In-Class Write

1. One thing that I noticed while researching is that many articles made it seem like everyone in the United States of America during WWII had a prejudice against people of Japanese heritage. I can see why and how different article would be able to make this claim. World War II was one of the only wars in which the vast majority of Americans agreed it was right to enter, an idea that started majorly because of Pearl Harbor. However, in Come See the Paradise, the movie made excellent cases describing how not everyone felt the same way towards the Japanese. Though the movie had some intense imagery of white men breaking and tearing apart Japanese-American owned buildings, its main character, Jack McGurn does an excellent job at showing the other side.

     

In the beginning of the movie, the character Jack is seen working as a fish processor. During this scene, a portion of the workers at that plant formed a union, while Jack was keeping his head down and his family first. However, as the owners, dressed in their suits and ties, see this union form, they start throwing pounds and pounds of fish at the unions. Jack then became so infuriated, he saved the fishermen being pelted with fish and started to bark at the men in the suites and started to question their morals when he said "they're [the union men] fighting for you and this is how you treat them?"

At first glance, this scene really does not seem like it has to do with the overarching theme of Japanese internment camps, but taking a closer look and this scene symbolizes the opposing voice to the bigotry toward Japanese ancestry, who can be represented by those being pelted by the men in suits (the congressmen/ FDR). While this scene was not directly an attempt to save Japanese citizens, I believe the director of the film was attempting to show how the other half thought, a side of this controversial issue that was often was overshadowed by the horrific events and therefore not as spoken about in historical articles.

2.  In the movie 12 Years a Slave, I mentioned before that seeing the movie in juxtaposition to reading the story allowed the audience to gain a better sense of sympathy for Solomon Northup. However, I felt like this movie did not do justice about describing life of Japanese internment camps. I would argue that reading, in this instance, is better for gaining sympathy than watching the movie. Specifically at the end of the movie while Lily and her family had already moved to the internment camp, life did not really seem as bad as I had read it was in various articles. In the articles I read, I was told that the camps were dirty, overcrowded, unhealthy, and an overall miserable place to live. While it was definitely depicted to be dirty in the movie, it certainly didn't seem like a miserable place to live. I remember seeing Lily and her family dancing and listening to music with many other members of that town. Honestly, it seemed more like a poor town, than an "open-jail" as Lily described it to be. I was expecting to see the "covered barracks" that was described to me various articles.

While I felt there were attempts to add historical facts to the viewers' knowledge, as stated in questions one, it felt more like entertainment rather than a full attempt to go through the story of Japanese internment camps. For example, there was really only one scene that directly mentions Pearl Harbor, which was such an integral contribution of the racism that sprouted in the United States. In addition, none of the “internees”, as they were called, were given any loyalty test to determine if they were truly dedicated to this country.

3. If I had an extra 20 minutes to add whatever I wanted to Come See the Paradise, I would add scenes from the time they get the news that they have to evacuate their home, to the end of the movie in order to add intensity to the internment camp. I really think better actions could have been taken to make the audience feel uncomfortable, in a sense, like what was done in 12 Years a Slave. For example, I would attempt to show the emotions and feelings of Lily and her family in the concentration camp by inserting scene with small amounts of dialogue and large amounts of imagery, especially ones that contain images of their poor living conditions, health conditions, and the food they have to eat. This would add a “show not tell” element to increase the intensity that I felt was lacking as discussed in question two. Hopefully by adding this, the audience gets a better sense that Lily and her family are actually trapped, and not just in another town.