NP Miss Saigon and Asians (was Re: Gee, Officer Krupke! Krupyou Delinquently)

[davemarc]

What an interesting glimpse of Scalia's citation of West Side Story!  So
Rehnquist is a fan of Gilbert & Sullivan, and Scalia goes for
Bernstein/Laurents/Sondheim.  I wonder what the other justices prefer--I
understand Clarence Thomas is a video hound.

But now it's time for a point of clarification.

From: Terrance <lycidas2 at earthlink.net>
>
> Miss Saigon was only the last big Racist American Musical to
> cause controversy.  It was designed to seduce, it floods the
> senses with 3-D fantasy, war and sex, it follows a long line
> of American misrepresentation of Asians, perpetuating a
> sick fantasy of Submissive "Orientals", self-erasing women,
> and asexual, contemptible yellow men. Why would America
> support this Racist Musical, this postmodern post-Vietnam
> Butterfly? Why?
>
As I understand it, Miss Saigon originated in Europe with a French creative
team (and Brit producer), then came to the United Kingdom.  The British
production then came to the United States, where it will soon close after a
long run.

As Terrance acknowledges, Miss Saigon was based on Madame Butterfly, an
Italian opera.  Again, a European influence.  If it is anything like the
opera that inspired it, it portrays its Asian lead as sympathetic.

Why has Miss Saigon been a long-running show in the United States?  One
likely reason for the show's popularity is that, yes, like many, many
musicals, it was intended to appeal to a large general audience. (And it
turned out to be a multicultural general audience hit.)  Another
reason probably has to do with the time-tested appeal of the plot and the
lead female character.  (The show's best-known female star is Lea Salonga, a
Filipino(a?) who became an international star and a national icon as a
result of her performance.)  And then there are those special effects....

No doubt about it:  Asians have been sadly misrepresented and
under-represented in US culture.  (Perhaps arguably, that's a theme of
Madame Butterfly.)  It doesn't take a genius to spot examples,
which are manifest.  What are harder to find are fair examples of Asians and
Asian-Americans.  But even that's not terribly difficult.  There are
numerous festivals, associations, lists, etc.  And here's one
website yielded by a quick search:
<http://www.asianamericanartistry.com/1950.html>.

Cheers,

d.