the review of Memoirs on JoBlo

[Ki'esha Foxx]

Okay, I have not seen the film, but I do plan on buying it once my disease...errr....lack of money ends, but I couldn't even finish reading the review of Memoirs of a Geisha on JoBlo. It made me so mad that the reviewer kept using the words "geisha" and "prostitute" interchangably. THEY ARE NOT THE SAME THING, YOU DUMBASS!!! Look on any credible website with information about the lifestyle of the geisha or watch the Discovery Times Channel and you might learn a thing or two! Geisha are entertainers, not hookers. If you go to the Kyoto district where the few geisha are left, you'll know a geisha when you see one, and a prostitute when you see one. The hookers are like the ones in America: they dress taudry and flashy to atrract clients. However, there are vast differences in the way they dress, move, talk, act, even the way they apply their makeup.

All I'm saying is that if you're going to review a film, at leats know something about what the characters are and/or are not.

[KcMsterpce]

First of all, I would say that rants like this would probably be better in email form, since it's actually more of an attack on the PERSON than in MOVIES.

However, to help try to provide a different perspective, I'll say that there are MANY people who don't know the history of a geisha. If all you knew about them before the movie was almost nothing, then I'm sure any regular schmoe from ANYWHERE would think, "Oh, a geisha is a Japanese prostitute," or even think "Isn't a geisha one of those oldschool Japanese prostitutes?"
I once thought this myself, and didn't know otherwise until a Japanese friend told me they weren't necessarily hookers, but more like high-class entertainers with a cocktease.
Then, I read the book, and learned a LOT about geishas.

But like I mentioned before; not everyone knows this, and I frankly find it rather insulting to demean someone over a trivial matter like this and make it public to everyone that you basically call someone stupid for not knowing a small piece of history that you so ineloquently feel proud of understanding.

[Ki'esha Foxx]

Believe it or not, I'm not so high-and-mighty as to admit that I too once did not know what a geisha really was. But then I did a tiny amount of research and found out that geisha and prostitutes are two very different things. I think it's more of an insult to the geisha to keep referring to them as hookers when they are not.

To understand why I got so upset at the reviewer you need to know a tidbit of info about me: I can get riled up at the tiniest little thing. I don't know why that is, it's just a part of me. And I know I'm not the only person in the world who is that way.

Like I said before, my main point was that if you're going to review something (anything), just know a little bit about what you're reviewing first. It wasn't until I even heard about Memoirs that I thought I'd look to see what a geisha really was. If I knew that, and did not like the film, it would also give me more credibility to cut it down (wink wink at those who use this method) on the historical representation (another thing that ticks me off when it's gotten wrong). But since I have not seen the film, I can't say either way.

[JCPhoenix]

I think the main thing that bothered me about the review was this quote "It features Chinese actors instead of Japanese, the geisha's appearances aren't altogether accurate, and the big dance sequence plays out like Marshall was going back to his CHICAGO days. Basically, the movie doesn't feature Japan. It features an Americanized, hand-made, fake Japan. I'm sure most people won't notice the difference, but it sure bugged me enough to pull me out of the film."

Normally, I'd agree that everyone makes mistakes, but in this case, I gotta side with Ki'esha Foxx here. Why? Because of the statement above. The reviewer essentially implies that he knows enough about Japan and its culture to realize that the movie featured a "fake" Japan. Not only that, but also his assertion that the "geisha's appearances aren't altogether accurate". If he knows that much about geishas, then he SHOULDN'T be excused for interchanging geisha with prostitute.

"As for the story itself, well, it's not exactly spectacular. When you get straight down to it, it's an overly long movie about a girl who becomes a famous prostitute. They call the profession being a "geisha", but really, they're similar in a big way. In one particular segment of the film, the main character sells her virginity to the highest bidder. Sounds like a prostitute to me. But that's not even what got to me; it's how the filmmakers were trying to glorify it. I got this feeling that I was being force-fed this "amazing" culture, when really it's just an imitation lacking that great foreign feeling. Sorry, but I didn't buy it. "

Again, this quote shows a major lack of knowledge about the geisha culture. And again, this quote is another reason I can see why Ki'esha Foxx got riled up - it's not just interchanging geisha with prostitute, but again, asserting that the reviewer knows the geisha culture well enough to deem that it is just like being a prostitute. If he used the word in place of geisha at one point and that was it, I don't think there'd be a problem, but with this entire paragraph, I find it frankly reeks a little of Orientalism.

And yes, this probably would've been better as an e-mail complaint or at least put into the site suggestions/questions forum.