Viewpoints Controversy Over Crouching Tiger Review: An apolygy | Controversy Over Crouching Tiger Review: An apolygy |
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Reply from Ian Katz 25 January 2001 Dear (angry) reader, I apologise for not replying to all of you personally, but since most of you have made similar points about Charlotte Raven's column, I hope you don't mind if I address them together. Broadly most of you have written or mailed me to say that you thought Charlotte's column about Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was racist because it invoked the old stereotype of the Chinese being inscrutable. Some of you made more specific points about Charlotte's lack of appreciation for Chinese cinema, and someone went as far as to suggest that by using the phrase "it seemed to contain multitudes" to describe the performance of the cast, Charlotte was alluding to Western images of "Chinese masses". In e-mail correspondence and conversations with some of you I have defended Charlotte's column quite robustly. It is absolutely clear to me that what Charlotte was arguing was that Crouching Tiger was a bad film to which liberal audiences imputed a significance shaped by their own prejudices about Chinese cinema and the Chinese in general. I thought it was a good point and, interestingly, so did the actor David Yip when we discussed this issue on BBC Scotland's the Mix last Sunday. Given the number of you who were offended by the column, I think it's now pretty clear that the column wasn't as clear as I thought. I also think that we perhaps underestimated the offensiveness of the word 'inscrutable' when used in a Chinese context - even though I am satisfied that Charlotte was using the word to describe the audience's perception of the performances in Crouching Tiger, rather than describing them herself. To put it another way, putting quotation marks around the word inscrutable would have made Charlotte's intended meaning clearer (though I suspect many of you would still have felt its use unacceptable.) I still think several of the points made about Charlotte's column have been misguided, most conspicuously the one about her reference to multitudes. I also think that some of you who suggested that Charlotte should not have been allowed to write about Crouching Tiger because she didn't know enough about Chinese film and culture in general misunderstand the role of a columnist. Charlotte is not our film critic - that would be a legitimate point to make about him. You may violently disagree with Charlotte's opinion of the film, or think it hopelessly naive, but she's entitled to have it. But I accept that the column caused real offence for which I offer sincere apologies. I think, as David Yip pointed out on Sunday, that this episode has at least served to heighten our sensitivity to the casual deployment of Chinese stereotypes. I will certainly look more carefully at stories touching on these subjects in future. If you haven't sworn never to buy another Guardian, you might like to read the views of our readers' editor, Ian Mayes, who will be writing his column on this subject in Saturday's paper. Best Ian Katz Email your further comments about Ian Katz's reply to This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it '; document.write( '' ); document.write( addy_text36098 ); document.write( '<\/a>' ); //-->\n This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it |
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