First post means an introduction to the purpose. Short answer, there is none. It's really just a way for me to share my ponderings with the universe. If someone is reading and wants to comment/open a discussion great, I enjoy discussion. If no one ever reads this...well...okay.
I will talk about any random subject that pops into my head. I don't much figure anyone cares, but I might as well blog as anything else, right?
Then on to the samurai.
A few days ago The Last Samurai was on tv and I put it on. It was about half over when my husband (Kaze) asked me why everyone hates this film. It's a valid question really. He and I both enjoy the film so why shouldn't he ask?
I told him there were two reasons that I could see.
1. Tom Cruise is a Scientologist and therefor lots of people hate him.
This may be a bit of a falsehood, I dunno. I know he's a Scientologist and that weirds a lot of people out. But maybe it's just that people think he's a bad actor. I dunno. Personally, while I don't believe in Scientology I don't see that it's any worse than any other religion and really it doesn't affect how good an actor he is. Also, I think Tom Cruise is a good actor. Maybe not the best actor in the world, but not bad either.
2. People hate that the "last samurai" is a white guy.
This second one is the one that he and I discussed at length. It's one of the interesting things about this movie. A lot of people (I think) hate it because Tom Cruise is supposed to be the "last samurai" and he isn't a samurai and he's white and that's white priveledge.
But is Tom Cruise the "last samurai"? What evidence is there? He's the main character and it's the title of the film? This seems a pretty flimsy bit of logic to me. Well, the little boy gives him that scroll that has the kanji for "samurai" written on it. True...but considering caligraphy was/is a type of art in Japan it can equally be attributed to the kid drawing a picture and giving it to his father figure. The film establishes that the boy sees Tom Cruise as a surrogate dad. Anyone who has or knows kids knows they like sharing their work. I have a niece by marriage but before I married her uncle she would still happily draw me pictures. The scroll could have said anything really, but "samurai" is in keeping with the whole theme of the film and it's just one kanji, so it works out nicely.
So who is the "last samurai" then? You may ask.
And the answer is I don't know. Maybe it is Tom Cruise. Personally I always figured it ment Katsumoto, who really is a samurai in the film...perhaps the last. But Kaze brought up an interesting point the other day. The plural of samurai is samurai. That's right, samurai not samurais. So "the last samurai" could in fact mean any number of people. The film title could be refering to every single man who fights at the end of the film. Because as Kaze pointed out, these are the last samurai to exist as Japan begins to westernize. Ironically, scrolling through the trivia section for this film on IMDB confirms this group theory. Who knew.
Any thoughts?
