There are sources about how the fanciful idea of the "wuxia" is based on a real thing, that there was a tradition of close-quarters combat training developed by people working security for merchant caravans traveling through lawless regions of southern China in the Qing Dynasty
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Cybren and
But yeah all of that history is drenched in layers of bullshit Historically significant bullshit, sure, but still bullshit The "boxing" the Boxer Rebellion built their ideology around was, I mean, a real thing they learned but it didn't work as advertised
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Cybren and
I guess what complicates the sneering people have about weeaboos etc is that a lot of the bullshit is homegrown Like, the absurd stereotypes of "samurai" and "ninja" we have were *already there* in Japanese culture before we got wind of it, which doesn't make it any more real
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Replying to @arthur_affect @dreamingnoctis and
Yeah Bujinkan ninjitsu is mostly a load of bullshit about pop culture concepts of what ninjas are, from what I understand, but it's also an entirely japanese organization founded in the 70s
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Replying to @Cybren @dreamingnoctis and
It's like how people in America were somewhat upset about The Last Samurai with Tom Cruise because it's "cultural appropriation" but people in Japan were VERY upset about it because it was far-right fascist propaganda
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Cybren and
And it's kind of condescending that the American filmmakers didn't realize that what they were doing was far-right fascist propaganda because they could only see it through a Western lens, "Those poor oppressed Japanese who've had their ancient cultural traditions diluted"
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Replying to @arthur_affect @dreamingnoctis and
Don't you feel bad for this class of warrior-nobility who have lost their place in a rapidly modernizing society, though?
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Replying to @Cybren @arthur_affect and
Yeah, it's kind of like if someone from another country did a sentimental film about the confederacy or something. Like Last Samurai really is a romanticized "lost cause" narrative. God, in a weird moment of anticipatory awfulness it even references effing Sparta FFS.
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Replying to @dreamingnoctis @arthur_affect and
It's like doing a movie about Qin Shi Huang saying that he was good, actually, because he unified ch...wait
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Replying to @Cybren @dreamingnoctis and
The funny thing is that's a take with a pedigree Like one of the artifacts of the Cultural Revolution that produced the most discussion among Western sinologists was this essay the government put out saying Confucius was Bad and Qin Shi Huang Good, Actually
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And Hero was just the maudlin wuxia version of that take ("Those who preach virtue and peace are admirable but, alas, must fall before the sword so that true progress may occur for the good of all")
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