Samurai Gourmet

[jessf]

Following in the footsteps of Midnight Dinner, netflix continues to serve up food porn to titillate the foodphiles amongst us with Samurai Gourmet.

Second episode is a bit racist, but otherwise a fun show.

 

[LifeByA1000Cuts]

"racist"

OK, nothing against you, I just had it with PC...

Maybe we need to stop equating "using cultural stereotypes for art and commerce" to "advocating violence, harassment, or discrimination by those in an institutional or monopolist position, against an ethnicity" ?

A is a complex matter that needs to be discussed.
B is a simple disaster that needs to be stopped.

Attempts to demonize A by using the distaste for B can end up legitimizing B playing on a taste for A.

NOT SAYING cultural stereotyping can't be a problem. But the fact something is called "a bit racist but otherwise OK" is alarming - not the show downplays B, but such (surely unintentional) wording...

 

[jessf]

Ok. You're lumping my comment in with a PC group, mistake number one. Cultural stereotypes in general aren't racist but then sometimes the context matters. If a german TV show depicted jews or polish people in a cultural or historically stereotypical and negative way, people would be fast to criticize and denounce. Satire is the one way they can use stereotypes to draw attention to how silly they are. Japan and China have a sorted past and when a Japanese tv show chooses to embody a character's terrible eating experience in a gitchy chinese restaurant ripe with stereotypes it's hard not to conclude some racial undertones, and it wasn't satire. Nor were those stereotypes disproved by the show, there was no common ground or moment of enlightenment. The point is reinforced especially when his day is saved by the doting japanese housewife. It seemed obvious to me and my mainland chinese girlfriend. I also don't think it's the goal of the show which is why it in general remains fun to watch.

 

[LifeByA1000Cuts]

Wasn't quite lumping you in there really, and didn't mean to get in your face specificially. More a reflex to seeing another example of a kind of language use that had me thinking a lot recently...

 

[jessf]

I think we're on the same page. The show is a good watch.

 

[KeithA]

I've watched 4 episodes and am really enjoying it. The way he drinks a beer makes me want some sooooooooo bad.

 

[wind88]

I'm re-watching it right now....its therapeutic