Also, they apparently copied it from this old Italian commercial.

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From an article by Chris Hedges:

Robert Paxton wrote in “The Anatomy of Fascism”:

The language and symbols of an authentic American fascism would, of course, have little to do with the original European models. They would have to be as familiar and reassuring to loyal Americans as the language and symbols of the original fascisms were familiar and reassuring to many Italians and Germans, as [George] Orwell suggested. Hitler and Mussolini, after all, had not tried to seem exotic to their fellow citizens. No swastikas in an American fascism, but Stars and Stripes (or Stars and Bars) and Christian crosses. No fascist salute, but mass recitations of the pledge of allegiance. These symbols contain no whiff of fascism in themselves, of course, but an American fascism would transform them into obligatory litmus tests for detecting the internal enemy.

"Automatically ok"? Not necessarily. But in cases where it makes sense, at a stretch even "plot sense" for the character to be there; yeah, I think that is OK.

The Last Samurai isn't a documentary. But, the general historical justification for Tom Cruise's character being in Japan is pretty much valid. Meiji was interested in the West -- clothes, technology, weapons, and military. He actually did hire Westerners to train his army, although from what I read it sounds like they were German, French, and Italian rather than American. Still, the movie portrays the general situation/setting with at least *decent* broad-strokes historical accuracy. LOADS of movies deviate from even this degree of historical accuracy *way* more without drawing complaints; particularly if their main purpose is entertainment and not education / documentary.


Your hypothetical reverse movie makes some valid criticisms. Even though it would have been historically possible for a Westerner to be in Japan at the time -- even to be involved with training a Western-style military -- it would be unlikely for such a person to get captured, run into a Shogun that speaks English, become a badass (or at least passable) samurai warrior, and end up playing a major role in politics and significantly influencing Emperor Meiji.

My defense against those criticisms is that, for me at least, the movie is entertaining; which is kinda the point. Your "Union Samurai" movie might be equally entertaining and therefore given an equal pass on historical inaccuracies by me.

The whole characters as a "lens through which the audience can appreciate a culture/history outside their own" issue is (slightly) more weighty to me. I don't think those are often necessary, but I don't feel like my intelligence is being insulted if the movie maker feels that they are in order to sell tickets.

I love the Chinese historical novel "Three Kingdoms". A few years ago, John Wu made the movie "Red Cliff", mostly about one particular battle in the historical period portrayed in that book. For the Chinese audience, Wu made the movie in two parts, summed up about four and a half hours long. For the US / West, he made a version trimmed to just over two hours. Why? Because he (and a team of market researchers, I'm sure) knew that very few Westerners would go to see a 4+ hour long movie, entirely in Mandarin Chinese (with subtitles), about a piece of Chinese history from ~1800 years ago that very few in the West have ever heard of or know anything about.

I think the full 4+ hour long movie is great. In my personal top 10 favorite movies of all time, ahead of most Hollywood stuff. But I also understand that there's no way that movie would appeal to all but a tiny, tiny fraction of Western viewers in that full-on 4+ hour format. But, even though I personally think the cut-down 2 hour "US" version is drastically inferior to the full cut, I am glad that he made it because it gives a suitably accurate introduction to the subject matter to more people in the West (just like the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Dynasty Warriors" videogames do), and makes that tiny, tiny fraction of Western people that know anything about it a little less tiny. While being entertaining along the way.

For other movies, sometimes the best way that a filmmaker can sell a movie to an audience that otherwise might not accept it (at least in large enough numbers to justify the production costs) may be to insert one of these "lens" characters for the audience to identify with. I don't think there is inherently anything wrong with that. It might not work for movies that are taking a more hardline approach to historical / contextual accuracy (ie., if Tom Cruise showed up in "Red Cliff" in circa 200AD China), but outside of those situations, if that is what the studio thinks it will take to sell tickets... Cool.

The Last Samurai is, like @ChaosEngine said, a movie primarily about an outsider learning a new culture (and accepting his own past). He serves as that lens character, but actually the hows and whys of his character arc are the main points of interest in the movie, at least to me.

I'm sure that an awesome, historically accurate movie could be made dealing with young Emperor Meiji, Takamori (who Katsumoto seems to be based on in The Last Samurai), and the influence of modernization on Japanese culture at the time. It could be made with no Western "lens" character, no overt influence by any particular individual Westerner, and be entirely in Japanese. But that movie wouldn't be The Last Samurai, wouldn't be attempting to serve the same purpose as The Last Samurai, and very likely wouldn't sell as many tickets (in the US) as The Last Samurai (starring Tom Cruise!) did. That wouldn't make it a worse movie, just an apple instead of an orange.

look up at my original post. I said this video was click bait, as I found everything the video listed as "banned"

then gorillaman mentioned i'd probably get crazy recommendations now Which I do, at least until my recent searches overwrite these lookups.

there's isis paraphernalia also I bet some Amazon webmaster is thinking wtf? a rape game, nazi, confederate, italian, japanese, isis, christian extremist ? /mindmelts

Ha! Yep, I got SS eagle pins recommended.

Here's some my new recommendation that now show on amazon

"Rape All Girls" - https://amzn.com/B015V52VSW

Buckyballs ripoffs - http://amzn.com/B0183KNY06

Tons of Nazi items
SS deaths head pin - http://amzn.com/B00K8DBSZA

1938 2 Reichsmark coin -http://amzn.com/B008LP90MA


Nazi flag, Fascist Italian flag, Imperial Japan flag, and yes small to gigantic cheap to expensive embroider Confederate flags
http://amzn.com/B003J67I98

And digital books like Anarchist cookbook, Nazi scanned ebooks of unpublished books by Nazis that wrote after escape to Argentina, but the works were unpublished, so its scanned pages from old typewriter copy.

The strangest stuff on recommendations, also Eroge game about drugging girl and raping her for PC and a lolicon

http://amzn.com/B00PZ0SRFK

Amazon has wild shit, you can find everything in that video one trick I notice, just mispell the item and bam found

The machines do exist, but having watched a video of the home version it didn't look any faster than an Italian with 40 years of practice There are larger industrial versions that are much faster, of course.

Taking into account the time to set up and clean the machine vs setting up and cleaning a knife and a chopping board, I don't think it would take that much practice to be quicker to not use the machine (and it's one less kitchen gadget).

oh gawd i need to share the horror.
*promote

fine lady,you have properly grossed me out enough to never drink milk or eat cheese.

whats next? eggs?

and is it my imagination or did she give a slight,under the table jab,at vegetarians for not being vegetarian enough?

this women is going to be an epic jewish mother!!!
(or italian)
(or german)
(or korean)
(or mexican)
.....
.....
..
.

Serbia swapped out the face - the Italian version swapped the body. *anatomy

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Great-strange-60s-Italian-rock-pop-If-I-had-a-Hammer (same tune, but the lyrics are original and not a translation of the English)

Great, strange '60s Italian rock/pop "If I had a Hammer" has been added as a related post - related requested by oritteropo.

I'd say out of all the episodes there are about two sketches I wouldn't upvote.

I would consider doing a 'python sketch of the week/month', but I don't really think videosift is the forum for that kind of thing.

However, in case you're interested, my current two favourite obscure sketches are 'Italian lessons' from the first episode, and 'finishing peoples sentences' from the last.

I was hoping she had 4 pet turtles and named them after Italian Renaissance artists.

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