DVDs with the Elders: A Commander of Racism

The next time some self-described “Asian American” kid asks in total, innocent ignorance, “Golly, gee! How come it took so long for anime to be popular in the United States?,” show that kid this still from the 1974 documentary Hearts and Minds, directed by Peter Davis.

This still is from a multiple take of William C. Westmoreland calmly explaining why Asians do not value human life as much as white people, beginning with the words, “Well, the Oriental…” On the commentary track of the DVD, Peter Davis makes it clear that William C. Westmoreland was not “tricked” into making this blatantly racist statement as several takes were done to complete the shot—and every single time Westmoreland was asked to speak, he deliberately started right over again, “Well, the Oriental…”

This shot is very important here in the rasx() context because what William C. Westmoreland is saying proudly in public smacks of what has been spoken privately in various forms to Euro-American kids at the American dinner table for hundreds of years. These moments are when the white elder imparts his “scientific” and “technical” information about the “real” world. The white elder says these things to protect his children and descendants of his concern from ignorance (which is, to me, ironic) and to help reinforce a “healthy” white identity to “nurture” proud white youth with “proper” self-esteem.

Out of sympathy (and, to me, comedy), Peter Davis tried to (partially) explain where Westmoreland was coming from… This shot from an old-fashioned war movie with the old soldier screaming, “Wipe ’em out…!” helps set the texture of the Westmoreland’s imagination.

There are various Hollywood reasons why (to this very day) why certain images are not made easily available to young people and why some are. Do not be fooled that Hollywood is all about what sells… And this other shot take’s it to the max with the sacred white woman held captive by some Negroes as she exclaims to an Asian stereotype, “You hideous yellow monster!”

Now our innocent “Asian-American” kid might make a mistake and say, “What does Japanese anime have to do with Vietnam?” Kid, you don’t know the pop-cultural, heart and mind of Westmoreland’s generation. To really get the Westmoreland mood, in addition to Hearts and Minds, I strongly recommend Winter Soldier from The Winterfilm Collective (1972).

And, oh, by the way, there was great 2007 documentary on anime called Anime: Drawing the Revolution—this was a great introduction to Osamu Tezuka. This film does not seem to be available on DVD. I saw it streaming from Netflix.com.

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