I don’t know how many times I’m going to repeat this,but:
-Memoirs of a Geisha has almost nothing to do with actual geisha,geiko,maiko or geigi. There is a reason why actual gei-maiko fans hate this movie.
-Dressing in a bathrobe,putting your hair up in a bun and sticking a few chopsticks in it…
Generally I agree.
‘Memoirs of a Geisha’ is just a train wreck of a film, the book isn’t too bad cos you can use your imagination to make the characters look semi-acurate but the film, oh God!
A friend of mine argued that it’s for a Western audience and catering to their view on that world/it’s stylised. I called the highest of shenanigans; I just think the film is a waste and instead of taking something that is really truly fascinating and beautiful and exhibiting it, they instead cheapened it into what they argued as a more Western beauty, it is just ridiculous.
Stylisation of Geisha as a more general topic is fine to me though. As long as you’ve done the research and know what you are customising and altering then I really don’t see the problem. Zombie geisha for instance, some of the takes on that are actually really cool.
Like this piece by Zoe Lacchei:
Ok it’s not a ‘zombie’ per se but it’s a really nice version of the dark/goth Geisha idea.
But all together Geisha stylisation and interpretations are fine as long as they don’t look cheap or ignorant. I’ve played with the look a few times and I like to think myself faaairly knowledgable on Geisha or at least very aware of the cultures and traditions surrounding it.
2007:
2012:
Customisation and interpretation are fun, as well as taking influence, if we always made creations accurate to a source the world would be so boring.
Another example, Queen Amidala from Star Wars, clearly homaging a wide rage of oriental styles, including Geisha. I think she has one of the most AMAZING designs of any film character I have ever seen.
I really don’t think you can get irate with artistic license and people taking influence from such an interesting source. If anything that should be admirable. As long as the object being influenced is not supposed to be an accurate representation, which is where ‘MoaG’ falls down because it is..but it’s not. If the subject is not based in reality then I think it is totally fair to play around and mix things up. You get some really cool ideas out of it.
I don’t mind someone takind the ideal of geiko/maiko and re-creating it [CREATIVELY!], as you have already mentioned some fine examples, but there is a difference between -taking it to a new level- and -butchering the culture/idea of geiko/maiko- . I guess the problem is that the whole concept of ”geisha” is taken wayyy too sexual (in Western society), so much that it lost the original meaning and got equal with the concept of prostitution.
And as far as MOAG goes, I know the creators of the movie claimed that ”It’s a film, not a documentary”, but OH MY GOD THE HAIR!!!!!!!!!!!
(seriously)
I’m all up for being creative , but that doesn’t give anyone right to misuse them ,as we already know the differences between geiko,oiran,yuujo and so on.
also, one more thing:
Bathrobes. They’re bathrobes, not kimono O _ O