Posted at 2019.03.19 Category :
未分類
先週の記事になりますが、ニューヨークタイムズに日本での黒人問題の啓発活動をしているBaye McNeilさんが取り上げられていました。
Race/Related is a weekly newsletter focused on race and identity, with provocative stories from around The New York Times.
By Adeel Hassan March 9, 2019
How has Japan changed your views on race and racism?
Living there has given me an opportunity to view and address race issues in a sort of laboratory setting or safe space. Before going there, there was no truly safe space in the U.S. That burden I carried, that psychological armor, was out of necessity because, particularly as a black man in America, your very life or livelihood is in jeopardy constantly.
This safety has allowed me to grow, experiment and expand my understanding of these complex issues and how to address them effectively.
日本で問題となると言えば黒塗りでここでも話題になっています。
There have also been blackface incidents in Japan.
An aging doo-wop group, which claims to pay homage to black people and music by dressing up in old Motown-like get-ups, Afros and blackface, was going to perform a minstrel show on Fuji TV, a national network.
I spearheaded a campaign to get the producers and sponsors to reconsider doing so. Not because it was racist, but because the world is now watching Japanese media in real time and the world will label Japan an ignorant or racist country if this kind of thing continues unchecked. The petition caused the segment to be canceled. But the decision to alter the programming in response to a protest and petition signed by Japanese people was not even mentioned in Japanese papers or newscasts.
Baye McNeilさんはJapan Timesに毎月寄稿しているそうで、昨年の9月には新橋演舞場の『オセロー』での黒塗り問題がトピックでした。ダウンタウン浜ちゃんの件については笑いのネタにしているので不快だというのはわかりやすいですが、黒人が主人公であるシェイクスピアのオセローだって問題視されるんですよね。蜷川さんが演出したオセロも黒塗りをしていました。
BY BAYE MCNEIL SEP 16, 2018
So, when I learned that a Japanese production of Shakespeare’s “Othello” soon to open in Tokyo was to feature Nakamura Shikan — a noted kabuki actor — performing the titular role in blackface, I wasn’t appalled, nor offended, and racism didn’t even enter my mind. In fact, the first thought when I saw the advertisement on the net was: With all the blacking up that goes on here, someone who didn’t know better might think Japanese desperately wish they were black.
But I know better.
My second thought was: What a wasted opportunity!
確かに欧米の場合、現在はオセロは黒人の役者が演じることが多くなっているようです。日本の場合、日本語を話せる黒人の役者が多いわけではないので難しそうです。もちろんMcNeilさんは黒塗りを一律に禁止しようとしているのではなく信頼や尊敬さえあれば構わないとしていますが、日本ならではのやり方で扱えるのではともしています。
It wouldn’t be the first time this has been done. “Othello” has been adapted and localized to Japan several times before. The very first production of the play in Japan, back in 1903, was an adaptation that, instead of dealing with issues utterly unrelatable to many Japanese, like race relations between blacks and whites in a 16th-century European setting, tackled discrimination in Japan. In that production, Othello wasn’t a black man played by a blacked-up Japanese man; he was shin-heimin, a term applied to former burakumin outcasts after the Meiji Reformation of 1868.
Even a production of “Othello” earlier this year decided against subjecting its audiences to Western dilemmas and the European mindset, and instead reimagined Othello as an Ainu man married to the daughter of a samurai at the end of the Edo Period (1603-1868). In this way, the play explored the roots of contemporary racial discrimination in Japan.
黒塗りの歴史は日本でも黒船ペリーまで遡れるとは知りませんでした。
Case in point: Japan was originally contaminated with blackface in just this manner. Ironically, the contamination occurred while U.S. Navy Commodore Matthew Perry was opening the country to trade with the West. Perry had his crew perform a minstrel show for the Japanese bakufu and the well was tainted, and blackface remains a popular form of entertainment in Japan 160 years later.
I don’t think playing Othello in blackface is necessarily racist, but every time it’s done I assure you it will be vetted, and many will wonder why Japanese performers would even want to play with that scab when there is no upside. Especially since the alternatives are so much more expedient and, well, trustworthy.
Trust me.
