Disney works with API leaders to quell Japanese American concerns
By Sam Chu Lin
A bomb drops from a Japanese Zero, plunging through the deck of the USS Arizona. It explodes, and more than a thousand crewmembers are dead. The president declares: “December 7, 1941, a date that will live in infamy.”
This time though, it’s actor Jon Voight — not Roosevelt — who utters those famous words. Voight is dressed in full 1940s regalia, complete with wire-rim glasses, in what seems like a true-to-life reenactment.
But that fine line between fact and fiction, entertainment and indoctrination, has left some Japanese Americans questioning the images and messages conveyed in the new Disney /Touchstone movie Pearl Harbor. Leaders in the API community fear the film will provoke further “Asian-bashing,” at a  time when perceptions of Asian Americans have hit a low. In fact, a survey released last month by the Committee of 100 revealed 46 percent of those polled believe Chinese Americans would readily pass on information to the Chinese government. Some 24 percent disapproved of intermarriage with APIs.
“We don’t have a strong Japanese American presence in this film,” said Guy Aoki, co-founder and president of the Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA), a media watchdog group. “My concern is, when you see a Japanese face, are you always going to think enemy, and how is that going to affect Japanese Americans or Asian Americans in real life?”
Disney has attempted to quell concerns. Even before cameras rolled, they asked Aoki to critique the script. And before its release, they invited John Tateishi, national director of the Japanese American Citizens League, to preview the film.
Disney made several changes, but not all the suggestions were taken. In the end, a company spokesperson said Disney has tried to be sensitive and accurate, but added: “This is a film and not a history lesson, but pure entertainment.”
Disney is promoting the $135 million Pearl Harbor as a love story set against the backdrop of World War II. According to Tateishi, the film succeeded in that aspect.
“When you come out of this movie, you don’t walk out just remembering the battle scenes,” he said. “You don’t walk out and remember the attack at Pearl Harbor. What you walk away from is, this is a love story relationship between two men, who grew up together, and a woman.
One scene Tateishi disapproved of that remains in the movie, features a dentist who picks up the phone and a voice on the other line asks, “What ships do you see in the harbor?”
“This is a Japanese American person being portrayed as potentially having done something that damaged the United States,” Tateishi said. “It seems to suggest there are others like this man who may have spied for Japan, who were involved in espionage. That’s specifically the type of thing that resulted in Japanese American [internment].”
Pearl Harbor ushered the United States into World War II, and it was the seminal event that eventually led to the imprisonment of 120,000 Japanese Americans in concentration camps, Tateishi said.
He added: “If there is a movie or any talk about Pearl Harbor, we have to watch out how it affects Japanese Americans and other Asian Americans.”
Perhaps the most disturbing aspects of the film were the facts left out, rather than the drama added. Despite the strong presence of Asian Americans in Hawaii in the 1940s, Aoki and Tateishi had to remind Disney to develop positive roles for Asian American characters. To its credit, Disney listened.
Vic Chao, an actor from Chicago, plays a Navy doctor aiding patients outside the Pearl Harbor Hospital.
“I’m taking care of a wounded U.S. soldier,” he said. “He starts pushing me away and tells me to get away from him, calling me a Jap. It’s kind of a cool statement, because it acknowledges the fact that we’re often viewed as being Asians first, rather than Americans.”
Veteran actor Mako portrays Admiral Yamamoto, who planned the attack on Pearl Harbor. He believes audiences in Japan will be critical of the movie for failing to demonstrate that Admiral Yamamoto tried to avoid war with United States, but lost out to General Tojo and Japan’s Army brass.
“The conflict that existed between the Japanese Army and the Japanese Navy is non-existent in this film,” he said. “If they knew they were going to budget for such things as special effects and aerial combat scenes in this movie, they could have set aside a little money for historical consultants and translators … to ensure accurate historical material was woven into the scenario of Pearl Harbor.”
U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, who aided those wounded in the attack and later received a Medal of Honor, plans to attend the film’s Washington premiere with Senate colleagues. He said movies and documentaries of this nature are bound to revive the old emotions of 60 years ago.
He hopes, though, that moviegoers will keep in mind that from the thousands of Japanese Americans who were incarcerated, thousands volunteered and eventually became part of a military organization that amassed more decorations than any other military unit of its size in the history of the United States Army.
“There was not a single act of treason. No one ever deserted from any military unit made up of Japanese Americans during that war, and no other military organization can make that claim,” Inouye said.
The principle cast, critics from around the world, and World War II veterans are flying to Hawaii to attend the premiere of Pearl Harbor on board the aircraft carrier USS John Stennis, in a $5 million PR stunt. Tateishi has requested that Japanese American World War II veterans also be invited to tell their story, and five Nisei veterans of the famed 100/442 Regimental Combat Team from Hawaii are planning to attend.
Added Inouye: “I’m encouraging people to see this movie. This was a historic moment in American history. There’s fact mixed with fiction. And if anyone is going to debate this movie, they’d better look at it.” |
