Summary Of ' The Mikado '

The Film "West Side Story" illustrates how the Puerto Ricans of New York faced discrimination and were used as scapegoats by the American people during the cold war time period to escape their anxieties. Due to the fear of communism and possible nuclear war the 1950-1960s time period was a very fragile time for the American people which produced an air of xenophobia throughout the country. The air of xenophobia is present throughout the play due of the repeated mention of stereotypes about Puerto Ricans and the constant feeling that the Puerto Ricans do not belong. The people of American often dealt with these anxieties in one of two ways, through escapism or through and through the scapegoating. This is made very clear through the comparison of West Side Story to the play The Music Man in the document “West Side Story and The Music Man: Whiteness, Immigration, and Race in the US during the late 1950s”. Like many waves of immigrants, the Puerto Ricans faced discrimination when they arrived and for some time after. This came in the form of people being discriminatory directly to them, housing discrimination and job discrimination. Therefore, the play “West Side Story” expresses the discrimination that Puerto Ricans faced due to the xenophobic nature of the time period.

The play uses stereotypes and biased cultural

Shakespeare’s play ‘Othello’ and the contemporary appropriation of a film ‘O’ by Tim Blake Nelson are based on the societal values and morals of their time. Issues such as racism, the use of language and deception are timeless making them evident throughout both contexts, hence the engagements in both textual forms.

It is clear without the majority of other evidence that Dower gives exactly how stereotyping and racism were a factor for both Americans and British towards the Japanese as well as the Japanese towards the American and British when you look at the political cartoons in Dowers book. The first political cartoon on page 181, with a gun aimed toward Japan, makes the hatred clear with the headline, "Throw In An Extra Charge", and on the bag the sailor is carrying it says, "war without mercy on a treacherous foe." This cartoon was published three days after Pearl Harbor and it is easy to see the political climate and hatred of the Japanese in this propaganda.

The play ‘The Merchant of Venice’ Shakespeare effectively engages the modern audience through the means of comedic conventions within themes and characters. Comedy conventions such as racial and cultural slurs don’t engage the audience as successfully as they did during the 16th century. Since then, our perceptions have changed because of the impacts of historic events. However, the use of double entendre and gender roles continue to amuse modern day audiences. The Merchant of Venice is classified as a problem play/comedy because it deals with contentious social issues between the characters on stage, who typically represent conflicting points of view within a realistic social context along with comedic conventions. Written by the illustrious William Shakespeare about a merchant of Venice who must default in a large loan provided by an abused Jewish moneylender. Shakespeare uses some of the fundamental aspects of society in conjunction with subtle comedic conventions in order to appeal to a modern audience.

All of these things were found by the Japanese to be incredibly rude and insulting and they took the Europeans for barbarians. On the other hand, it was the Europeans who looked upon the Japanese as backwards in their thinking. There were incredibly complex aspects of the country. Samurais were known to test their swords on criminals by chopping their bodies to bits; casual violence was no need for alarm here. There were subtle things like how they wore long strips of silk draped around their bodies held only in place by a knotted rope; they tweezed the hairs from their faces and wore their hair in oily buns on the tops of their heads. All of these differences could have very well been the negative road block that would have stopped all progress in the relations between the two civilisations. Alessandro Valignano was quick to recognise this potential disaster. He ordered that his Jesuits live like natives to create harmony and understanding. He wrote a manual for them to follow with all the behaviours this foreign country was built upon. He also encouraged them to “think and behave as though they were Japanese, to act with dignity and stoic decorum”. In turn, the Jesuits became accustom to the way of life of the Japanese, and found themselves to be much more successful in their relationships with them. When William Adams came to the Land of the Rising sun, he was at first incredibly homesick

Abstract: This essay seeks to explore how the 2002 Broadway production of the musical Hairspray depicts and produces inclusivity in American life in both modern and contemporaneous periods. The point of view set up in the show emulates the concept of a “white savior complex” in its efforts to showcase the perils of black people in the entertainment industry in the 1960s, along with minimizing the responsibility of white people in the systematic societal racial structure. Despite these shortcomings in historical accuracy in its overly-optimistic portrayal of segregation, Hairspray gave explicit, designated opportunities to black actors to be highly featured in a Broadway production. And unlike other shows during its time, it ultimately brought up conversations of segregation and racism in the entertainment industry in a time where these issues were seldomly addressed.

Three sources analyze the racial conflicts of white actors playing colored parts, and all agreed that it was not a trivial situation, for audiences, or actors. Racial tensions are very popular with the media. While there is some minor tension today, the movies and plays of Othello top the charts for most racial conflicts. First, The article, “Othello: the role that entices and engages actors of all skin colours,” by Andrew Dickson shows the history of the actors that played Othello, and when the actors were black, they were either not cast, due to segregationists, or were criticized in their performance for the same reason. Also, this article uses diction to convey the seriousness of white vs. minority crisis. Next, the video, “SHAKESPEARE UNCOVERED White Actors Playing Othello” by PBS, shows the performances of many Othello actors that were white. Additionally, the video shows one white actor who used makeup to make himself more than than black. The video uses hyperbole to describe the absurdity of Othello movies. For example, Laurence Olivier, the 1964 Othello was black-top showing how far film industries will go to cover-up racial tensions, and the narrator describes the makeup as ridiculous,and dramatic. Finally, the last article, “Aladdin: putting a white character in Disney’s live-action remake is offensive,” by Hannah Flint displays that film industries feel obligated to please a white audience, keeping the minorities second fiddle by adding characters white people

To contrast Mrs. Shigemura taught Hatsue that white men were "dangerous egomaniacs" and that they had "fantasises" about Japanese girls and that it "distorted their sex drives". Hatsue should "marry a boy of her own kind whose heart is strong and good".This shows us that all Japanese people don't take the abuse. They practice their views like the white racists.

Americans from the U.S were supposed to feel disgusted towards Japanese Americans as they thought of the as no more than

George Gershwin‘s opera Porgy and Bess is said to have been racist and outdated even in the time that it was written in 1935. There are many aspects of this work that are incorrect and prolong stereotypes about African Americans by depicting them as violent and religious. Gershwin classified this opera as a folk opera, a term which was offensive to African Americans. George Gershwin, arguably a great composer, composed an opera that is considered to be controversial due to its negative representation of African Americans. Porgy and Bess is a cultural artifact and when discussing it we bring up complex issues of race from the time it was written and even to this day in the United States.

Texts reflect their contexts and this is evident in both William Shakespeare’s Othello and Geoffrey Sax’s film Othello. This reflection is established through the two ideas of racism and the inequality between genders. The context of a text plays an essential role as it is the way in which the composers convey their message and this is done effectively as both composers are conveying an important message about racism and gender inequality.

Throughout the years the play Othello by William Shakespeare has been adapted both on the screen and on stage many times. The questions or race and racism that have quite often been a point of discussion with William Shakespeare’s play Othello can be seen through the bard, however some may argue that Othello’s skin colour was purely a plot device. This paper will look at two film that have been re-made since the 1960’s, which provides an analysis of the concept of race and how political ideas and events of that time have influenced each adaptation. It will be seen that the film version of Othello directed by Oliver Parker in 1995 compared to the film version directed by Geoff Sax in 2001 present’s race with differing degrees.

In the play Othello written by Shakespeare, the issue of racism is addressed. Othello, the protagonist of the play, is African American or black. “According to Lois Whitney, many of Othello’s specific attributes probably derive from Shakespeare’s reading of Leo Africanus, whose Geographical Historie of Africa which was translated and published in London in 1600”(Berry, 1990). Many critics have different views on this. “If Shakespeare depended upon Leo Africanus for such details, he must have been much more interested in racial psychology than critics such as Bradley or Heilman suggest”(Berry, 1990). One of the most prominent features of this Shakespeare play is the

William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice is a perplexing story of dark humor, race, religion, identity, love, and justice. Generally, most people understand The Merchant of Venice as a comedy about a bitter and outcasted Jewish moneylender named Shylock who seeks revenge against a Christian merchant who has failed to pay his loan back. However, there are many different perspectives on whether The Merchant of Venice is a comedy or a tragedy depending on one’s views on the difference between race and religion. If one views the story as a comedy, it is a dark comedy full of many problems, especially the controversial subject matter of anti-Semitic attitudes of its Christian characters. If one views it as a tragedy, it is a tragedy that concludes with majority of its characters in a “happy ending”—that is if one agrees that Jessica’s decision of love over betraying her father and giving up her Jewish identity is indeed a happy ending.