At this point, I'm used to seeing tons of fanfare towards our awesome LA neighborhood of Silver Lake. Just last night our gardener requested to change his working hours due to the swaths of afternoon visitors taking up his parking spots--not to mention the loud (but synchronized) drum ring at the meadow that went on for hours and hours. And that's just one afternoon!
So I wasn't terribly surprised to hear that Disney California Adventure's "Buena Vista Street" will be revamped to "pay homage to the Los Angeles that Walt Disney encountered upon his 1923 arrival with Spanish Revival and Art Deco architecture that replicates the Los Feliz, Silver Lake and Wilshire Boulevard areas of the city."
Makes a lot of sense. Not only does the mainstream clearly want a taste of classic Los Angeles, but Walt Disney actually started his empire in a nearby property in Silver Lake (right on Hyperion!).
A very brief look at Japan's soft power based upon the "Cool Japan" concept has this writer arguing that the country's coolness was happening long before 2002, when the term "cool Japan" was apparently coined (as an offshoot of the UK's 1990s "Cool Brittania" concept). Whether we're talking "Nintendo games in the 1980s or Japanese art in the 1880s," he argues that Japan's coolness over the decades is not a new thing.
Sure, that's all true. But don't tell me that the sharp rise in Japan's cultural relevance during the 1980s was anything remotely close to its obscure--yet just as awesome--art from a century before. Just ask a Japanese person if they feel safer, better, or "cooler" walking around the US now as opposed to fifty years ago. I'm pretty sure that we know the answer to that question. While the past certainly paved the way for what we see coming out of that country today, Japan's "it" factor--whether you think it's "over" or not-- has everything to do with its more recent cultural accomplishments during the past few decades.
The one thing that doesn't change is that every "cultural cool" eventually plateaus. Look at the UK compared to a few decades ago. Japan is still interesting and "cool," of course, but it now shares the global cultural spotlight with other significant sensibilities such as South Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. None of this is "over," yet Japan's near-monopoly on Asian cultural cool pretty much is. And there's certainly nothing wrong with that, unless inevitable change isn't something you welcome.
However, I do have to wholeheartedly agree with the final sentiment of the piece: "Japan didn't just start being cool. It didn't stop being cool, either. But governmental programs and trade organizations? Those were never cool." In my opinion, this is precisely the main difficulty of using the official government context and means to facilitate cultural influence. Governments haven't figured out how to really tap into the "cool factor" yet.
Remember Haiti? I kid (sort of, considering how the nation's rebuilding has literally fallen off the media map since last year). But according to Haiti's ambassador to the U.S., Paul Altidor, the Haitian government is trying to focus on moving away from "survival mode to investment mode."
Good call, since traditional humanitarian aid as we know it oftentimes does not lead a community out of the hole of poverty. And evidently at least eight very familiar American hotel chains are planning to either build or expand properties around the island, including Marriott, Comfort Inn, and Best Western.
Music to my ears...Hawai'i has been pretty busy hosting Hollywood sets for filming the past few years (Lost, Tropic Thunder, The Descendants, etc.). The Aloha State is making a smart move by recognizing the inevitable influence of projecting its soft power through cinema, evidenced by both short- and long-term tourism and economic boosts for the islands.
Hawai'i is evidently the premier spot on the planet for viewing today's Venus transit! Starts this afternoon. For those on the Big Island, Keck Observatory will be hosting a viewing that's sure to be epic--starts at 3:10 pm Hawaiian Standard Time. You can also stream it live through the observatory here!
It's hard not to notice how more and more communities are embracing the power and influence of filmmaking in order to raise their status in an increasingly globalized and connected world, and King of the Sands is a perfect example of a movie depicting certain cultural relations in a fascinatingly strategic and highly controversial cinematic cultural power move. The film, an unauthorized biopic on the life of Saudi Arabia's first monarch Abd al-Aziz ibn Abd al-Rahman Al Saud (or "Ibn Saud"), is a bold project by Syrian television producer Najdat Anzour, the son of the "pioneer of Arab cinema," Ismail Anzour.
Clearly the stakes are visible here--Najdat Anzour has a reputation for embracing the controversial, and with King of the Sands, the director has already received lawsuit threats from third parties desperate to prevent the movie from being released. The dichotomous plot, which reveals both Ibn Saud's impoverished struggle to reconquer his homeland as well as his brutal ways in achieving such goals, has angered many in Saudi Arabia--where the film will of course not be shown (apparently the country lacks movie theaters anyway).
Western- and Hollywood-style appeasement is quite evident in the trailer, which tries to depict an epic historical plot rather than anything remotely controversial or so culturally-brazen. And of course, there is the requisite Western actor in the film, Bill Fellows, to connect with viewers familiar with Downton Abbey (though, interestingly, his IMDB doesn't seem to have any information on his role in this dicey film just yet).
The filmmakers recently took out a big visual ad in Variety for King of the Sands without any information on the movie--no website, no names, etc., which is unique, to say the least. Should be quite a story--both this movie as well as how Syrian and Saudi Arabian audiences interpret the project.
