WARNING: Obviously, some spoilers for the new Godzilla movie will follow.
I just don't know what to think anymore.
Background: a writer on Kotaku penned an article about how one of the Autobots in the latest Transformers flick wasn't racist, but in fact the best part of the film. He then went on to say this:
This is literally the only scene in the movie where Watanabe's character gets to be himself - but apparently, that's not cool because Hiroshima was brought up.
Seriously?
I thought it was actually a good character moment. By this point in the film, Watanabe's character has been trying to keep the military from using nukes on the kaiju, for no reason other than "smaller nukes didn't work before." One of the military dudes tells Watanabe that this bomb makes the previous nukes look like firecrackers - a good reason to be confident in the nuke plan.
Then Watanabe shows the general his dad's watch. Suddenly his desire to avoid using nukes makes a hell of a lot more sense - he lost his father to Hiroshima, and having been affected by nukes, he wants to avoid them completely. It turns his suicidal-looking, stubborn refusal to accept the nuke plan into something completely understandable. He actually looks like a human being for one solid minute of the whole movie. Perhaps more importantly, it touches on the sentiments left over from the atomic bombings of WWII. It's one of the few moments where the film really hits the mark on its whole anti-nukes heritage.
If there's anything sketchy about Watanabe in the latest Godzilla, it's that Watanabe's character is a really shitty scientist. In the early parts of the film, Watanabe actually looks at some charts and stuff - he's doing the science thing, even if it's hocus-pocus movie science. Then all of a sudden (roughly after the first Muto hatches) he turns into the wise Asian sensei - no science required, just mystical mumbo-jumbo "instinct" that proves right time and time again.
As an example, Watanabe's alternative to the nuke plan is to have the kaiju duke it out. Why would Godzilla want to fight the Mutos? Because sensei just "knows" that Godzilla's gotta be the alpha predator of the bunch (even though we're shown no reason to believe that), and the only reason he's around is to hunt kaiju. What's to keep Godzilla from wrecking everything in sight afterwards? Completely glossed over, because kaiju-sensei can't be wrong about his plans!
What is possibly racist/insensitive about Watanabe's character is that his ancestry is used to gloss over these points - his shitty science with complete lack of evidence is hand-waved by the movie because "Of course the only Japanese dude in the film for more than two minutes is gonna know what Godzilla's thinking!" Some of that is excusable by the fact that it's a fucking monster fight movie and this is a reference to the Japanese ancestry of the Godzilla franchise, but it winds up reducing Watanabe to a token "mystical foreigner." THAT could be interpreted as being a little racist - or maybe it was just shitty writing rearing its head, as lord knows that the movie had enough of it to go around.
Godzilla still managed to be a decent movie in my eyes - any misgivings I had over Watanabe's character were minor compared to how annoying the "oh man the wife nobody cares about is IN DANGER" shots were. So I guess my question is: did you find elements of the latest Godzilla to be racist, and if so, why? Did you enjoy the watch scene?
Also - mods are asleep, post Kaiju.
EDIT: Someone pointed out that the Kotaku writer wasn't directly accusing Godzilla of racism. He was correct, a better term would be cultural insensitivity - and I have updated my post to reflect that.
I just don't know what to think anymore.
Background: a writer on Kotaku penned an article about how one of the Autobots in the latest Transformers flick wasn't racist, but in fact the best part of the film. He then went on to say this:
Thing is, I also watched the newest Godzilla movie, and what Kotaku's writer/guest writer/whatever forgot to mention is that Watanabe's character also mentions that the watch belonged to his father.
This is literally the only scene in the movie where Watanabe's character gets to be himself - but apparently, that's not cool because Hiroshima was brought up.
Seriously?
I thought it was actually a good character moment. By this point in the film, Watanabe's character has been trying to keep the military from using nukes on the kaiju, for no reason other than "smaller nukes didn't work before." One of the military dudes tells Watanabe that this bomb makes the previous nukes look like firecrackers - a good reason to be confident in the nuke plan.
Then Watanabe shows the general his dad's watch. Suddenly his desire to avoid using nukes makes a hell of a lot more sense - he lost his father to Hiroshima, and having been affected by nukes, he wants to avoid them completely. It turns his suicidal-looking, stubborn refusal to accept the nuke plan into something completely understandable. He actually looks like a human being for one solid minute of the whole movie. Perhaps more importantly, it touches on the sentiments left over from the atomic bombings of WWII. It's one of the few moments where the film really hits the mark on its whole anti-nukes heritage.
If there's anything sketchy about Watanabe in the latest Godzilla, it's that Watanabe's character is a really shitty scientist. In the early parts of the film, Watanabe actually looks at some charts and stuff - he's doing the science thing, even if it's hocus-pocus movie science. Then all of a sudden (roughly after the first Muto hatches) he turns into the wise Asian sensei - no science required, just mystical mumbo-jumbo "instinct" that proves right time and time again.
As an example, Watanabe's alternative to the nuke plan is to have the kaiju duke it out. Why would Godzilla want to fight the Mutos? Because sensei just "knows" that Godzilla's gotta be the alpha predator of the bunch (even though we're shown no reason to believe that), and the only reason he's around is to hunt kaiju. What's to keep Godzilla from wrecking everything in sight afterwards? Completely glossed over, because kaiju-sensei can't be wrong about his plans!
What is possibly racist/insensitive about Watanabe's character is that his ancestry is used to gloss over these points - his shitty science with complete lack of evidence is hand-waved by the movie because "Of course the only Japanese dude in the film for more than two minutes is gonna know what Godzilla's thinking!" Some of that is excusable by the fact that it's a fucking monster fight movie and this is a reference to the Japanese ancestry of the Godzilla franchise, but it winds up reducing Watanabe to a token "mystical foreigner." THAT could be interpreted as being a little racist - or maybe it was just shitty writing rearing its head, as lord knows that the movie had enough of it to go around.
Godzilla still managed to be a decent movie in my eyes - any misgivings I had over Watanabe's character were minor compared to how annoying the "oh man the wife nobody cares about is IN DANGER" shots were. So I guess my question is: did you find elements of the latest Godzilla to be racist, and if so, why? Did you enjoy the watch scene?
Also - mods are asleep, post Kaiju.
EDIT: Someone pointed out that the Kotaku writer wasn't directly accusing Godzilla of racism. He was correct, a better term would be cultural insensitivity - and I have updated my post to reflect that.
