Dear People of the World (formerly Dear Americans)

I rented a DVD movie "The Queen." The story is about Queen Elizabeth of Britain during first week just after Diana's death. How the queen struggled with the public outside the castle.

After I saw the film, I sympathized with the queen. Yes. It is true Diana was just a civilian after the divorce. Why should the royal family express condolence in public? Media and the ordinarly people were just stupid. They were manipulated by the image of Diana. They never know what she really was.

If Diana couldn't fit herself into the royal customs, she shouldn't have to be married to Charles.  

After all, the queen had to compromise with the public opinion and make comments to express the condolence. This was against the rules of her royal tradition.

I remember none of Japanese imperial family member attended the funeral because Diana was no longer the royal family member.   

Monarchy may have to be abolished. The same things has been said about our monarchy system. The Princess Masako has been shattered from the public since she was criticized for not giving a birth to a boy. She has a daughter but the law does not allow a woman to succeed the throne. She might want to get away from the royal family.

The problem was resolved after the Prince's brother got a son.

Well, but I guess it is too early to abolish the monarchy because some people still like it. But it is ridiculous that one becomes the idol for the people just because he or she was born to be.

But that is how the system works.

I was recently asked to give my novel to Hollywood script writer for free because he just wanted only the idea of the story. The novel was already made although it is short one. So I refused to give him unless he pays for the copyright of my novel. I, kind of regret that because my story may be a big motion picture in the near future.

 This time I want to present the below story idea for free of charge to Hollywood producers because it is just an idea of the story. Interestingly enough it is about the story of one big Hollywood producer, who is modeled after Aaron Spelling.

The story begins with one Jewish boy survived in holocaust immigrated to the United States.

He grew up and remebered his painful experience in the past and later analyzed why that happened. He studied how Nazis manipulated people to grow their popularity. He learned the propaganda methodology which Nazis used.

Then he became a famous Hollywood producer in 1970's. He was selling television dramas to network media. He got an idea of female detectives chasing criminals, with guns and martial arts. In those days that idea was too radical because action heroes were always men. Women fighting with bad guys by themselves were unrealistic.

One feminist actress joined his idea. But she did not agree with the detectives flirting with men to get what they want. She contends such flirting scenes insulted women and treated women as sex objects for men. But the producer said to her "You have to do that because the viewers want that and at the same time the drama can promote women's independent roles in the drama and even in the society. People are still conservative. You can't change their value and attitude so easily. Do it cleverly."

As the drama got popularity by the actress's beauty and flirting scenes, more and more actresses got independent and active roles in the drama with no need for male characters' supports. Women's social status generally got better.

After the success of the female detectives drama, the producer challenged another issue, homosexuality. In 1980's he produced a soapopera of a very rich family who ran an oil company in Colorado. The family got a problem, the oldest son was a gay. The family struggled with his homosexuality. At first the father, the head of the oil rich family rejected his son but later accepted him and his lifestyle.

This was very provocative but at the same time drama featured typical soapopera elements such as other characters' heterosexual love romances, conspiracies, lies and betrayals. The viewers enjoyed it and also learned gay issue.

The director of the drama, who was gay was so glad to make this sensational drama but unsatisfied with the producers' orders to cut gay love scenes. Gay characters and their love story appeared but not love scenes. Why? He argued with the producer. The producer said "It is too early to show such sensational scenes on television. That might give backlash to gay movement. You have to see how the world is moving. Don't go too far."

As a result, gay movement made progress by changes of public attitude. More and more gay people are coming out. General public became supportive. Some States legalized gay marriage.  

In the beginning of 21st century, the producer, who retired and became very old was seeing the movie "Brokeback Mountain." He confirmed he acomplished the missions. Using the media to educate foolish people but very cleverly.

He was truely a machiavellist.    

I hope some good Hollywood producer will make this story into the film.

I rented DVD of the old time TV Mini-Series "Roots." It was aired in 1977. The story is based on Alex Hailey's novel. He wrote the story of generations of his family going back to late 18th century when an African tribe boy, Kunta Kinte was born. Kunta Kinte was captured by slave merchants and transported to America.

He was sold as slave to the plantation owner. He tried to escape but in vain. Then he left an offspring. Generation after generation, a story of Kunta Kinte was succeeded to an author, Alex Hailey. Between Kunta Kinte and Hailey, the family experienced enormous oppression by American society.

More than 10 years ago, when I was a college student, I took the course titled "Black Studies." It was very interesting course, the most interesting of all I took in my college days. A Black woman was an instructor. The below is what I learned.

1. Anything what you learn outside Black Studies is white studies.

2. Whenever you type "black", you have to capitalize the first letter "B." Don't care about "white."

3. U.S. doesn't want to provide Black people good education. Even the schools are integrated, the school districts are divided by racial residential areas. In the slavery time, it was illegal to teach Blacks how to read. It is easier for whites to control Black people when Blacks are uneducated.

4. Founding fathers, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson were hypocrats because they owned slaves.

5. Christianity is not good religion because churches supported the slavery in the South, and didn't even treat Blacks better than other people.

6. IQ tests are culturally biased towards East coast white people. That is why Black students scored less than white students. IQ tests cannot be a good tool to measure one's intelligence. When someone talks about intelligence, ask him or her what the definition of it. In fact, there is no such thing. Very ambiguous.

7. Whites may be fearful of Black people because they do not want to know they are inferior to Blacks in terms of intelligence and human body conditions.

8. According to the Cress Theory, the anscestors of whites were albinos of Africans who later migrated to Europe.

9. In the past, it was believed that first man on earth was born in Europe, not in Africa because they did not admit Africans were the anscestors of whites. Now they say whites are advanced creatures of Africans. They twisted the theory not to give up their supremacy.

Her lectures were very radical so she had been criticized even by African students in class. I did not agree with all of what she taught. But I learned very important things. I learned how to counter ridiculous things in the world, how to overcome oppressions. Everyone is biased and everything in the world is political. Nothing is neutral, even in the academics.

Thanks for Black Studies, I survived in this hell.

The film was shot in late 1940's Japan which was occcupied by U.S. led allied forces.

Humphrey Bogart was starred in this film as Joe, who came back to Japan after the war. Before the war Joe managed a club in Ginza, which is Tokyo's most famous shopping and entertainment district like 5th Avenue in NY.

The story was like post-war version of "Casablanca." The plot is very similar. Joe re-encountered his past lover in Tokyo, but she was already married to another man. First he was jealous of her but later he tried to help her out.

I was really surprised. "Casablanca" was war propaganda movie against enemies like Germans. But this movie was kind of friendship movie with Japan which was also the enemy during the war. It seems to reflect post-war diplomatic policy of U.S.

The description of Japan was not very strange even though it was filmed in such old days. Very precise, in fact. The streets, black markets, airport. Japanese characters portrayed in the film were very real. The film producers showed respect to our people. Bogart spoke some Japanese, not good accents but very accurate words.

In the last part, Joe said to his Japanese friend, "We are not enemies any more. Now we're helping you to stand up against old system."

Yes, indeed, we became democratic nation with the help of the U.S. and two countries became greatest friends.

Bogart was a great prophet. Thank you, Americans.