First off, the entire concept is a touch problematic, it posits that one culture is superior than the other, which is bullshit, and I truly think some of us well meaning American white people are guilty of “the white man’s burden” . WE SHOULD NOT DO THAT.
I’ll tell you what set this off, it’s the upcoming Netflix live action adaptation of Cowboy Bebop. If you are are not familiar with this anime series (which is seriously brilliant), it’s about a crew of space bounty hunters with a strong American western cowboy theme and a high tempo jazz soundtrack…
This is a Japanese show much loved by Americans. It’s a show that was created by a Japanese guy. But… Here’s the thing. The adaptation has it’s head so up it’s own ass worrying about “cultural appropriation” or some shit that it forgets that Spike Speigel is not an asian. He’s freaking Jewish! He’s a badass fucking Jew! That is the character the Japanese author created. To force the character to be the same race as the author is just bullshit, and it smacks of a certain unspoken racism.
The cite is that Spike has kind of an Afro but he’s pale-skinned so he has to be Jewish.
/s
In all seriousness, there is frequent speculation about Spike being Jewish online, but it’s really just Anime nerds making things up. It’s based on nothing, except maybe that the last name Spiegel could belong to a Jewish person (in the sense that it’s German and there have been Jewish people living in Germany).
The point is… Spike is not Japanese, but Americans have made him so for their own viewpoints on “cultural appropriation”. I am I white American, an liberal to boot, but we have a bad habit of thinking that we can defend other races, That’s what I’m getting at here. If you’ve seen this show, race doesn’t really matter among the characters, (Faye claiming Romani ancestry not withstanding). What matters to me, and what annoys me, is that we in the west, when we are adapting a work by a Japanese creator we all too often have to make it “japanese” The concern about cultural appropriation is kinda patronizing, if you think about it.
“Jew or not Jew”, with their careful methodology of assigning ratings according to their whim, gives Spike Spiegel a rating of only 8/15 and therefore “Sadly, not a Jew.” Wikipedia informs us that Spike was born on Mars and was part of a Chinese criminal syndicate, and I wonder if any more is known about him (you would think a cool space bounty hunter should remain an enigma rather than given a detailed background).
This is like asking whether Inspector Gadget or Rick Sanchez are white.
OK fuck this. I am not going to get bogged down in google searching for a quote and them we debate that quote. Just NO. This is in the pit for a reason, because it is more about opinion, and how we in America tend patronize other cultures and then pat our selves on the back for it. To continue on how this is problematic in Cowbow Bepop (And I mean mean c’mon… “cowboy”? the creator isn’t going for an asian theme here} the character of Jet, who in the show is an grizzled ex-cop. Well, in America, that’s just got to be played by a black guy. There’s nothing wrong with a grizled old black ex-cop character, but it’s fucking lazy. And that’s what this is
When I talked about Anime nerds making up bullshit and fervently advocating their bullshit, we have an example in this thread. Which I find helpful, personally.
I feel the same way about this as every other time that a work is adapted to a new medium and some minor aspect of a character from the original are not maintained: I don’t care at all.
It’s particularly silly when people complain about some actor who has, like, a different hair color. Hair color is not foundational. Neither, apparently, is whether this guy is really Japanese, if it didn’t make it into the original text in some way.
And even things that are substantive changes are fine and should be judged on their merits. I don’t want to see a word-for-word shot-for-shot remake. The original still exists, and if I wanted to I could read or watch that. I want to see an interesting take on the source material in a new way.