You can't have been in the Bay Area for long without noting wide-spread advertising for the
Lords of the Samurai exhibit at San Francisco's Asian Art Museum. The banners and bus ads are everywhere. Which is perhaps why
Ernie of 8 Asians was temporarily fooled into thinking that this
Lord, It's the Samurai: Myth, Militarism and Man-Boy Love parody was actually legit:
Efren: Honestly, isn’t this a parody/response from the
real Asian Art Museum exhibit about the Samurai? I don’t think this is
from the museum.
Ernie: From what I can gather, it doesn’t look to be a parody.
Efren: Actually it is. This is the real page Asian Art Museum’s samurai website: http://www.asianart.org/Samurai.htm The parody is asiansart.org, not asianart.org.
Ernie: Damn. To quote Moye, “samurai pnwed.”
The parody site includes hilarious copy like:
Let the gleam of naked swordblades transport you to a time when
samurai used them to slice noses
off of an estimated 38,000 victims, buried in
this mound in Kyoto, one of at least a couple such "nose tombs" in Japan.
The parody site, overall, is pretty good.
8 Asian's Ernie tells me he is interviewing the person behind the parody today. Look for an update on this soon on
8 Asians.
UPDATE: Ernie's interview with a man behind Asians Arts Museum:
Our intention is to intervene in cultural discourse by raising
awareness and promoting dialogue, not just inside the museum, but in
the greater public around what we see as problematic practices and what
may lie behind them. We don’t entertain unrealistic fantasies about
effecting institutional change, but do believe that if the general
consciousness is raised at large, that only increases the likelihood of
cultural change both within and external to the museum, as it relates
to Asian cultural representation.
