March 16, 2007
News flash! America doesn't have a monopoly on bigoted, violent hate speech.
In this movie on a popular Korean video site (link only works in Internet Explorer), two Korean teenagers engage in a mock "debate" on Dokdo. That is, the Korean presents a couple of maps, while the "Japanese" (referred to as "Zzokbari," a derogatory term for Japanese that I'm told means "pig's feet" in reference to geta sandals), in his fake mustache and coke-bottle glasses (what is this, 1980s Hollywood?) spouts mousy insults over images of Japanese war crimes.
The Korean finally says, "I'm gonna kill ya" and drags the Japanese out of his chair, beats him up (under a card showing a mannequin holding a chainsaw) and finally forces him to surrender his claim to Dokdo at (fake) gunpoint before finally shooting him in the head.
These kids are way too young to have been involved or even for their parents to have been involved in the Japanese occupation. And they're way too young to be so hateful. I thought I'd seen everything when it came to nationalist wackos on both sides of this, but that video shocked me.
This next one off YouTube is just weird. An anti-Japanese rap song, the gist of which is that if Japan wants Dokdo Korea should just take over Japan, blares over a slide show of images. Some of them are about Dokdo, but others don't have anything to do with Japan, like TV images of Korean and Italian soccer players abusing each other during a World Cup game, the notorious "Baekdusan is Ours" sign held up by the Korean women's skating team at the Winter Asian Games, several shots of Korean protesters struggling with American soldiers, some screen shots of articles about Korean ninjas (?) . Gradually it becomes clear that this is in fact an anti-Korean piece, as shots of Japanese products -- magazine ads, merchandise, TV shows, motorcycles -- are positioned next to Korean copies, with "ORIGINAL" and "COPY" crudely superimposed. I happen to think the Korean copies of Japanese products -- particularly media -- are a rather creative and harmless form of infringement since, after all, most Japanese pop culture was banned back then.
But the remarkable thing about both these steaming turds is that they are subtitled in English. I'm not sure what these two sides expect to accomplish by exposing their diatribes against one another to the rest of the world. I think we've made it abundantly clear that we don't care. And yet, like cult missionaries on a street corner, people like these continue to preach at us, while programs like the Dokdo Riders receive support from the Korean social and corporate mainstream.
I really and truly don't know how to begin to approach a nationalist youth campaign of this magnitude. All I know is, not only would that first video be entirely unfunny in the U.S., it would get both those kids expelled from whatever school they were in.
Posted by b-applegate at 7:25 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
January 30, 2007
American Chameleons
The Yomiuri Shimbun picked some great cartoons for its awards this year, though bigger resolutions would have been nice. This one's titled, "Trouble."
Posted by b-applegate at 7:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Lennon put Grandpa in prison
Doing nothing to help the current image of copyright alliances as full of huge dickheads, the JASRAC (the Japanese RIAA) has sent a 74-year-old bar owner to jail for 10 months for letting local college students who play classical piano part-time at his bar take requests for the Beatles and other more modern musicians. Fortunately he's got three years left to appeal, but yikes. It doesn't get much worse than slapping the cuffs on someone who could die tomorrow because he helped out a few music majors and liked listening to Hey Jude.
Posted by b-applegate at 7:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 29, 2007
More on "The Truth About Nanking"
The film Web site is here, and it contains a video of the press conference by the director, calling the planned Chinese documentary propaganda based on historical misunderstanding and saying Japan must communicate the correct history to the world. All the typical garbage.
What I want to know is, couldn't they think up a more creative title than "The Truth About Nanking?" I mean, that's not just revisionism, that's lazy revisionism. How about "We Didn't Kill Your Grandmother" or "Japan: We Didn't Do All That Stuff We Did"? The Yogi Berra reference would at least lighten things up a bit.
Posted by b-applegate at 1:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 27, 2007
Ahmadinejad's Japanese soulmates
So there's a Japanese right-wing revisionist "documentary" about how the Nanking Massacre never happened coming out. One of Ishihara's buddies. These guys really need a visit from Mr. Peabody or Dr. Who or whoever it is takes you back in time to show you the error of your ways these days. Just goes to show you that denying horrible war crimes isn't just a hobby of the developing world.
The below item appeared in Daily Variety.
Docs offer rival visions of Nanking
Mizushima, Leonsis take on massacre
By MARK SCHILLING
Satoru Mizushima's docu will refute 'Nanking.'Helmer Satoru Mizushima
will make a documentary correcting what he describes as the "myth" of
the Nanking Massacre.
Click for the rest.
Continue reading "Ahmadinejad's Japanese soulmates"
Posted by b-applegate at 5:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 21, 2007
Reasons I Like the BBC
One of their longest-running and most successful TV programs is about a kindly old man who travels through time in a phone booth.
The BBC gave the Goons, Monty Python and Douglas Adams money before they had careers and didn't care what they did with it.
Two words: Radiophonic Workshop.
And finally, they credit the writer. It's [episode name], BY WRITER GUY. None of this bury the credit next to grip #5 crap.
On the other hand, they show things like this.
Posted by b-applegate at 11:22 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)