Angelina Jolie sat down for yet another interview over at NBC. You know why she’s doing so much NBC-related media? Well, Unbroken is being released by Universal so… synergy. But Angelina also worked with Tom Brokaw on a documentary about the making of Unbroken and the life of Louis Zamperini. So, Brokaw has a vested interest in making sure Angelina is around to help him promote it (it will air on NBC tonight, apparently). Which leads me to this awkward Today interview! Savannah Guthrie had to sit second chair to Brokaw as they tried to speak to Angelina, Jack O’Connell and Miyavi. I mean, it wasn’t bad but it just feels like there were too many people trying to ask and answer questions. Awkward.
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You might notice that Miyavi is getting more questions about Japanese reaction to his portrayal of a real life POW-camp monster, The Bird. The conversation here in America is “That Miyavi kid is going to get an Oscar nomination!” The conversation in Japan is “The film is a horrible depiction of the Japanese.” Angelina and Miyavi always knew that it was going to be an uphill battle with getting Japanese acceptance of this story, I’m sure. But the controversy still came:
Japanese conservatives have levelled charges of racism at the Angelina Jolie second world war biopic Unbroken and called for the Oscar-winning actor to be banned from the country, reports the Daily Telegraph. Nationalist campaigners say the film’s vision of Japanese guards severely mistreating American prisoners of war is deeply misleading. They have launched a petition on the website Change.org – so far it has more than 8,000 signatures – calling for the film to be banned on the grounds that it is “contradictory to the facts”.
Jolie’s film is based on the life story of American Olympic runner and US Air Force second lieutenant Louis Zamperini, as told in Laura Hillenbrand’s 2010 book Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption. Zamperini, played by Jack O’Connell, was beaten and mistreated by the Japanese navy between July 1943 and the end of the war in August 1945 after being captured near the Marshall Islands following the downing of the B-24 bomber he had been helping to crew and a harrowing 47 days at sea.
The book and film tell how the airman was tormented by prison guard Mutsuhiro Watanabe, nicknamed the Bird, who later featured in General Douglas MacArthur’s list of the 40 most-wanted war criminals in Japan. Watanabe once forced a weak and starving Zamperini to hold a heavy piece of wood above his head for 37 minutes before punching him in the stomach, and the book also accuses the Japanese of engaging in cannibalism of POWs and indulging in murderous medical experiments.
Hiromichi Moteki, secretary general of the nationalist pressure group the Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact, told the Telegraph the claims were “pure fabrication”. He said: “If there is no verification of the things he said, then anyone can make such claims. This movie has no credibility and is immoral.”
However, activists hoping to convince Japan to face up to its actions during the war are angry that the experiences of Zamperini, who died in July aged 97, are being questioned. Mindy Kotler, director of Asia Policy Point, told the Telegraph: “It is one thing to question the memories of illiterate women who were forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese military. It is quite another to question the memory of a white male Olympian who was a disciple of Billy Graham. Further, there is plenty of documentation on the abuse and tortures inflicted upon POWs. There is also plenty of eyewitness and forensic evidence of Japanese cannibalism of prisoners as well of fellow soldiers.”
I’m not going to speak of the film because I haven’t seen it, but I read the book and it was meticulously researched. Laura Hillenbrand did not set out to make the Japanese look terrible. In fact, in some her recitations of the cold, hard numbers about WWII, the book made America look as bad as Japan. It often sounded like America’s inability to make quality fighter planes cost thousands of young men their lives in the early years of the war. But yes, some Japanese soldiers/officers tortured POWs. After all these years, why can’t we have a conversation about that?
Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.
Any thoughts about Miyavi’s comments about Angelina’s weight? He sounded very concerned. (Let wild rumpus begin, loonies…)
Loonies……how mature of you.
There was a post about it on Sunday….
There was already a post about this.
A day late and a dollar short
Did anyone tell you that it was already posted on Sunday?
There will always be a group of people in any country who deny that their country and countrymen ever commit atrocities. We have them here as well.
I didn’t like Mindy Kotler’s statement AT ALL. Talk about racist. And she’s supposed to be the point person? Saying that it’s ok to question the word of illiterate Japanese (I assume) women, but not a white male?
Word GNAT! We were posting at the same time.
That comment made my blood boil. They are the ones I would trust to be most accurate.
I think that Kotler was trying (badly) to point out that Japanese nationalists have always used the “illiterate, poor women” excuse as a reason not to believe the “comfort women” who were forced into sexual slavery during the war. However, they cannot use such excuses against Zamperini. Granted, I think her point is poor – the nationalists will still find a way to deny Zamperini’s account because they simply refuse to accept that any Japanese people tortured POWs. But I understood the sentiment she was trying to get across.
I got what she was saying – Japan refused for a long, long time to apologize for enslaving “comfort women” and there were thousands and thousands of them, and there’s still a conservative element that disputes that it happened,, but the blowback has never been significant. But now that they’re trying to deny the word of a white male Olympian, people are taking notice.
And to clarify, the women in question were actually migrants to Japan and were largely Korean and Chinese.
Bridget, I got it too, despite being poorly worded. But let’s not use the word, migrant. They were mostly kidnapped and taken across borders, against their will. If they werent kidnapped, they were coerced or tricked.
I thought the Japanese were the ones calling them ‘migrants’ as many also deny the kidnapping?
The comfort women of China, Korea, other Asian nations, and minority ethnic Japanese people were mostly taken by force. Most of them ended up outside of Japan in “colonies” and front lines during WW2. The mainly Korean and Chinese men that went to Japan for work back then, did so to feed their families back home, or were coerced. After the war and the subsequent turmoil in the Korean Peninsula, a lot of Koreans got stuck in Japan, and so some of them decided to become Japanese.
A lot of Uyoku (right wing supporters) seem to be on 2-chan, where a lot of these comments are being aired. They were always going to complain about any WW2 film made outside Japan.
The Russians also raped tens of thousands of women when they took Berlin.
Kotler’s statement is terrible. She is referring to the Korean and Chinese women (and also women from other countries from then-occupied by Japan) who were kidnapped and coerced into sexual slavery. The Japanese still claim that they were volunteer prostitutes despite numerous documentation, photos, stories, and physical evidence.
Edited to say: now I get that you’re disputing her use of the word ‘migrant’ though your statement looks like you’re comprehending Kotler’s statement as though she’s not saying it faceteously. Goes to show, there’s little room for nuance on the interweb
I agree about everyone wanting to deny their own country’s horrors, GNAT. The horrors of Japanese camps are well documented. It’s not as though Zamperini’s experiences were, horrific as they were, singular. Crucifixion was used on the Burma Railway, for heavens sakes. There are holocaust deniers. Some people say that the Rwandan genocide didn’t actually happen. Britons like to pretend it wasn’t them who invented the concentration camp in South Africa. You guys have your charming torture report out this week, which some people are trying to pretend isn’t as bad as all that.
Revisionists suck. That’s my position and I’m sticking to it!
•Sixer•
Revisionists DO suck. Period/Full Stop.
Right along with you Sixer, American’s have Guantanamo Bay. Senate leaders are deciding how much of a post 9/11 report on torture, will be seen by the public. The hypocrisy is huge. The entire planet participates in war crimes: they have existed since humankind’s *first* war. Even Civil War soldiers had women who followed the camps to “comfort”, and this is the norm of all war in all times. The situation is no different in the Middle East; our own soldiers are not innocent; no one is innocent. Rape and plunder are as old as time. Prostitution is just as old.
Our real problem is WAR. Can anyone wonder why our soldiers come back with PTSD? Maybe we made up Satan to blame it all on so we don’t have to be responsible. War is the problem, and to focus on its components, should serve to make us very hesitant to enter into it, because moral indignation over what occurs in these situations is fruitless.
wolfpup, I think you hit the nail on the head.
War is a horrible act itself, but there are also other horrible acts that surround war. They go hand in hand. It isn’t just a battle between governments and militaries, it is something that leads to rape, imprisonment, torture and death no matter which country goes in for what cause.
That! What an insulting piece of organic fertilizer!
•GoodNames•
As you know, the Japanese can be very sexist so it’s a nod to that in her statement. Statements from men are revered more than women so it makes this account carry more weight, in the Japanese mind-set.
LS, Is this how it is with the Bill Cosby situation? Black men had voting rights before women.
Couldn’t agree more. Shame on Kotler!
It is wipe from their school’s history book
9/11 is a perfect example. Wonder how long it’s going to take to make a movie…or someone write a book..about how the US terrorized its own.
I am confused by Mindy Kotler’s quote… she makes it sound like it’s okay to question the veracity of claims of women being forced into the sex trade because those claims are just from illiterate women, not an educated, white, Christian man. Poorly stated Ms. Kotler. Very poorly stated.
I agree – I went back to it a few times to see if maybe I was misreading it.
She’s saying that there hasn’t been a groundswell of outrage when some Japanese dispute the enslavement of thousands of comfort women, who were the illiterate migrant women mentioned, but if you question Louis Zamperini its front page news.
Its not the best worded statement (and the issue of comfort women remains a huge diplomatic landmine with S Korea so its clear that people DO care about those women) but I at least get her point.
Alsp, could you imagine how frustrating it would be to spend your time work in on behalf of these women, who many Japanese would like to see just swept under the rug, and to not see a ton of headway, only to have the story of a white guy rocket to the headlines? I certainly think Zamperini’s story is amazing and its a high profile project so I understand why its generating so much news, but I can see how it would be a major sourse of frustration.
I will take your word, Bridget, because you seem to know a lot about it, that this quote was out of context and she was actually pointing out that it took the word of a white male to make people sit up and take notice. I certainly hope that’s true. But she worded her statement very poorly, as I suppose we all do from time to time. Thanks for your perspective.
•GoodNames•
I agree with •Bridget• the quote is honestly fantastic, assuming you know the context. If you don’t know the context…then the quote is not so fantastic.
Thank you for clarifying, Bridget. I can understand her points in that context.
“Bridget says:
December 9, 2014 at 9:44 am
She’s saying that there hasn’t been a groundswell of outrage when some Japanese dispute the enslavement of thousands of comfort women, who were the illiterate migrant women mentioned, but if you question Louis Zamperini its front page news.”
But there was outrage. However I think any outrage over the attempt to deny the existence of “comfort women” (really sexual slaves) by some quarters in Japan had more to do with the denials not being taken seriously since the fact of enslaved “comfort women” was well established and accepted as fact. The circumstances in regards to Zamperini and POWs in the hands of the Japanese is only garnering more attention because there is a major film with a huge media campaign surrounding it and naturally anything about it will get lots of attention.
As admirable as her efforts are, Mindy Kotler’s inartful arguments here may be why her advocacy didn’t yield the results she hoped for.
Katherine, I personally think that reality is somewhere in the middle. There has most definitely been some outrage with respect to Japanese crimes like that (especially to the countries where the women came from like Korea, which historically have had huge issues with Japan anyhow) but I woulf say that one of the primary issues at hand is the fact that there’s less awareness in general of what went on in the Pacific Theater, as well as the fact that the US finished that by dropping the big bomb and killing millions of people which may have let other atrocities committed become lost in that guilt (just my humble opinion here). And then there’s the fact that the Japanese accepted MacArthur and quickly became a US ally. But whatever the factors, there’s simply leas awareness and less outrage over what happened on that side of WW2 in comparison with our familiarity with what happened in Europe. Anyhoo, I’m rambling and all I’m trying to say is that I personally think there are multiple factors at work aside from just the fact that these were poor, illiterate women.
They want him to be banned from the country? Because he was ACTING?
i hope i’m hard of seeing and reading it wrong, but is that Mindy Kotler person criticizing a racist-cardwaving group using very racist AND misogynist words?
maybe it’s irony. or maybe there’s some context i’m missing?
You are missing context. Mindy Kotler has devoted a great deal of time and effort to publicising what happened to the so-called comfort women in Japan, and to keeping Japan’s desire to minimise and deny these atrocities in the spotlight. (See http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/15/opinion/comfort-women-and-japans-war-on-truth.html?_r=0.) Her point is that the accounts of thousands of Asian women cannot, apparently, stir up the same level of concern as the account of one well-known white man (albeit an extraordinary one).
1) She looks stunningly beautiful in that last picture (in the white coat).
2) I will never understand the denial of certain facts–it’s a true story. Nothing was embellished.
3) I had the weirdest dream a couple of days ago, where I dreamed that I had watched “Unbroken”, and it was this weird mishmash of a “making of” type film–half of it was the movie/acting, and half of it was behind the scenes type stuff….and so I woke up thinking “So that’s why the reviews were mixed. That was really weird.” haha, lol. I have NO CLUE why I had that dream, but I always have really weird celebrity dreams. Like once, instead of a lovely p0rny dream about Ralph Fiennes (back when I didn’t find him a total skeeve), I had a dream that he came to my school (I was like in 11th grade), and was teaching me how to recite Hamlet, because I was going to be in a school play. WEIRD.
4) I finally read through all of the reviews, and the biggest thing I remember is that they said that the movie was ‘too polite’, to put it a term. Too cheesy is what I got—mainly about the sayings “If you can take it, you can make it” and “A moment of pain is worth a lifetime of glory”…..which I get it. It sounds totally cheesy. Because we’ve heard it a bajillion times. But it’s hard, because that’s stuff that was actually said to Louis.
2) don’ t be surprised. there are idiots who deny the Holocaust, and there are not only survivors, but solid, material evidence about it. I can somewhat understand the fact that a verbal proof can be questioned: people do lie, even though, at one point you should just realize that human beings are terrible, and they are capable of terrible things, especially during war. I have never questioned the comfort women “theory” as they probably call it. It just makes sense that it happened. There are men who still think they should have the right to do it nowadays, let alone decades ago where they had the excuse that they were dying for their country, had to get something in return, and probably their government’ s permission.
Men thinking that they have the right…that is exactly why women in war torn countries need to be packing a gun! Men come back from war and are quiet in shame (I’m not saying all of them). I’ve heard stories from vets who were willing to share. Lots of grief…one man told me that he still saw the *faces* of the grandmothers, women and children, back from his days in Vietnam; and how long ago was that?
My last sentence could be read as saying that the faces this vet so agonizingly remembered, were related to rape, when in this particular accounting he was expressing the grief of being at war with children. Suicide bombing was not invented in the Middle East.
My godmother and her family were in a Japanese POW camp. I have not seen the movie so I cannot speak to the depiction but my godmother’s accounts were quite unsettling.
As were my Japanese American citizen grandparents accounts of being in the internment camp right here in the good old USA………
I imagine their accounts are. I am sorry to hear they had to go through that.
@j.eyre thank you. Same to you.
Ava, I am so sorry to hear what your family went through. As an American, I don’t feel enough has been said about the internment camps. It is important to hold mistakes up to the light so we don’t repeat them. With all of the values we claim to hold, I am still shocked my country allowed that to happen.
I cannot speak about this film because I haven’t seen it but I do wonder why Hollywood doesn’t make more films about japanese internment camps in the US. We have so many WW2 movies already that overlook our own tragic history.
There is a documentary about George Takei and does cover some of his experience in an internment camp, but I agree it’s something that could be explored more in film.
There was a novel a few years ago, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, about that subject, and your post made me wonder if a movie was in the works. This a quote from the author, on his own website, in response to all those who ask him if a movie is going to happen:
“The answer can be summed up in the question that was often asked of me when I met with several Hollywood producers and that was, “How do we mitigate the financial risk without a white male lead?”
Which actually, sadly, ties back in with the whole Exodus discussion on the other post.
I’ve met several people in Vancouver who suffered as children in the internment camps. How a lot of them were already second generation kids and considered themselves Canadian, not Japanese, and felt so very confused growing up.
Then there are stories from survivors of Allied POW camps, that even the Japanese government would like to be hushed up, in case it damages their relationship with the U.S., UK and Australia. My late grandpa worked the “radios” beyond the official Japanese frontline in Papua New Guinea, and sent army movement information to the Allies, in effect working as a spy. When he and his team were caught, they were fortunately sent to a more lenient camp, he said, but the humiliation/torture he was forced to endure regardless of what he had done, made it very hard for him to forgive the Allies.
Both these cases aren’t considered part of the “main history” so they get glossed over as if they never really happened. And of course, the great point about the male or female lead being a non-White.
George Takei has done a great job of talking about his childhood and making sure no one forgets. I’m not saying that there isn’t anyone willing to talk about it, its just far fewer films that deal with what Japanese Americans went through during WW2. There are so many films on this war and far to few of them tell the whole story.
I agree with you about racist Hollywood would need a white savoir. The sad thing is films with Asian leads have made plenty of money for Hollywood but usually Asians are still stereotyped.
I just finished that book–couldn’t put it down. There are so many interesting characters, it could be a great movie. But the leads would be kids!
Did you ever see Come See the Paradise? Early Dennis Quaid http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099291/
I will check it out, thanks!
Empire of the Sun?
They have also denied that any foreign women were forced into prostitution in Japan and insist the “comfort women” were there of their own free will. Next thing you know they will be denying they bombed Pearl Harbor.
The crazy thing was that Louis Zamperini forgave everybody who was involved in his captivity and actually embraced them when he returned to Japan.
People have a tendency to not want to admit terrible stuff about their own families, their own countries, etc. America needs to deal with the fact that it forced thousands of innocent Japanese Americans into holding camps just because of a suspicion that they might be spies. That’s America’s issue to deal with. The abuses that SOME Japanese committed in the POW camps are well documented. Does that condemn every single Japanese person alive at the time? Of course not – but the nation should accept these things happened. You can’t change what happened, but you can acknowledge it, regret it and try to make sure that it never happens again.
Personally, I don’t believe that there is any way to really have an ethical war. These types of things are part and parcel of the package. But that’s just me. However, there are things that simply go beyond the pale when it comes to how prisoners get treated, and this certainly counts.
Interning thousands of Japanese is not the same as forcing men to walk for miles with no food or water. Its not the same as kidnapping women and forcing them into the sex trade. Where many of them were propped up naked, on some type of macabre stockade, with their legs held open to make their rapes easier. Its not the same as two samurai who engaged in a ‘I bet I can chop off more heads than you’ game. Or their treatment of the people of Nanking, that was so brutal, even the Germans were sickened.
So yeah, forcing people from their homes was bad, but it pales in comparison to what the Japanese did all over Southeast Asia.
You might want to read about the conditions inside some of the camps. Plenty of people suffered and died in them. They weren’t exactly the Hilton.
The point is not to compare specifics. The US engaged in terrible racism towards people who has NOTHING to do with the Japanese nation. Actual Americans who were born here. You don’t hear about the Japanese or German Americans who were driven from their homes, or attacked in the streets, or fired from their jobs, or all that other stuff. Because we don’t want to discuss it. You also don’t hear about the rampant racism that black, latino and native American soldiers suffered when they served, or how wealthy young men were permitted to pay poor white men to serve in their place, or any of that stuff. Oh, and let’s not forget the Tokyo fire bombing or dropping 2 atomic weapons on scads of civilians and causing decades of environmental harm, including radiation sickness….
Yeah, America really comes out the winner in this case… I don’t personally think America has much moral high ground here. We can critique the Japanese nationalists without claiming the moral high ground.
Thank you Sam. Your well-considered comments made my day.
Not excusing what the Japanese Imperial Army did back then at all, but most people from ex-samurai families (like my own) had values that often ran counter to the Imperials. They would not have engaged in a macabre bet and thought it acceptable.
Neither side in war can ever claim to be morally superior. Plenty of things happened both sides that could be considered ‘atrocious’ by the other. It’s partly cultural differences. Even back in the 90s, some schools considered it normal to train their sports teams with no food or water, on a very hot humid summer day, making them run for miles, for example. Or how the Imperials back then were very intent on making Japan racially pure, and enforced hard labour on Ainu peoples and took some of their girls (along with the Sanka and other minorities within Japan) as comfort women. None of these things should be forgotten either.
@delorb Unless you or your family were in the camps, I don’t think you should comment on this. My grandfather was beaten and had all if possessions taken and almost died. This is a very emotional issue for many “American”citizens.
Of course America can claim the moral high ground in WWII. Much more so than either Japan or Germany, who had every intention of conquering the world.
The decision to use atomic weapons on an enemy that steadfastly refused to surrender probably saved millions of lives that would have been lost during a prolonged invasion.
Tippy: Only if you mean American lives – which in that case, own it. It didn’t save Japanese lives. Remember, we just can’t count the people killed in the actual blast. We must count those who died of injuries years later, or the unknown numbers that died of cancer and related illnesses related to the radiation they were exposed to, or consumed through tainted food or environmental factors. When you factor in the true cost, the bomb doesn’t look quite as compassionate now, does it?
@ Sam. An invasion of Japan would have led to far more casualties (on both sides) than the atomic bombs did. Physicist William Shockley estimated an invasion would have led to anywhere from 1.7 to 4 million American casualties and five to ten million Japanese deaths. In comparison, Nagasaki and Hiroshima combined killed around 129,000 people. As an American, I am certainly not hiding from a decision that saved millions of both American and Japanese lives.
@Sam and @Ava
If the point isn’t to compare specifics, then why bring up the camps? Its your way of trying to put each horror on equal footing and they shouldn’t be. The people who were put in those camps weren’t marched there, they were driven. They weren’t put in conditions where they would be lucky to get three squares a day. They weren’t systematically beaten. No it wasn’t a picnic and America should be ashamed of their blatant racism, but to say that we lack the moral high ground is ridiculous.
I also don’t need to know of anyone who was in the camps to ‘comment on this’. That’s like saying only those people and their families who experienced the Jewish Holocaust of WWII, can ‘comment on this’. Bull! That counter argument doesn’t hold water and is an attempt to end the discussion. Won’t work. The Japanese need to stop trying to whitewash the blood that is on their hands.
And while you’re factoring in the lives lost during the bombs and after, factor in the lives saved by it. The lives of all the people who would have been effected had we NOT bombed them into submission.
Lastly, the macabre bet made the Japanese papers! There are records and first hand accounts.
I understand what the Japanese or Americans (or anyone else involved in the war) did or didn’t do, can be an emotional subject, partly because those of us old enough had relatives we knew directly involved in it. My knowledge pertaining to this era comes from a lot of research on my part, as well as education in both Japan and the UK. Granted the Japanese textbooks had the overall timeline for the war but little else, and the teacher refused to teach the entire section (at which point I asked about it and got rewarded with detention for an entire term). So my knowledge of the Japanese side comes mostly from eye witness accounts, whether people I knew, people I got referred to, or other lesser-known authors on the subject.
Nowhere did I say you need to have known someone from the camps or whatever to comment on it. I just happened to have known some people, and they told me their personal stories. As my degree incorporated history, politics and sociology, these personal stories were very insightful.
I can apologise about the atrocities committed by the Japanese during the war and some years preceding it. Sure. But I’m just one private citizen. To the world at large, it means absolutely nothing.
Lives were indeed saved in the immediate aftermath of the bombings. But please factor in the people who continued to suffer and were affected by those bombs long after the war officially ended. Why the Allies decided not to execute the then-Emperor is beyond me though.
There’s only so much reading one person can do, and I have yet to come across the accounts and records you speak of. Please direct me to a link if there are any. However my point still stands. No self respecting ex-samurai (with their core belief systems) would have condoned such bets. I am in no way saying that all ex-samurais were honourable, however.
Maybe, the answer to all this is to adopt a Japanese child. 3…2…1
Oh because Adoption is such a simple thing! Ugh.
Do not know why there are always adoption jokes when they have not adopted since 2007!!! Plus they only have 3 adopted children, not 20.
Try some new material….
For her, yes…. Extremely easy.
you really need to move on. The obsession over her adoptions are very strange. This has nothing to do with adoption..
She went through the same home study process everybody else did. Take the hate somewhere else. It’s old, stale and boring.
People think it is insult.Just go buy an Asian or African.It is weird they rarely comment on celebs of have adopted multiple White kids.Rosie O Donnell adopted three kids.Sharon Stone (3),Lauren Holly(3),Marie Osmond(4),Kirk Cameron(4),etc
Was it easy for them?
Racists. That’s exactly what it is, Tarsh.
Seriously? You are making it sound like adopting is a bad thing.
She gave 3 children a better life and a chance to make it in the world.
And no adoption is never easy anywhere in the world.
Your dislike for Angelina is making you look like not only a vile person but also someone who critises a noble thing as adopting.
Japan does not allow Americans to adopt, and as a fact their are very few Japanese children put up for adoption.
•Ava•
Not true. I had a few friends adopt Japanese children — however it was NOT easy. (Although I do believe it was for the half-Japanese/half-American children).
Adoptions by foreigners are even more difficult than domestic ones but I saw more than one family go through the process while I lived in Japan.
Mindy Kotler’s well intentioned reply pissed me off. I guess that’s the reality.
It’s not surprising that some Japanese would be deeply offended by this movie. There are some who would like to be that Dodkdo Island is Japan’s; that the Japanese didn’t run military brothels with kidnapped women in sexual slavery, and all those POWs didn’t suffer and die. Just like there are people who believe that the Holocaust didn’t happen. Still, many believe, as horrific as these actions were, they were just realities of war. It is uncomfortable to read/hear/watch, but we should not forget what terrible things we human beings are capable of doing.
Mindy Kotler’s statement is wildly out of context. She has been an advocate for the ‘comfort women’ and against Japanese whitewashing of their crimes. She wrote a great oped last month in the NYT which is available online. It’s a shame that her statement is being misinterpreted. I think she was saying that they’ve tried to ditch responsibility BECAUSE these were poor, illiterate females but society will always respond to white male claims.
And the Jaapnese nationalists can have several seats. They committed truly atrocious war crimes which are far more unknown than those of the Nazis but were very similar. They’ve been given a pass for the most part because its hard for people to separate the Japanese people and the government. It’s easy to fall into the racism trap and lump the whole country in. But the Japanese government was the perpetrator of crimes that would make yo sick to your stomach–from torture to medical experiments to beheadings of POWs to sex trafficking and rape. Much of it, apart from the Bataan death march, uncovered as is most of the Pacific war contrasted with the European war.
I wholeheartedly agree with your interpretation. And I’m a little surprised that people are taking offense to Killer’s remarks.
Thank you both for putting it in context. I had not heard of her before and if you only read this quote, it sounds very much as though she is saying that it’s perfectly reasonable not to believe illiterate women, but impossible not to believe a white male. I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions without learning more, and I’m very relieved to hear that a fellow female would not make such a horrible statement.
Its not a part of history that we talk about much, for several reasons:
1 Japan is now an ally
2 We ultimately committed the biggest act of atrocity of that war by dropping the bomb (interesting discussion of whether or not it was justified or the right discussion)
3 Our focus on the Pacific Theater tends to be Pearl Harbor and Midway, with the bulk of focus on the European Theater for WW2
4 There’s simply not a focus on Asian history in general here in the US
@Bridget,
Agreed. I might also add that we brought this on by not doing the whole Nuremberg thing. The Emperor was left relatively unscathed. There should have been a reckoning back then, but I guess people didn’t want to do that after two nuclear bombs were dropped.
They actually did do some war crimes trials, but MacArthur himself chose to spare the emperor – even though pretty much everyone disagreed with him. He felt that the emperor was essentially the heart and soul of Japanese culture. It made it difficult to enforce real accountability for the Japanese actions during WW2, but it hugely endeared him to the Japanese and I’ve always thought it was a factor in the resounding success of the Japanese rebuild after the war, with the breakups of the major Japanese businesses and changes to their Constitution. I don’t know if it was because he knew that the Americans would need an ally in that corner of the world or if he just felt guilty that the Americans dropped the ultimate weapon, or if he just especially respected the Japanese.
Thank you for more information on Kotler. The comment on its own surprised me a bit, but with the context you’ve provided, it makes a lot of sense. If she is someone who has been fighting for those women all along, it has to be frustrating to see such a big response to one man, heroic as he was, when the women’s plight is largely ignored.
Thank you for bringing up some very valid points. The atrocities of war are not easy to contemplate. There are so many countries that have things to answer for during World War II including the United States. Japan needs to have a good long look at this story and accept it for what it is.
thank you for the article and background details both on Mindy’s work and govt vs. people dichotomy, Kori. i now realize that there really is a context i’m missing.
it’s just really sad to see the back and forth thing going on with their apologies to victims. it’s a real struggle to get closure in that way. kinda like the back-and-forthing done by Miyavi’s character, the Bird (one time apologizing, another time hitting, or apologizing while hitting)–only now it’s more psychological.
They didn’t make up this “story”, it’s a fact. I am sure every country has their own facts to expose and tell the World.We just have to deal with harsh reality whether we like it or not.
I want to steal her Black coat and may be white one too.
Thanks for the info, Kori!
I don’t have any comments abot Angie’s weight or the film for now. I just wanted to say how often does one get to say they have seen Angie twice in one year. I saw her when she showed up to the premier of A Normal Heart in NY and I saw her (though not as close) a few days ago for her Unbroken tour here in the city. People love this woman and I’m talking about women in their 30’s and over.
Why is she always on the most hated lists then if she is loved.
•Kaiser• •Everyone•
To answer your last question the answer is unequivocally no (question was after all these years why can’t we converse about the Japanese atrocities of war).
As many of you know, I lived in Japan for three years and adored it. But like every culture, there are some very negative aspects to it. This is a great example of one of the many things that isn’t so nice about the Japanese. Luckily, there are plenty of very good things about Japan too.
The Japanese are all about ‘saving face’ and preserving the myth they are special/infallible. Speaking of their war records, which are notoriously violent, violates both sacrosanct ideas I just mentioned. To this day, Japan still causes international incidents when they honour their dead (dead warriors are almost God-like and many Japanese treat them as such). The Japanese hallow their dead and any impugnity they see will cause a huge protest — regardless of whether or not the protests are justified.
The Japanese have been known to alter textbooks in order to gloss over their faults and praise themselves (they are not the only country that does this). So a good many Japanese are honestly clueless about their own violent past.
Overall, it’s a sticky situation and hopefully the people of Japan are allowed to see the movie regardless of what their elected body decides.
Thanks for that perspective, LadySlippers. I understand the pain of admitting that your country or countrymen (on behalf of your country) did something dishonorable, cruel or despicable. I have trouble with it myself at times, as you know, especially when it is pointed out by an “outsider.” But we have to face these things in order to grow and be sure they don’t happen again. That’s what scares me about this.
But we have to face these things in order to grow and be sure they don’t happen again.
Do you know what’s happening in Syria and Iraq??? It’s never stopped! Look what’s happening to the women over there now. One woman said she was raped thirty times and it isn’t even lunch time. Humans are the most cruel beings and it doesn’t matter the color of their skin, religious beliefs or where they originated from.
•GoodNames•
As always, you are welcome.
Covering up our misdeeds ensures they are repeated. All cultures (strictly my opinion) need to face themselves squarely in the mirror and assess the good and bad. No one culture is better than another and we should be striving to improve ourselves. We here in the US are loath to face that descendants of slavery still are shackled by that legacy. Or even to acknowledge that our country committed horrors on other living, breathing, human beings or was complacent when those horrors were/are happening (historic and modern slavery, sex trafficking, crimes against women & children, attempting to eradicate our native populations, WWII death camps, military ‘prisons’ for Islamic terrorists, etc.) . Whether it was today or yesterday makes no difference.
Sometimes, atrocities are too horrible and REQUIRE a loss of face.
My grandmother is from the Marshall Islands and has told stories of the unthinkable acts committed against her people by the Japanese before the war. I think the Japanese people would do better to admit this was a dark period in their country’s history and highlight their contributions and peaceful interactions since that time. People love a redemption story, but they condemn the denial of factual abuse. They just need to own it gracefully.
The Japanese, in this case, could take a hint from the Germans. If you ever visit Germany, WWII and Holocaust memorials are common and the country does not, largely, deny anything about that period of time. Holocaust education is mandatory in schools and the government has actually made Holocaust denial a crime. Granted, are there fringe elements in Germany that deny stuff? Yes, absolutely. But they are fringe. The nation overall acknowledges what happened. Japan has struggled a lot more with it. I think part of it is because many Japanese (the people I’ve met, at least) feel victimized because of things like the atomic bombs, which devastated them so badly. They feel like that was excessive and that the US should not have done such a thing to them, so they tend to feel defensive. It’s a complex set of feelings.
•AustenGirl•
Very true.
And not all the stories about the Japanese are bad during WWII. One fantastic example is an incident that happened to a former WWII sailor I met in Texas where I worked years ago. He told me that the Okinawa Islands had just been captured by the Japanese Empire and they were none to pleased about it too. The Japanese navy had torpedoed an US naval ship close to the Islands and sunk her. This elderly man spoke about watching his fellow sailors drown and get eaten by sharks (some of his friends were still alive while being eaten). The Okinawans rowed out to save as many American sailors as they could and proceeded to hide them even while knowing the Imperial Japanese Forces were looking for survivors. These islanders took a huge risk to save a few ‘enemies’ from certain torture or death — punishments they would have faced themselves if caught. And they did it anyway. So that elderly gentleman was alive because of a few exceptionally brave Japanese.
Basically, in war you’ll have a mix of both good and bad stories. IMO you gotta embrace both.
Wow, LadySlippers, what a great story, I teared up. Thank you for sharing it.
There’s quite a sizeable group of Japanese nationalists who actually will deny Japan doing anything wrong to their dying day, and probably fully believe it too. Unfortunately, quite a few of them are in positions of power within the government as well. Japan has a terrible track record in accepting any sort of blame for WWII.
Yes it’s a well documented fact that Japanese POW camps in WW2 were promised lands of fun and excitement much like a sleep away camp where there were ample pillow fights, puppies and kittens were given to all servicemen and everyone gained the ‘freshmen 15’ from all the plentiful food they had.
*snorts*
I agree with the others pointing out Kotler’s comments refer to the treatment/denial of comfort women during the War. They also like to deny testing on Koreans. No one’s hands in WW2 came out clean. Sorry this upsets these people’s ideas of facts but giving them any credence is like bothering to listen to Holocaust deniers.
To me Japanese people are like US & UK – they conveniently want to forget their horrible history.
I rarely see Americans ever show the horrible things they did to Native Americans.
Nor do I ever hear about the gruesome things British did to Indians.
We cannot learn from the history until we first acknowledge it and then take it from there.
But for the most part, the US and the UK at least acknowledge that these things actually and they are routinely depicted in movies, textbooks amd literature. Whereas we’re talking about some incredibly horrific crimes perpetrated by some of the Japanese that they still routinely deny even occurred.
I don’t agree that the things that were done to the native peoples of the Americas are accurately or routinely depicted in the mainstream media in any form. And it is also true that several prime ministers of Japan, even in the last few years, have made the controversial visit to the war shine to Japanese soldiers who likely committed crimes against humanity in WWII. Anyway, it seems really hard to try to ever “compare” atrocities or for anyone anywhere to claim any relative moral high ground.
You are so off base regarding the US
Honestly, I completely disagree with that. We are awful at owning up to our past atrocities in America, which is why we’re living with our current atrocities.
It is not just the USA and the UK. All countries all over the world have engaged in war and tortured both their own people and those from other countries. If any country pretends that they have never engaged in war and tortured they are lying . And yes this includes India, African countries, Asian countries, etc. No one is exempt. Let’s not for a minute pretend there is country out there who is lily white. In fact the US and the UK acknowledge more then most countries that they did some horrible things. Have you ever heard of either party in Rwanda admit to wrong doing and compensating the other party in the ethnic cleansing war there ? And the list could go on and on.
As for the movie – well of course the Japanese will be upset just as Africans were upset about movies about Rwanda. Complaints included that “the projection of the savage/victim/savior dialectic; the danger of assigning labels to victims and perpetrators; ignoring historical and cultural contexts of human rights abuses; and downplaying the severity of genocide in order to obtain maximum entertainment value for the film.” As well they say the movies hurt more then helped. Probably the same as Unbroken. Hollywood always alters the story a bit to make money.
Good comment Bluejay! I made a similar one above.
It always interests me when the response from somebody refusing to acknowledge atrocities is “Well, you’ve done bad things, too.” As if the fact that the rest of the world isn’t perfect means that your actions don’t count, or can’t be judged. Not being alone in something doesn’t diminish the horror of it.
The Japanese have a pressing need to deny any and all of their (many) war crimes. Nothing new.
The naysayers- including various media outlets with agendas that kept repeating the negative stories in many inflammatory ways- did the same thing with Twelve Years a Slave (how do we KNOW it’s true, it was so long ago, we already have Roots, why SO violent, same trash over & over again). Well, that backfired and I hope this does, too.
The Japanese do not want to own up to their atrocities. They want to play the victim during WWII. In fact, it is their aggression in Asia that caused suffering and death for the entire Pacific Rim. Not just comfort women, but men, women, children, the elderly. In on evening the Japanese army raped and killed 250,000 Chinese in The Rape of Nanjing. The Japanese army conscripted Filipinos and Burmese to build railroads. I can’t stand how the Japanese conservatives and nationalist have act so indignant over their country’s history. They have turned the soldiers of WWII into war heros. There is no mention of their part in the history books. Younger generations of Japanese have no clue what the war was about, why the Americans fought against them. The only thing the do know about the war is about the atomic bomb and that they were helpless victims during the war. It really makes my blood boil.
I guess this is similar to the US whitewashing everything & putting themselves in better light & the “outsiders” as the terrorists & thugs. Brits stole tons of jewels from India (amongst millions of other things) & have no qualms about it. Americans slaughtered Native tribes, stole their land but tell POC to “go back to their country” as if the land even belongs to them in the first place. There are tons of people who still think that the Holocaust never occured.
I recommend to anyone who has read Unbroken and is interested in other books about Japanese POW camps in the Pacific theater read “King Rat”, by James Clavell. The Japanese also massacred over 300,000 Chinese people in 3 days during WW2~the long rivalry between China and Japan was intensified after that, as I’m sure you can understand. Which is why when Japan got hit by the tsunami (which caused the whole fukushima radioactive mess) China did NOTHING to help. I had a Great-Uncle that was killed during the Bataan Death March myself, so these Japanese pearl-clutching actions have no sympathy from me~just as the torture report that is about to be revealed regarding what the USA has committed in the name of “national security” garners no sympathy for my government from me, either. Governments are supposed to work FOR the people, not against them, and until We the People HOLD OUR GOVERNMENTS accountable for what they do in OUR name it will continue to be a battle that the entire planet loses.
I’m watching the CIA torture report on CNN right now and it is ugly.
The Japanese have never wanted to own up to the atrocities they committed during WW2 and in China in the 1930s — and they were legion — because they don’t want anyone saying Hiroshima and Nagasaki were justified.
And in other news, the AFI (American Film Institute) just named “Unbroken” as one of the top ten films of 2014.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2014/12/08/american-film-institute-top-movies-tv-of-2014/20109533/
@Janet, who wrote: “And in other news, the AFI (American Film Institute) just named “Unbroken” as one of the top ten films of 2014.”
Wow, that’s incredible! I’m really surprised no one else has commented on this news. It’s going to be lively 2014 Awards Season. 🙂
This is what the Japanese nationalists have always done. Deny, deny, deny, never admit an error by their country, and never apologize for anything. Much like extremist nationalists everywhere.
Before posting this as a story, it’s too bad that no one took a moment to qualify the group that was using this movie to get themselves a headline. They are fringe, at best.
If you’ve noticed where Angelina is concerned the gossip media always tends to highlight whatever fringe group is attacking her even though they have zilch credibility. The only thing that seems to be required is: ‘are they attacking Angelina?’ …and if so, they get ink.
Remember the Czech or Bosnian ‘women’s group’ who attacked her for the rape portrayals in In the Land of Blood and Honey ?
The only thing this shows is how Angelina never takes the easy road or easy path towards anything. It would be easy to sign on to particpate in films or direct something apolitical, that had no controversy or importance..a dumb rom com for instance..but she more than most in hollywood these days…is a person of substance.
I recall that as well. They started complaining well before the movie was released. Then they had the nerve to say that they weren’t going to watch the movie! One would think that you’d watch the movie to SEE if you were justified, but nope.
The same would be said if Angelina had made a movie about what the USA did to Native Americans, or in Vietnam, or to Afghanistan, or even Japan during WWII. No country likes to remember those things.
Your country’s history is your country’s history. Revisionist attitudes only serve to set the stage for repeating past mistakes. Anyone that gets offended at the portrayal of war viciousness should read the Rape of Nanking. I’m sure Jolie’s portrayal is nothing compared to the real-life atrocities perpetrated by the Japanese during World War II. Every country has aspects of their history that they’re ashamed of, but it’s not racist to remember it.
Did this controversy and accusations of racism accompany the film ‘Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence’ or ‘Men Behind the Sun’? I’m guessing those voicing this opinion where ‘Unbroken’ is concerned haven’t seen many films regarding the conduct of the Japanese toward POWs in WWII.
Suck it up, Japan! We have to deal with slavery, and you have to deal with your atrocities. Just like I don’t feel responsible for what people did up to 100 years ago, today’s Japanese shouldn’t feel responsible for what happened in WWII. It is when we forget our history, that we repeat it.
What a terrible interview. Asked the same questioned peopled have already asked before, also I don’t like how they are pay attention to AJ I know she’s big but if you’re going to have other actors there don’t ignore them. Might as well not bother having the other actors there. Nothing againts AJ.
Americans can’t have conversations about race at all so don’t criticize the Japanese for feeling the way they do. No one wants to talk about a painful subject matter. Sort of like on the subject of slavery here in the states.
Not the same
no one in the U.S. as far as I know is stupid enough to actually deny that slavery ever happened here.
Honestly..no one in the U.S. will also claim that slavery was a true crime! That’s why we have the riots. Not only were Blacks made slaves to work the plantations but the Chinese were slaves to the railroads. Let’s not forget the Native Americans..what happened to them? Where is that conversation? I don’t see one.
No
The truth hurts. The atrocities in the POW camps were much worse than reported at the time, Britain and the USA actually paid out secret compensation (bribes) to Japanese held POWs to not talk about their worst experiences outside the court hearings held after the war and the court records were redacted for public consumption because they wanted Japan to be able to rebuild itself. I have personal experience of this as my uncle died in the Sandakan camp and a fellow soldier who survived told the stories to my father, from the camp 2,345 Allied prisoners of war died and only 38 survived to tell the tale. Those who suffered gradually started spilling the full can of beans in the 80’s. Japanese history books will never tell it like it was they, are still in total denial of their brutality and inhumanity. The stories we hear are only from western prisoners you rarely hear about the treatment of Sth East Asian prisoners such as the use of hundreds of thousands of captured Indonesian, Philippine and Malaysian women as sex slaves .
Anyone remember “Empire of the Sun”? Stephen Wonderful Spielberg?
Japanese internment camp, british boy, Shanghai. Not a very great portrayal of the Japanese in that movie. Did Japan protest then? It was a very different movie but still a very upsetting portrayal of the prisoners treatment.
Wonder what the reaction would have been from Japan if Spielberg directed Unbroken.
I really had no idea how repressive the Japanese government was about their country’s history. If this is so, then Angie is blazing the way for future movies, books and art which can only serve to heal. Louis forgave Japan. Time for Japan to forgive themselves.
And ‘Roots’ is considered by White nationalists? WW2 and slavery, the holocaust, etc etc are unfortunate pieces of history. They cannot be denied.
Why did they photoshop Angelinas’s face in the last picture? Look at her left eye – it is a lot bigger than the other eye. Yes, I know nobody is symmetric, but I know my Angies’ face, her angles etc. You can clearly see blurred lines around that area… She is such a beauty, no need for photoshop!!