A Bicultural Analysis of Lost in Translation

The Sophia Coppola film, Lost in Translation, presents a love story between two Americans trapped in Tokyo. Their relationship is fueled by their feelings of displacement in the strange world of Japan. Because the love story is based on their feelings of being outcasts, Coppola has chosen to use and exaggerate many Japanese stereotypes current in American culture. She has used stereotypes of size, manners, and language differences to make the Japanese people seem weird and different. The question about the film is if Coppola takes these stereotypes too far into a racist connotation. Through the USC-Todai Email Exchange, I was able to hear how Japanese students in Tokyo understood the stereotypes and whether or not they believed these stereotypes carried any underlying racism. Although the students in Tokyo and I agreed on many ideas surrounding the stereotypes and the film, the students granted me excess knowledge of Japan and a better understanding of misrepresentations in the film.

Although the stereotypes in Lost in Translation could possibly lead to racist ideas from the viewing audience, the stereotypes appear to be placed in the film in order to provide a more believable alienation for the two main American characters, as well as to add a comical edge to the film. If this same film had been created during World War II, then these stereotypes placed in the film would more likely carry a hint of racism with them. The anti-Japanese feelings appear to have faded away in American culture. Of course, it appears there will always be racism from ignorant America, but the negative feelings towards the Japanese in general American society have subsided since the end of World War II. Based on this subsiding, it seems apparent that Coppola's reasoning for the placement of these stereotypes within her film is not to perpetuate racist ideas. Her main goal is to use these stereotypes to present a stronger representation of the American characters' alienation to her audience. The stereotypes in the film make the Japanese people seem very bizarre to the American characters in the film and the American audience. Coppola portrays a difference in size by placing Bill Murray's character in an elevator filled with Japanese men, who he towers over. A difference in manners is shown by the way the people at the hotel constantly greet Murray's character. This difference can also be seen when Murray's character visits the Japanese talk show, and everything is so eccentric and happy. The major stereotypical difference that Coppola focuses on, however, is the language barrier. The language barrier is the first difficulty presented to Murray's character when he is making the commercial for a Japanese director who talks for a minute for a two second translation. Other scenes in the film focus on the difficulty the Japanese have with "r" and "l" sounds. Every time the language barrier is presented, it displaces the American characters further from the society and culture that they are stuck in, for the time being, at least. At the same time that these stereotypes are producing the alienating affect that Coppola is looking for, they are also generating comedy within the film. It is true that the comedy is arising out of making fun of Japanese people and stereotypical ideas surrounding them, but, at the same time, these scenes would be equally funny if the Japanese person was replaced with a German or French person producing the same language difficulties. It is understandable why some people may be offended by scenes such as these that encourage stereotypes, but it only takes a second to realize that they are not carrying any racial tension behind them, and that it is alright to think they are funny, as long as no one is being completely offended.

Based on the fact that the stereotypes in the film are of the Japanese people, it seems reasonable to believe that those who may be offended by the film would be Japanese people. Through the email exchange, I hoped to gain an understanding of what these two Japanese students thought about the film and whether or not the stereotypes offended them in anyway. Although the opinions of two people do not necessarily represent a general opinion of an entire country of people, I was able to hear how they personally felt in regards to the film and the stereotypes. Both Japanese students found the film interesting and enjoyed watching it. When it came to the stereotypes, the Japanese students thought that many of them were funny, but, at the same time, they wanted to ensure me that they were exaggerated, and not all Japanese people are like that. They believed that the stereotypes were created to assign the different Japanese characters to specific roles such as the girl who they considered to be the stereotype of a "premium fantasy." Through these roles, the Japanese characters appeared strange to the American characters and all viewers including the Japanese students. The characters seemed weird to the Japanese students because they believe that Coppola purposely made them this way in order to create a place that would make the American characters outcasts. By making the American characters outcasts, it made it seem more natural that the two would drift towards each other in a relationship that would not likely occur in a comfortable situation for them. The Japanese students also pointed out that there were minor differences in the way Tokyo and Kyoto look and feel, but these had no stereotypical significance. Although it seems that the Japanese students and I may have had different opinions regarding the film and the stereotypical content, it turned out that we had very similar ideas and feelings.

Despite the fact that the stereotypes in the film were coming from my culture and making fun of the Japanese students' culture, our opinions of the content were similar. The reason for the similarity in opinions is likely based on our levels of education. Although the Japanese students and I come from completely different cultures, we both have the knowledge to understand what the stereotypes are representing in the film, and that they are not there to incite any ideas of racism towards the Japanese people. The students and I both felt that the stereotypical content in the film was rather funny, but we also recognized that the reality of Japan and Japanese people was not what the film portrayed. The stereotypes were clearly put into place to extenuate the cultural differences and create the alienation needed in order to fuel the love story. Hearing the similar opinion from the Japanese students helped to verify that my thoughts were correct. Without this agreement from the Japanese students, it may have led me to believe that my mind had been tricked into overlooking the racism in the film, but there appears to be no racism as agreed on by the Japanese students and myself. The discussion between the Japanese students and I also helped all of us to determine a better idea for why the film was set in Japan and not some other country. The reason we came up with is that Americans have the least contact with Asians due to the fact that they represent a smaller percentage of America's population than other races. Once again, it helped to create more of a weird or awkward feeling for the American characters. It also made the strange feeling more believable for American audiences, which was one of the main goals Coppola reached for when producing the film. Overall, the connection between the Japanese students and the American students in the discussion about the film helped students from both countries help to not only understand the film better, but to understand how each culture reacted to the film and the stereotypes within the film. In the end, the students from both countries appeared to have similar opinions of the film and the stereotypes, showing how similar people thought to be so different can be.