thoughts on Shogun

[wasabi_poptart]

There's a scene in Part 2 of Shogun where the main lady offers Blackthorne sexual access to the three servants who attend him, or, if he would prefer, a boy, and it occured to me that this scene was totally plagiarized from The Man Who Would be King. Now, I haven't read either source novel, so I can't say for certain that James Clavell was intentionally ripping off Rudyard Kipling, but the screenwriter sure as hell was. It made me kind of mad on behalf of that Harvard student who lost her book deal a few years ago for a similar transgression.

Also, considering Richard Chamberlain was all closeted back then, I wonder what it was like for him to act all offended and disgusted about it, when in reality it was that same general offense and disgust that was making his life miserable. It must have chafed to have to play that scene straight (as it were). Like Buddy Cole says, "I'm not saying Richard Chamberlain is gay; I just hope he has a good lover. Because he's going to need a lot of sex with a man to get him through this!"

Also, saints preserve us from portrayals of infantilized Japanese women shuffling around in their little sandals and giggling behind their fingers! Aren't there SAG bylaws about that sort of thing?

Comments

[ranger-hotsauce.livejournal.com]

To this day in Japan, there are people who say that a woman who lets people see her mouth open when laughing will let her legs flop open just as easily.
I don't really see the problem with this, but the people who say it seem to think that's bad.

[wasabi-poptart.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm not knocking cultural mores, just Jar Jar Binks-like performances.

[ranger-hotsauce.livejournal.com]

I'm gonna go ahead and knock the cultural mores.

[kitteridge.livejournal.com]

First half:

The book's here:

http://tinyurl.com/2zrqvr

I did a quick scan and I don't think there's a scene like that. I did a search for the word "boy" and nothing comes up. That doesn't mean it isn't in there, I just don't have time to look.

I think it's a Hollywood trope rather than a stolen scene, per se. It's a shorthand way of saying "look at how these savages do things, so primitive and backward from us" when in fact it's really an example of the opposite. (Not that I'm saying prostituting children is an advanced way of thinking, mind you.)

Clearly I haven't spoken to Chamberlain but my guess is that's how he was reading the scene -- similarly when his Western self is appalled by the idea of BATHING. Like, OMG, do NOT put water and SOAP on me, I'll catch my death. That's much more played out in the book than in the miniseries.

[wasabi-poptart.livejournal.com]

There was a scene towards the beginning in which he was like, there is NO WAY I'm getting in that tub, but I got the impression that they set up his aversion to bathing pretty much to contrast with the later scene in which the main lady gets into the tub with him and is all "These are our Japanese ways, oh Anjun-san" (wank, wank)

[kitteridge.livejournal.com]

Yah, in the book I recall him ruminating on how amazing it is that these people use soap and bathe all the time, and how later on he realizes he feels much better when clean. When the other Westerners show up he's kind of repulsed by how they smell. So it's less a sex thing than a clean thing in the book. But it might not have gone over so well on TV to tell audiences that their revered ancestors had bad BO.

[eccyntric.livejournal.com]

It's definitely in the Clavell book. I've never read the Kipling one tho.

[allidc.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there's some scene in the book where he's offended to be offered the women, so they just offer him a man instead.

I read Shogun and the Thorn Birds last year, but have yet to see either of the Chamberlain miniseries. Something tells me that's ok...

[wasabi-poptart.livejournal.com]

dude, I am ALL ABOUT The Thornbirds! Makes me proud to be an ex-Catholic!

[allidc.livejournal.com]

I loved the beginning of the book, but found de Bricassart's behavior tiresome after the first 500 pages or so. Dimmesdale did it better.

[applehangover.livejournal.com]

Richard Chamberlain was recently on Desperate Housewives portraying one of The Gay. I was all FINALLY!

[wasabi-poptart.livejournal.com]

He was also on Nip/Tuck recently. Yay for coming out of the closet AND retirement!

[bizetsy.livejournal.com]

Plus the whole offering of the children for sex thing--it's totally in the Old Testament. Maybe everyone stole it from there...

[wasabi-poptart.livejournal.com]

and the Old Testament totally got the idea from Socrates