Diversity And Political Correctness In The James Bond Movie 'You Only Live Twice' Essay.

The concept of diversity encompasses acceptance and respect. It means understanding that each individual is unique, and recognizing our individual differences. These can be along the dimensions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical abilities, religious beliefs, political beliefs, or other ideologies. It is the exploration of these differences in a safe, positive, and nurturing environment. It is about understanding each other and moving beyond simple tolerance to embracing and celebrating the rich dimensions of diversity contained within each individual.

The avoidance of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult groups of people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against.

These two ideas are focused on the same outcome. The James Bond movie "You only Live Twice" The parody of the American West "Blazing Saddles"; and Team America World Police are considered three of the most politically incorrect movies ever made. https://www.watchmojo.com/video/id/15701/ 

Choose one of these movies and critically assess the content with the theory and understanding you have learned in this unit. Ultimately, considering the back lash of political incorrectness and lack of diversity, could this movie be made today?

• First briefly discuss the concept of diversity and political correctness.
• Then discuss briefly about the chosen movie and what you got from the movie regarding diversity and political incorrectness.
• Compare the political incorrectness and lack of diversity of back then when this movie was made and today.
• Give reasons why these type of political incorrect movies cannot be made today e.g laws are strict now, brands don’t like to promote these type of movies because of negative impact etc.
• Pull out the examples from the past and discuss why that political incorrectness cannot take place today.
• Link the reason, comparison and analysis with theory.

Concept of Diversity and Political Correctness

Diversity refers to the differences and similarities that people have. It encompasses the complex similarities and differences in points of view, identities and perspectives among members of institutions, as also individuals who constitute the wider community. The concept of diversity is one that includes interrelated and important human identity dimensions such as age, ability, sexual orientation, religion, citizenship, nationality, socio-economic status, gender expression and identity, ethnicity and race. While it is important for such differences to be well understood, these differences can never be used for predicting an individual’s choices, responses or values (Adams and Bell, 2016). Political correctness refers to the measures, policies or even language that is intended to avoid any disadvantage or offense to specific groups of people in society. Ever since the later part of the nineteen eighties, the term political correctness has been used to describe the avoidance of behavior or language, which is seen as marginalizing, insulting or excluding groups of people who are considered to be discriminated against, particularly groups that are defined by race or sex. In the media as well as in public discourse, political correctness is used mainly as a pejorative thus implying that such policies are excessive (Schwartz 2017). This essay discusses the concepts of diversity and political correctness briefly, analyzes the role that both concepts have to play in the James Bond movie, “You Only Live Twice” and assesses the differences in perception of diversity and political correctness at the time the movie was made with present day perceptions of the two.

  Diversity as a concept is one that encompasses respect and acceptance. It highlights the importance of understanding that all individuals are unique and that individual differences are to be always recognized. Such differences can be those along dimensions of political beliefs, religious beliefs, physical abilities, age, socio-economic status, sexual orientation, gender, ethnicity and race (Banks 2015). Political correctness is a term, which implies the use of language, measures and policies that are aimed at avoiding the discrimination of or offending people who belong to certain social groups. It specifically refers to the avoidance of behavior or language, which targets, marginalizes or excludes social groups that are disadvantaged in any way or groups, which face severe discrimination in society on groups of race, religion and sex (Corbett 2013). The present day pejorative use of political correctness as a term is something that emerged from intensive conservative criticisms of New Left politics in the later part of the twentieth century (Kelly 2017).

Role of Diversity and Political Correctness in 'You Only Live Twice'

The James Bond film “You Only Live Twice” which was released in the year 1967 has addressed the concept of diversity by including a Japanese Bond girl character in it, by the name of Akiko Wakabayashi. This has led to a reassessment of the perception of Japanese movies not only in English movies but in movies as a whole (Benson 2015). Plenty of unknown aspects about Japanese culture were well divulged in “You Only Live Twice”. For instance, as Japanese women were undressing James Bond inside a bath house he was instructed about a certain Japanese rule, that, he should never do something himself when someone else could do this for him, and that in the country of Japan, women always came second to men. What was also thus portrayed in the movie was that women are considered unequal to men in Japanese culture and that in terms of diversity Japanese culture has a very long way to go (Funnell and Dodds 2016).

The movie, “You Only Live Twice” successfully addresses multiculturalism as it sees James Bond himself operate as an undercover spy as a Japanese spy, by applying a yellow-face, adding prosthetic eyelids and even getting his hairy chest well waxed by very skimpily dressed women. This very portrayal of James Bond as an undercover Japanese spy is also something that is regarded as something very political incorrect, not back in the day when the movie was made, but in the present day (Black 2017). The fact that the Japanese Bond girls Mie Hama and Akiko Wakabayashi find his hairy chest and undershirts so very sexy and Bond’s attempts to look like a Japanese fisherman when going undercover, are things that end up disrespecting Japanese culture and cultural standards on the whole. Bond is not at all convincing in his role as a Japanese fisherman in terms of both physical appearance as well as behavior and cultural mannerisms. Only a complete novice, that is, a person entirely unaware of Japanese culture and Japanese people in general will be convinced that Bond actually looks like a Japanese man in the movie (Garber and Walkowitz 2013).

The James Bond movie, “You Only Live Twice” was made in the year 1967. This was the time when political correctness as a term was used for describing very strict adherence to different types of ideological orthodoxies. The term was also used to refer to certain statements made by the Communist Party members, which in the view of the socialists, provided very correct and proper positions on all kinds of political matters. Political correctness as a phrase is also something that came to be regarded as a term that implied the very dogmatic application of political doctrine. It was used in disparaging fashion to describe people who loyalty and commitment to communist ideals resulted in the implementation of bad politics, overriding compassion among other things (Zimmermann and Finlay 2014). Socialists used the term political correctness in the nineteen sixties quite regularly against the communists, particularly to mark out a distinction between socialists who held egalitarian moral beliefs from the highly dogmatic communists who advocated and defended party positions without any regard for moral substance. In the present day, political correctness is a standard and a term that is used to criticize what is seen as content that is full of bias, in the media. News stories and articles that are discriminatory or disparaging in their content regarding certain social groups, are regarded as politically incorrect pieces, especially if the discriminatory content is written on grounds of race, religion and sex (Coman 2015).

Analysis of Multiculturalism in the Movie

The politically correct culture that is so prevalent in today’s day and age would have severely restricted the making of a film like the James Bond movie, “You Only Live Twice”. Global laws regarding political correctness are quite stringent today and it is likely that if a movie is discriminatory or biased in its content, then the makers and producers of that movie could just end up having a lawsuit slapped on them, a lawsuit that could run into millions of dollars even. Film-makers today have to be very sensitive and careful about the subject matters that they address in their movies. They cannot afford to make films that are discriminatory in tone or which tend to be biased about a specific group of people in society, or biased on the grounds of sex, language, religion and race (Adams 2016). If they do end up making movies that reflect a bias about a certain social group or a group that is regarded as an ethnic minority then they can very easily face legal action and will have to defend themselves in a court of law about this. Most countries of the world today are those that have a diverse population with people belonging to different ethnicities and genders living syncretically in a multi-cultural society. To acknowledge and respect multiple ethnicities is what the concept of diversity entails and film-makers need to take due cognizance of such a concept when creating movie projects that are to be viewed by a global audience (Shu Wen 2015). They cannot risk offending religious and cultural sentiments today as they did so in the past, as is evident also from the making of movies like Blazing Saddles (1974) or Team America World Police (2004). Such movies took several jibes at values and culture and mannerisms unique to specific groups in society, something that would not have been entertained at all in today’s times where people will be up in arms if ethnic values and culture are disrespected. Society today in every country places a lot of emphasis and value on respecting diversity and multiculturalism and there is absolutely no room for politically incorrect behavior even in areas of artistic expression like movie making for instance (Lichev and Hristoskova 2017).

 By modern day standards of political correctness and diversity, the film, “You Only Live Twice” can be especially regarded as a movie that is politically quite incorrect and as one that disrespects the notion of diversity, as it presents Japanese culture and standards in a rather negative way. Japanese women are seen to be easily impressed by James Bond’s supposed sex appeal and the depiction of James Bond as an undercover Japanese fisherman spy is racially quite insensitive. The application of plastic eyelids and a yellow face do not really make James Bond look like a Japanese man. Any person watching the film in contemporary times will be easily able to tell that what James Bond looks like when dressed as a Japanese fisherman, is a white man trying very hard to look like a man from East Asia. There is nothing remotely Japanese about his look and it seems fake at best. In addition, the portrayal of Japanese women as vixens who are easily impressed and taken by a white man like James Bond is something that maybe construed as a rather insensitive and condescending view of Japanese culture. There is nothing about the character James Bond and his Caucasian looks that are really appealing enough to make Asian women particularly swoon so easily over him. It was wrong of the makers of the movie to depict Japanese women as such as it led to a negative and biased perception of Japanese women in both Western and Japanese culture.

Comparison of Perception of Political Correctness then and now

Thus, both the concepts of diversity and political correctness have been highlighted in the James Bond movie, “You Only Live Twice” which was released in the year 1967 but these have not been addressed in the way that these are understood today. The contemporary notion of diversity entails the acknowledgement and acceptance of cultural differences whereas the movie, “You Only Live Twice” was quite culturally and racially insensitive. It displayed Japanese women as sex hungry fiends who were lusting after a white man. They were also shown in an unequal light with statements being made as to how in Japan women are considered to be second only to men. As far as political correctness is concerned, the depiction of James Bond as a Japanese fisherman in his attempt to function as an undercover spy in the country, is not a convincing one at all and is racially quite insensitive. The type of makeup given to James Bond to make him seem like a Japanese man is inadequate and makes him instead come across as a white man trying very hard to look and behave like an Asian. The movie portrays Japanese cultural values in a grossly negative and discriminatory fashion and is therefore rightfully regarded as one of the most politically incorrect Bond movies of all time.

References:

Adams, M. and Bell, L.A. eds., 2016. Teaching for diversity and social justice. Routledge

Adams, N., 2016. Retaking America: crushing political correctness. Simon and Schuste

Banks, J.A., 2015. Cultural diversity and education. Routledge

Benson, R., 2015. The James Bond Bedside Companion. Crossroad Press

Black, J., 2017. The World of James Bond: The Lives and Times of 007. Rowman & Littlefield.

Coman, B., 2015. Culture and politics: Liberalism's disappearing act on human freedom. News Weekly, (2963), p.9.

Corbett, J., 2013. Bad mouthing: The language of special needs. Routledge

Funnell, L. and Dodds, K., 2016. Geographies, Genders and Geopolitics of James Bond. Springer.

Garber, M. and Walkowitz, R., 2013. Secret Agents: The Rosenberg Case, McCarthyism and Fifties America. Routledge.

Kelly, A., 2017. Political Correctness Protects More Than It Harms. Political Correctness, p.142

Lichev, V. and Hristoskova, M., 2017. Political Correctness—Between Fiction and Social Reality. Philosophies, 2(3), p.15.

Schwartz, H., 2017. The revolt of the primitive: An inquiry into the roots of political correctness. Routledge

Shu Wen, C., 2015. Where Will Women Be in 50 Years?. In Our Lives to Live: Putting a Woman's Face to Change in Singapore (pp. 43-46).

Zimmermann, A. and Finlay, L., 2014. A forgotten freedom: protecting freedom of speech in an age of political correctness. Macquarie LJ, 14, p.185