as offensive terms. In the context of the times people already felt badly about the Japanese, so using those simply descriptive terms brought up the already negative opinions people had, and those were then ascribed to the terms. "Kr@ut" on the other hand started out as a negative term (funny that imdb "*beeps*" out kr@ut, but not jap). But would any German person be insulted if someone called them a "ger"? Yet that is where the term "jerry" comes from, which is considered a slur. It only matters in what context the terms are used and grow out of. Japan and Germany were our enemies at that time, so people called them derogatory names. They are no longer our enemies, so only the lowest despicable people would call them those names now. So when we look back now at those times we see it through our modern eyes, not the eyes of the people back then.

I guess what I'm saying is, even if it is embarrassing to think there was such widespread ignorance in the past, it can be understood without thinking badly of everyone from the time. And maybe we should look at our own times the same way, and notice all the ignorance and bigotry that still exists. We can only hope that in sixty years time our kids will look back on today and be as horribly embarrassed at the footage of people protesting funerals of murdered gay people with signs like "God hates f@gs".

[deleted]

If we are all quite honest with ourselves,its actually quite funny some of the things they say in this movie.
Really,do you think the japanese give an honest damn about what racial slurs they use in this movie?

They probably laugh too.

Its is great to see that access to this film spurs this type of conversation.

Any language/propaganda that encourages the locking up of innocent American citizens purely based on their country of origin, race, or color of their skin, is a threat to all of our security.

I hope that one day we can make legitimate and logical decisions to go to war that can be supported by facts and accurate information. The US obviously was at war with Japan and certain level of rhetoric should be expected toward Japan, however, attacking an entire race of people including innocent fellow American citizens (many of them dissidents of Japan) doesn't seem helpful.

I liked the serials, and I liked the opportunity to see more examples of countless propaganda that existed during the war. The US always encourages tons of propaganda during times of war. Its important to understand how it was used in the past so we can understand it and be prepared for future usage, especially when the government might miss-use it to gain popular support for non-existent threats (i.e. the WMDs of George W. Bush) Recently we have seen more propaganda within the framework of "news" as can be seen during the build up to war on FOX NEWS.

Perhaps if we were more aware of propaganda tactics we could have seen through the lies and avoided the Iraq blunder altogether.

I hope that making serials and other forms of media available will help us to further understand the techniques of mass propaganda, so we will not be duped into setting up more internment camps for American Citizens, or drag ourselves into mistakes like the Iraq War.

PLEASE NOTE THAT I AM NOT CRITIQUING OUR GOING TO WAR WITH JAPAN.

the racism isn't merely present in the explicit acts of the storyline, but the names and actors playing the parts. Think about it.... Does TITO sound like a Japanese name to you (Yoshi Toranaga was the name of Toshiro Mifune's character in Shogun)??? and the fact that a guy that looks more like Charlton Heston's bad interpretation of a Mexican in the HIGHLY OVERRATED "Touch of Evil (worst movie that Orson Welles was ever involved in, imho)" than anything else is playing the "japanese" doctor is well simply hilarious. I simply can't watch old racist hollywood movies (fu-manchu et. al, this movie, anything with blackface or "imitation" thereof, a touch of evil, etc.) without falling all over myself laughing. They aren't good movies no matter what a bunch of people that NEED the past think. They belong in the same pile as all those Looney Tunes they don't show anymore... I mean if they aren't gonna show Speedy Gonzalez anymore cause slowpoke rodriguez might show up than this crap outta be burned too. I mean I'm not for censorship, but how can you have a serious discussion about whether a movie is good when it's got Charlton Heston playing a Mexican or a Japanese guy named Tito? I mean Eli Wallach playing a "person of Hispanic origin" (cause they never say where he's from) in The Good, bad... with Clint is almost enough to ruin that movie. And don't tell me that's how Hollywood did things back then because that guy that says "we don't need no stinkin` badges" in sierra madre looks pretty authentic to me (and I hate John Huston, so don't like mail me saying that Im just a John Huston junkie) and at the very least isn't as white as charlton heston (who is whiter than just about anybody this side of the reaper grim).