week 5: 神鬼獵人

What “The Revenant” Tells Us About Hollywood’s Attitude to Franco-Americans

While much of the Internet has been discussing #OscarsoWhite, French Canadians and Franco-Americans have been airing their own concerns about one particular movie, The Revenant.  The plot of the film centers on Hugh Glass, an American fur trader in the 1830s, who seeks revenge on his former comrades after he is left for dead following a bear attack.  The controversy centers on one particular scene in which Glass, played by Leonardo DiCaprio (a role for which he received the best actor statuette on Sunday), comes to a Native American village and witnesses the rape of an Indian woman by French-Canadian traders.

There are plenty of unsavory characters in The Revenant – an attitude summed up by the words nous sommes tous sauvages which appears in one scene (the phrase loosely translates to “we are all savages”, although the French wordsauvage is closer to “a man of the wilderness”, and was commonly used to refer to American Indians in the colonial period).  The portrayal of French Canadians in the movie is particularly troubling, however, for a couple of reasons – firstly, there are very few depictions (and fewer accurate ones) of French Canadians or Franco-Americans in American television or Hollywood, so a negative depiction unfairly tips the balance.  Secondly, many English-speakers don’t know that attitudes towards the indigenous population in New France were much different than in New England or New Spain.  While British officers like Lord Jefferey Amherst sent smallpox-infected blankets to Native American villages, French officials generally respected the rights of their Indian neighbors.  The Great Peace of Montreal (1701), is an example of the mutual respect between the French and Native Americans.

So what does the history tell us?  To start with, it’s important to remember that the intentions of governors and superintendents didn’t always translate into the actions of individuals – especially fur traders (voyageurs) on the frontier:

It should be the duty of the Commandant to employ [the French colonial garrisons] in behalf of the missionaries; on various occasions when the latter are frequently obliged to go to beg the officials to be pleased to repress the misconduct and public acts of Insolence of the dealers in brandy, and of the fugitive voyageurs — who go from one mission to another, making the [Indians] drunk and seducing the women in all the Cabins where they lodge; or they go to visit them, entertain them, Caress them, solicit them, and purchase the enjoyment of their Bodies. The only answer to these prayers that we get from the Commandants is, that they have not enough men to allow of their doing so, — either because the garrisons are not sufficiently numerous; or, even if they were larger, they would not be of much more help to the Commandants, because the voyageurs and the garrisons have an understanding together, to support one another against the missionaries both in their common misconduct, and in Evading all the orders that the Commandants might give them, should the latter choose to take the Missionaries’ part.

Jesuit Relations, Fr. Etienne de Carheil to Gov. Louis-Hector de Callières, Michilmakina, August 30, 1702. Trans. R. Thwaites, 1899

 What about the events upon which the Revenant is based?  Hugh Glass himself didn’t write an account of the expedition or the attack (he may even have been illiterate), but others did.  As is the nature of such things, the story of the man who survived a bear attack and travelled hundreds of miles quickly became a legend and embellished in different retellings.  The earliest account, published in 1825 (two years after the bear attack), does indeed mention a group ofvoyageurs, but in a different light than the movie:

 Before his wounds were entirely healed, the chivalry of Glass was awakened, and he joined a party of five engagés [men under contract with a fur company] who were bound, in a piroque [a pirogue, or riverboat] to Yellow Stone River…when the party had ascended to within a few miles of the old Mandan village…On the following days, all the companions of his voyage were massacred by the Arickaw Indians.

Letters from the West, No. XIV, “The Missouri Trapper”, The Port Folio, Philadelphia, March 1825

 Far from being villains, the French encountered by Glass in this account help him on his way.  The use of French words throughout the piece is typical of writings of this time.  The French had been so instrumental in the western fur trade, and continued to be so throughout the early 19th century, that not only were French Canadians still heavily involved in the trade, but they lent their terminology to the profession, and the landscape.   Elsewhere in this particular account, Glass survives by eating grains des boeufs – known in English as buffaloberries.  The chief of the Arickaws has a French name – Lange de Bicke (Elk-Tongue).  And the characters encounter landmarks like the Cotes Noires (the Black Hills) and the Platte River.  Glass and his companions set out from Fort Kiowa, which had been constructed in 1822 by Joseph Brazeau, Jr., of the Berthold, Choteau and Pratte Company.  Berthold, Choteau and Pratte was known as “the French Company” and owned by three French Creole families based in St. Louis.

So in the balance of history, The Revenant gives French Canadians the short straw.  They appear in the movie only as marauding villains; yet in the historic narrative, French fur traders were both more visible and more complex.  The simplistic treatment in The Revenant is typical of the way in which the French-Canadian history is either ignored or given only the most cursory nod, and Hollywood is as guilt of this as most US textbooks.  It wouldn’t be a huge stretch to say #OscarsoWhiteAngloSaxon.

By the way, there was one prominent award that went to a Franco-American, born in California to French-Canadian parents – Brianne Desaulniers.  You may know her by her stage name – Brie Larson, which she chose because her birth name was “too difficult to pronounce.”

Thanks to Rhea Côté Robbins for the information on Brie Larson, and to the Museum of the Mountain Man for its copious historical information on the real Hugh Glass.

http://myall.bangordailynews.com/2016/03/01/south-dakota/what-the-revenant-tells-us-about-hollywoods-attitude-to-franco-americans/

• what: much of the Internet has been discussing #OscarsoWhite, French Canadians and Franco-Americans have been airing their own concerns about one particular movie
• why: not given
• how:not given
• where: not given
• when:not given
• who:Leonardo DiCaprio

vocabulary

• revenge 復仇
• comrades  同志
• controversy  爭議
• rape 強姦
• traders 貿易商
• unsavory  難吃的
• savages 野人
• depiction 描繪
• indigenous  土著
• mutual 相互
• governors 州長
• superintendents 管理者
• misconduct 處理不當
• fugitive 逃亡
• expedition 遠征
• retellings 附述
• instrumental 儀器的
• terminology 術語
• copious 豐富

week four: 茲卡病毒

ZIKA VIRUS IN THE U.S.: NEW REPORT SUGGESTS THE MOSQUITO-BORNE ILLNESSES POSES A THREAT TO AT LEAST 50 CITIES

Despite reassurance from U.S. health officials that the Zika virus doesn’t pose a serious threat to the U.S., a new report suggests that as many as 50 cities in the country are at risk for local transmission this summer.

The report, published in PLOS Currents Outbreaks on March 16 by the University Corporation of Atmospheric Research (UCAR), finds factors such heat, humidity and heavy rains in the summertime will provide an ideal climate for the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes to thrive in the States. UCAR is a nonprofit consortium of more than 100 colleges and universities in North America that focus research and training on the atmosphere and related earth system sciences.

For the report, researchers from  NCAR and the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center analyzed travel patterns from countries with current outbreaks in Latin America and the Caribbean. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued travel notices for at least 40 countries and territories in these regions of that world that have reported local transmission of the Zika virus.

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They concluded that cities in southern Florida (Jacksonville, Tallahassee, Tampa, Orlando and Miami) and Texas (Brownsville, Houston, Dallas and San Antonio) are at especially high risk for local transmission of the virus. Additionally, summertime weather along the East Coast—all the way up to New York—as well as cities in the southern region (including New Orleans, Charleston and Savannah) could cause a potential public health problem. Cities along the eastern seaboard, such as New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., may see cases of the virus though the threat is much smaller there, the report says.

“While there is much we still don’t know about the dynamics of Zika virus transmission, understanding where the Aedes aegypti mosquito can survive in the U.S. and how its abundance fluctuates seasonally may help guide mosquito control efforts and public health preparedness,” Andrew Monaghan, NCAR scientist and lead author of the study, said in a press statement.

This analysis doesn’t provide estimates for this year specifically. However, meteorologists predict this summer is set to be as much as 40 to 45 percent warmer than average across the entire country, making it a perfect climate for the bugs to thrive.

The authors say that should Zika make its way to U.S. shores, outbreaks here would never rise to the magnitude of what has occurred in Latin America and elsewhere. This is because common residential living conditions in the U.S., especially amenities like air conditioning and window screens, create an inhospitable environment indoors for mosquitoes. But mosquitos also proliferate in densely populated areas, because there’s always a human nearby to bite.

http://www.newsweek.com/zika-virus-us-new-report-suggests-mosquito-borne-illnesses-poses-threat-least-437568?piano_t=1

• Who: not given
• When: not given
• Where: in the USA
• What: Despite reassurance from U.S. health officials that the Zika virus doesn’t pose a serious threat to the U.S., a new report suggests that as many as 50 cities in the country are at risk for local transmission this summer.
• Why: local transmission this summer.
• How: not given

Vocabulary

• reassurance 放心
• transmission 傳輸
• Corporation 公司
• humidity 濕度
• Aedes aegypti mosquitoes 埃及斑蚊
• consortium 財團
• outbreak 爆發
• potential 潛在的
• abundance 豐富
• meteorologists 氣象學家
• magnitude 大小
• proliferate 增生

week 3: 日韓慰安婦協議

Will the South Korea-Japan comfort women deal hold?

Until the North Korean nuclear test grabbed everyone's attention, the most important recent news to come out of Korea was the late 2015 deal between South Korea and Japan regarding the comfort women. Indeed, in so far as North Korea's nuclear test is more of the same (it was not a thermonuclear device), the comfort women deal is arguably more important. The deal is hugely controversial and, I increasingly believe, unlikely to hold.

Lowy's previous treatment of this topic has focused on the agreement's fairness (or lack of), and there seems to be an emerging consensus that the comfort women got a poor deal (here, here and here). The comfort women themselves appear strongly opposed. The largest comfort women group, the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Sexual Slavery by Japan, strongly opposes it and has started a fund drive to replace the monies Japan has agreed to provide. Rather than debate the deal's merits yet again, I want to look at the political questions surrounding it.

Why this deal now?

The external pressure on both sides was enormous and worsening.

The initial response, especially in Korea, was surprise. The deal seemed to fall out of the sky. The Park Geun-Hye Administration gave little indication that a deal was coming, and initial reporting called it 'hasty' and 'thrown-together.' President Park painted herself into a corner by insisting that the comfort women issue be dealt with in 2015, the 50th anniversary of Japan-Korea normalisation. It increasingly looks like Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo played for time and got the better of negotiations. That likely explains the very late 2015 timing.

But there were huge structural pressures in the background: extraordinary and growing American pressure on Tokyo and Seoul to finally put this issue to rest. Every Western analyst, journalist, academic, government or military figure I know with some involvement in this issue thought a resolution was critical. There has been constant diplomatic pressure at track 1, 1.5 and 2 levels on both parties to resolve it. There has been a torrent of articles, think-tank reports, policy briefs, books and so on regarding this issue. Even President Obama got involved. Everyone could see that the real winners of Japan-Korea estrangement are North Korea and China. As China continues its ascent and North Korea's nuclear program expands, the unrelenting drumbeat of Westerners at every level saying, 'fix this', must have been exhausting.

Will South Koreans accept this deal?

It will be far more contentious in Korea than Japan.

As the links above suggest, there is a growing consensus that Japan got a lot out of the deal. In fact, I am rather surprised the Koreans accepted it., and the backlash here has begun. Comfort women groups have hit the streets; the nationalist NGOs are opposed it; the weekly rallies at the comfort woman statue in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul have continued unabated; Korean intellectuals have taken to social media to push back.

The reaction of civil society groups and the media commentariat in the coming months, especially in the run up to parliamentary elections in April, will be crucial. The leftist groups and papers will come out against it, of course. Whether the Park Government can move larger public opinion, to get the deal to 'stick,' is questionable at best. Park herself may have to give a major address in which she openly pleas for Koreans to accept that this was the best they could get.

I am sceptical Koreans will accept that, especially from Park given her father's past. Park Chung-Hee worked for the Japanese colonial administration in Korea, and later ruled as a dictator, accepting normalisation terms from Japan which many Koreans considered a raw deal back then as well. The criticism that the current Park is 'pro-Japanese' and not willing to take a tougher stand can already be heard. If only Nixon could go to China, it may take a leftist nationalist president in South Korea to finally reconcile the left to a deal with Japan on this issue. I do not believe Park, or the secretive manner in which she handled the negotiations, can do it.

But more important than Park's mixed effort are the larger background issues of Korea's interpretation of Japan. As I have argued in The Interpreter before (here, here; much longer version here), the comfort women and the historical issues with Japan are central narratives in the construction of modern South Korean political identity. As a divided nation, South Korea must constantly demonstrate its 'stateness' and legitimacy against its mendacious and highly nationalistic northern competitor. To win the inter-Korean legitimacy contest, South Korea defines itself against Japan and its imperial history. For example, South Koreans get far more incensed by Japan's behavior 75 years ago than North Korea's far worse human rights behavior since then, and comparisons of the comfort women tragedy to the far-worse Holocaust are commonplace. With so many groups vested in these issues, and so much of Korea's 'ontological security' wrapped up in demanding recognition and contrition from Japan, are Koreans ready to move on? I am hugely sceptical because Park has made no effort to lay this groundwork.

Will the South Korean left politicise the deal?

The fragmenting, flailing left will be sorely tempted to use this as a wedge issue.

The deal tries to lay this issue to rest by insisting that it may not be re-visited in the future. Elites all around — Seoul, Tokyo, Washington — want this, but there will be a substantial bloc of rejectionists in South Korea. Hence reviving and politicising this issue will be a tremendous temptation for the South Korean left, particularly given its disarray and inability to find an issue that will work against Park Geun-Hye. The left has been (surprisingly) unable to reap political gains from the many scandals of Park's tenure: staffing controversies, the sinking of the Sewol ferry, the outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome. Worse, the left, always more fragmented than the right anyway, is breaking into two rival blocks, with polling suggesting the right may take 60% of the April parliamentary vote.

In such dire circumstances, it is easy to see the left reaching for the highly resonant comfort women issue in a bid to prevent catastrophe. Hotly disputing the comfort women deal — painting it as a deal of the pro-Japanese right, and not the Korean people — would be an obvious, evocative wedge issue. As long Korean opposition to the deal can be relegated to the leftist newspapers and nationalist NGOs, Park might be able to swing public opinion. But if this takes over the National Assembly campaign in the spring, I think the deal will collapse.

If all this was not enough, the deal also intimates that the South Korean Government will eventually move the statue from in front of the Japanese embassy. Tokyo claims, with some reason, that it violates the Vienna Convention on diplomacy prohibiting undue harassment of embassies. Moving it will be another huge controversy. This deal is the not the final statement Tokyo wants it to be.

http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2016/02/11/Will-the-South-Korea-Japan-comfort-women-deal-hold.aspx

• who: comfort women
• when:2015
• what: The deal is hugely controversial and, I increasingly believe, unlikely to hold.
• why:not given
• where: South Korea and Japan
• how:  important 

vocabulary

• thermonuclear 熱核
• arguably 按理說
•  controversial 爭論的
• treatment 對待
• emerging 新興的
• consensus 共識
• monies 款項
• debate 辯論
• merit 值得
• external 外部的
• worsening 惡化的
• indication 跡象
• normalisation 正常化
• negotiations 談判
• torrent  激流
• estrangement  隔閡
• drumbeat 鼓聲
• nationalist  民族主義者
• unabated 不減
• intellectuals  知識份子
• commentariat  評論家
• parliamentary  議會
• reconcile  調和
• secretive 隱密的
• demonstrate  表明
• legitimacy  合法
• mendacious  詭譎的
• comparisons 對比
• fragmenting 分割
• wedge 楔
• disarray 雜亂
• fragmented 支離破碎的
• circumstances 情況
• catastrophe 災難
• relegated 降級
• intimates  暗示

week two: 深圳廢土場崩塌

Shenzhen landslide disaster: 11 arrests for negligence

  Eleven people in China have been arrested for their alleged role in the Shenzhen landslide disaster.

Shenzhen prosecutors, late on Thursday, said a dispatcher and supervisor of the landfill, the chief and deputy manager of a company in charge of it, and seven other people were arrested.

They said they have been charged with negligently causing a serious accident.

The landslide happened when a hill of construction waste collapsed, leaving 74 people either missing or dead.

The formal arrests come three days after the police took what Chinese media called "coercive measures" against 12 people. It is thought the 11 arrested today were among those.

  Officials have described the 20 December disaster as man-made, raising the possibility of severe punishments for those they consider responsible.

One official, whose job involved regulating construction sites, apparently jumped to his death a week after the landslide. It is not clear if he was being investigated for his role in it.

Officials have appealed for police and the public to help them find other suspects apparently on the run.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-35208881

• who:  prosecutors
• when: on Thursday
• why: Shenzhen landslide
• what: a dispatcher and supervisor of the landfill, the chief and deputy manager of a company in charge of it, and seven other people were arrested.
• where: Shenzhen in Chain
• how: not given

vocabulary

• negligence 疏忽
• alleged 所謂的
•  prosecutors 檢察官
•  negligently 疏忽地
• dispatcher 調度員
• deputy manager 副經理
•  arrests  逮捕
• coercive 強制
• regulate 調節
•  apparently 顯然地