One of the interesting threads of the SIG's first Reading Group discussion focused on the topic of genres. How does a genre like action films or road movies travel across global boundaries?
For example, what happens when a samurai film like Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954) is adapted by Hollywood as a Western: The Magnificent Seven, directed by John Sturges in 1960? Or when much of its plot becomes the basis of a a Hindi classic, Ramesh Sippy's Sholay (1975). How are the settings, characters, and themes reshaped by local traditions of history and culture? What role do national or regional production practices play in shaping the film's narrative, look, and reach?
What can our students learn about people elsewhere in the world--what makes them laugh, what they fear-- by comparing English-language comedies or horror films to their counterparts in Africa or East Asia?
I invite others to join me in exploring the implications of this topic for scholarship and teaching.
Recently, in my World Cinema class (which follows William Costanzo’s book, World Cinema through Global Genres), we examined Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Students love the blended Wuxia genre; as one of them put it, “they fight like cowboys, Samurais and Kung Fu masters, but they’re girls and they have magic!” This semester, the release of Disney’s live action remake, Mulan, seeped into our conversation. The film looks a lot more like an homage to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon than it does an adaptation of the animated princess movie from 1998. What happens when a story goes from legend to animated musical to magical action flick? As soon as students can see it without spending $30.00, I plan to pair it with the Wuxia films for several reasons.
First, introducing students to the many versions of the Hua Mulan legend could allow for a discussion about cultural appropriation and how adaptations respond to cultural shifts, often with unintended consequences.
The film could also elicit a discussion of globalization and economics. Since Disney relies on huge profits from China, producing a female warrior for both American and Chinese audiences was a creative challenge and an economic mandate. Under these circumstances, did Disney produce a hero narrative with cross-cultural resonance, or did it make an established global genre unrecognizable to everyone?
I’m sure students would also love to debate the film’s reception, as calls arose to boycott the film at least twice over social media. How much does this context affect our students’ perception of Mulan’s journey to save China?
Finally, although the film is a who’s who of actors from Wuxia films to American sitcoms, it was criticized for a lack of diversity behind the scenes. Director Niki Caro addressed this by saying, "Although it's a critically important Chinese story and it's set in Chinese culture and history, there is another culture at play here, which is the culture of Disney…” Has “Disney” become a category that supersedes national, cultural and genre distinctions?
I can imagine these questions giving my students an opportunity to teach me more than I can teach them.