Introduction
The movie Memoirs of a Geisha (2005), directed by Rob Marshall, is based on the book of the same name, written by Arthur Golden in 1997. The film represents the life of a young Japanese girl, Chiyo Sakamoto, whose parents sold her and her sister, Satsu, into prostitution because of poverty. The girl finds herself in a geisha house while her sister is sent to a brothel. Chiyo decides to be a geisha when she meets Mr. Chairman and falls in love with him. The film is made as a memoir, or a personal narration of the protagonist about her life as a geisha. However, although the woman tells the story, the male gaze is primary here, and all the events are shown from the perspective of a man. The movie is a good example of gender representation in Asian popular culture. In the film Memoirs of a Geisha, the social construction of gender negatively influences female identity, representing women through the male perspective and creating inequality between men and women.
Social Construction of Gender in the Movie
Since ancient times, gender was a socially constructed cultural phenomenon. In Japan and other Asian countries, men were considered dominant, and women were always subordinate. One of the factors influencing such a position of women in society was poverty. According to Thakur and Saini, “the economy plays a ground role to drag a person into the profession of Geisha” (317). In the film, Chiyo and her sister were sold into prostitution because their parents needed money and could not provide for their living. This scene demonstrates that Japanese society did not value women and did not protect their rights and liberties. The girls are always subordinate to the men, and if they bring no benefit, they will be humiliated and neglected. In such a way, in a male-dominated society, female identity is constructed through social processes, mostly initiated and established by men.
The movie Memoirs of Geisha represents women as individuals whose main goal in life is to satisfy men. Moreover, the traditional Japanese notion of a geisha is modified and represented from a novel perspective. Thus, according to Thakur and Saini, “Geisha is a woman who is treated or considered as a prostitute by the people of West” (344). Since the movie appeared on the screens of Western societies, such a portrayal of Japanese women has a negative impact on their gender identities. Viewers may perceive Asian women as sexual objects or courtesans, creating and promoting adverse stereotypes.
In addition, social norms and traditions help construct gender identity. If a girl is taught that the best social role for her is to become a Geisha and find a man who can support her, she will strive to attain this goal. For example, when Chiyo met Chairman and saw him going away with geisha, she thought: “I changed from a girl facing nothing but emptiness, to someone with purpose. I saw that to be a geisha could be a stepping stone to something else; a place in his world” (Marshall). Japanese society offered no opportunities to its women: they could be either wives or geisha and prostitutes. Traditionally, wives had to be supportive and submissive, and the role of a geisha was to entertain men’s additional desires (Belarmino and Roberts 275; Thakur and Saini 346). The film reveals mostly a geisha identity, depicting how this identity is socially constructed in a male-dominated world.
Cultural Expectations of Asian Women
Cultural expectations of Asian women play an important role in the construction of female identity. In Asian society, women were expected to be homemakers: to take care of children and husbands and stay at home. However, their other role was to be “comfort women,” willingly and forcefully serving Japanese men (Belarmino and Roberts 273). Women were sex slaves, sexualized and fetishized objects in Japanese culture (Belarmino and Roberts 274). However, since Japanese culture tends to avoid the discussions of shameful behaviors and victimization of women, many aspects of the lives of geisha were not shown in the film. For example, Chiyo narrates, “Geisha is an artist of the floating world. She dances. She sings. She entertains you – whatever you want. The rest is shadows: the rest is secret” (Marshall). These words are a great example of cultural expectations and how the identity of a geisha is interconnected with the identity of an Asian woman.
Female Identity and Patriarchal Ideology
Although society and cultural expectations greatly impact the construction of gender identity, patriarchal ideology and the male gaze are crucial for its development. In the movie, men are shown as powerful and influential individuals who govern the world and set their rules there. One of the greatest examples of a male character is Chairman, who is shown as a noble and benevolent man who helps and supports others. At the same time, he is the one who “pushes [Chiyo] into this profession, expecting her to become a geisha in order to entertain him” (Sujitha 272). Although Chiyo was only twelve years old and Chairman was forty-one when they met, the man saw her as a sexual object instead of “having fatherly affection for her” (Sujitha 272). The man glamorizes and objectifies geisha, showing to Chiyo that, even if a geisha was clumsy at first, she could train and become a skilled geisha and get paired with such a man as himself. Thus, the male gaze depicts geisha as an object of entertainment in the film.
The patriarchal ideology has a negative impact on the construction of female identity. It influences the geisha identity, changing it from “a cultural heritage of Japan” to “a practice or profession to entertain male customers” (Thakur and Saini 346). A woman becomes an object of men’s desires, and the film portrays this object using the fragmentation technique. For example, the film director shows different parts of a female body as separate images: lips, eyes, partial nudity. A woman’s body is depicted as a sum of different parts, and such fragmentation is associated with “male focalization” (Sujitha 273). Interestingly, male characters are not portrayed in this way, and they are shown as observers and receivers of women’s caress and attention. Such a one-sided objectification forces women to look at themselves through a male gaze only, negatively influencing their identity.
Finally, the geisha school is another example of the patriarchal ideology and its impact on female identity. In the film, this school serves as a prime representation of an institutional domain used to construct gender identity. In the geisha school, girls are taught to be geisha, which means that they should learn how to be a woman. One can see how Mameha, a member of this school, teaches Chiyo: “Geisha are not courtesans, and we’re not wives. We sell our skills, not our bodies. We create another secret world, a place only of beauty” (Marshall). A geisha must sleep like a doll, have perfectly polished hair, and have relationships only with her danna, or her patron (Marshall). If a geisha preserved her subordinate status, she would receive financial support for herself and her children from her patron. All these rules and norms were aimed to create a sexualized object, thus creating gender inequality and shaping female identity.
Conclusion
Having analyzed the movie Memoirs of a Geisha, one can conclude that gender identity is represented from a male perspective in this film. The socio-economic status of a Japanese family greatly impacted gender construction, which can be seen in the movie. Many families were forced to sell their daughters into prostitution due to poverty and debts. Cultural expectations of Asian women influenced gender identity too. Women were expected to be subordinate and to satisfy their men in Asian society. However, patriarchal ideology was the main factor affecting the construction of gender identity in the analyzed film.
To conclude, the entire picture is shown through the lens of a male-dominated society, and the viewers have to watch it from the perspective of a man. Such a representation has a negative impact on Asian female identity, stimulating inequality and adverse stereotypes about women. Even though the film has a happy end for the female protagonist, it demonstrates that her main goal was to become a part of her beloved man, and she became geisha only because she wanted to attain this goal.
References
Belarmino, Melanie, and Melinda R. Roberts. “Japanese Gender Role Expectations and Attitudes: A Qualitative Analysis of Gender Inequality.” Journal of International Women’s Studies, vol. 20, no. 7, 2019, pp. 272-288.
Marshall, Rob, director. Memoirs of a Geisha. Sony Pictures Releasing, 2005.
Sujitha, V. S. “Male Gaze and Female Identities: A Critical Exploration of Memoirs of a Geisha.” International Journal of English Language, Literature in Humanities, vol. 5, no. 9, 2017, pp. 270-276.
Thakur, Smriti, and Dr. Alpna Saini. “The Alienation and Manipulation of Geisha in Cultural Structures of Japan with Special Reference to Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 8, no. 8, 2017, pp. 343-349.