My Geisha (1962)
Kimono my house — Shirley MacClaine does yellowface, but is this the BLACK LIKE ME of Asian exotica?
All the classic love stories are based on deceit — not to mention the lies we tell ourselves. Think of Shakespeare, his plays within plays that reflect the larger drama and enrich the plot with onionskin layers of false identity. Characters who embody a falsehood, and come to see a new perspective….
Now, I’m not saying My Geisha, an exotica postcard from America’s post-war colony is quite Shakespeare…. It‘s a yellowface twist on the old movie cliche where an actress assumes an exotic identity to fool her boyfriend / director, and land a starring role in the show. Yes, the premise is that a white lady makes an even more convincing geisha than actual Japanese geisha, but in this case what starts out for rice powder comedy takes a left turn, and an Ugly American gets a lesson in humility.
Shirley MacClaine plays a popular Hollywood comedienne who feels sidelined when her longtime director husband Yves Montand wants to stop making her comedies, and instead film an artful version of Madame Butterfly in Japan complete with an authentic geisha as the lead. She is hurt, but realizes the film will be his chance to prove himself without her shadow.
Unfortunately without a starring name attached, the studio slashes the budget and his opus will be filmed in black and white. With the help of the film’s producer and family friend Edward G. Robinson, MacClaine trains to be such a convincing geisha that she will even fool her husband and save his film, but to protect his ego he can’t know his “authentic” geisha is really his meddling wife — at least until the film’s premier when her unmasking will spur publicity and probably win her an Oscar…. Tee Hee
What potentially should be a naive, racist comedy, consistently plays the bumbling Ugly American card, earnestly and often, contrasted with the gentle and dignified Japanese. MacClaine and Robinson are corrected good naturedly by their Japanese friends. The Japan shown here was perhaps one presented for the American business class, but to most Americans in 1962 My Geisha probably was educational.
Its stunning photography of Japan, in modern and traditional locations, is an inviting travelogue, and MacClaine (who lived in Japan) plays both uncultured buffoon and tour guide! The factoids are rattled off once she is befriended by a skilled real-life geisha Yoko Tani who attempts to teach her more than just appearances, but also the service and self-sacrifice. The way of the geisha.
These archetypes are tissue-thin. The laughs emerge from predictable situations usually involving Bob Cummings’ horny creep straight out of a rape culture. There are plenty of cringing scenes where MacClaine’s is yellowfacing “Ahh Noo, Meeser, I no THAT type of geisha!” as she runs from a potential work-place sexual assault.
But My Geisha is also at times self-aware, resonating above it’s racist and pre-feminist tropes to reach something higher. The film within the film is an adaptation of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, the grandfather of exotica. Now over a century old, the opera can’t really be performed today without acknowledging its colonial-fetishized heroine who forfeits her life for an Occidental lover’s happiness.
But 1962 is almost the halfway point and those tones aren’t present here yet. Instead the opera becomes an allegorical backdrop to MacClaine’s actress ego as she submits to the role of the sacrificing Butterfly through the mask of a selfless geisha. Watching the film today gives the uncanny effect that you are looking into a scaling time fractal of well-decorated female sacrifice.
MacClaine is unmasked as the duplicitous wife when the director sees a daily negative and the colors are “reversed”. Her dark wig turns red. Her eyes blue. The image is a mythological dark mirror, a witch who is revealed through her reflection.
In another elevating twist, the titular character “My Geisha” is presumed to be MacClaine as referred to by her husband, but subtly shifts to Yoko Tani, the actual geisha who has become MacClaine’s friend and adviser, ultimately a role model. Tani gives MacClaine a graduation gift: a fan owned by a famous geisha that reads “No other before you, my Husband. Not even I.” The abruptness of the Geisha’s motto, translated into English, imply the words are a declaration, almost a creed, which she waved daily before her eyes as a reminder.
Tani’s gentle protocol exposes MacClaine’s selfish motive for revealing her true identity at the premier. In a Joseph Cambpell metaphore MacClaine is at the end of a hero’s journey facing a choice based on what she has learned. Alone in the mirror she uses the fan to mask half her face. With one brown contact and one blue eye she reveals a two-faced woman who has become a chimera. Certainly not a Japanese geisha, but no longer a Western ego. It isn’t love for her husband that inspires her sacrifice, but respect for the geisha identity she created. Rather than unmask for the public, she announces at the premiere the geisha has retired to a convent and will never be seen again. It’s Innana’s Journey — the heroine wins when she gives away everything she has.
