UPDATE- The Melbourne Fringe has now pulled Aisha the Australian Geisha from it’s schedule. The Artist feels she is misunderstood because she knows many Japanese People and none of them said anything to her.
TFP thanks the Aussies who stood up and said that this show was unacceptable- they know who they are.
None of us are anything without Allies.
Please read the post if you so choose.
TFP
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The Fairy Princess is Australian.
She has mentioned this many times, and yes, she has dual citizenship with the United States, and resides there, while most of her family remains in Australia. (The sheer number of which would leave you breathless).
As the USA has been chock a block hideous – Latinx kids in cages, kids stolen from their families, rights being stripped away from the LGBTQ community, Trans peoples being murdered, Black Men being literally killed by Police for no damn reason, the list is endless…and so OFTEN she thinks, “I have my passport, screw the USA, I’m out!”
Then she remembers that Broadway is located in New York City, and she realizes that commuting from over an 18 hour flight to make half hour would be impossible, which is never not depressing.
So Australia has always been a thought, a nice little bubble of, “Oh, then could go back to Cairns, or maybe Melbourne, or Sydney” and then….TFP remembers how RACIST Australia is – JUST AS BAD AS THE UNITED STATES (particularly FLORIDA) and she, again, becomes insanely depressed.
It is just chilling to note that though one ‘belongs‘ to two countries, one is always going to run into issues in both of them simply because of small minded people – white people – Caucasian people – who simply think that Asian descended people exist for the sole purpose of mockery and to funnel fame to whatever white person wants to “Yellow Up”.
The latest voyager into this “Caucasity Audacity” is a show called AISHA, The Aussie Geisha.
“The strong narrative and themes keep it moving at a rapid pace … The songs are delightful … Mrs Okaytobashme made me laugh everytime.” – Aussie Theatre.
Now, some people – people who are not People of Color, will say that TFP is not seeing this correctly, that the show is about the white girl who lost her fella to the Japanese gal, and then enrolls in Geisha school to try and win him back.
Very fish out of water type hilarity.
But look at how Aussie Theatre stated the name of her teacher from their point of view – Mrs. Okay To Bash Me.
If “Ok To Bash Me” is the way it is being pronounced, methinks there are some missing r’s and l’s and some accent work that is likely to be, how does one put this…troublesome.
So the show is not just a play on an Aussie in Japan, it’s definitely using the tried and true tropes taught to us by insanely jingoist productions of The Mikado, added to the panic of the “invasion of the Yellow Peril’ that Aussie teachers taught my Chinese Aussie Mum in grades school, and just a bit of meaness.
Because a True Blue Fair Dinkum Gal cannot lose a man to a Japanese Gal – just ain’t right – is TFP getting that ‘right’? That’s the point of it, yes?
It is marketed as Farce – but who is the focus of the farce?
Is it even an original thought? Didn’t Shirley McClaine do it in a movie?
So this concept is the two combined, but not charming or thematically challenging, just…well, kind of a rip off between other people’s concepts.
Look, TFP loved Muriel’s Wedding just as much as any Gay Man and their gal BFF’s could, but Porpoise Spit has been done, Luv.
Oh we get it- Small town gal from oddly named town goes to the big city, finds a gay husband, learns new stuff and becomes sophisticate adjacent?
Doors are opened for her, doors she never even dreamed existed, hmmm?
Ok so three films then- The Geisha, Mame, and Muriel’s Wedding- can’t you just PICTURE it?
TFP is sure it is, ummmm, breathtaking.
That concept was thrown in a blender with elements from all and now the small town gal from Koo Wee Rup goes to Japan and dresses up like a Geisha and mocks a truly remarkable tradition, and it’s all for laughs for both the Creatrix and the Melbourne Fringe Festival?
Asian Aussies are all supposed to buy a ticket to be the butt of the joke – because we are not to understand that we are the butt of the joke? We are going to be fooled into thinking the lady who wrote on Blue Heelers holds people who look like us in the highest esteem?
Fringe Festivals are supposed to be edgy, a bit jagged, not as polished as giant productions but full of passion and new ideas. Fringe festivals are supposed to be places of encouragement and vivid storytelling, painful stories and some that are lightening in a bottle. All are supposed to be welcome, a giant movement in creating Art.
This show, TFP is guessing, is not that.
Sadly Oz, once again, you have succeeded in completely disappointing me.
It’s like my Grandma sending me to the shop in Cairns, only to get harassed on the street all over again.
It’s like being a bit worried to walk back to my cousin’s house in Manly after a night at the pub, because TFP heard some yobbos talking smack about what they would like to do to her.
It’s like growing up with the story of your Great Grandfather’s murder by a White Man, who served no jail time, because it would be bad policy to jail a White Man for killing ‘A Chinaman’.
1922 Innisfail. William Fang Yuen.
Google it.
TFP’s Chinese Aussie Family has lived in Oz since the 1870’s – served in the arm forces and won medals, made names for themselves in the Arts, Business, and Scholarship.
The Family has been awarded medals for service for various reasons from the Queen, but seeing that all that means absolute shite, and that Melbourne Fringe would give a platform to Yellowface and subtle, but ‘farcical’ racism?
Something has to change, and the start of it is White People, in the Arts, saying no to programming this kind of ‘entertainment’.
Anyway, there goes another dream.
TFP out.
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