Since I loved the book, will probably like the movie, and am entranced by all things geisha (I've got books, photographs, old postcards, posters) I am PSYCHED over all the cross-marketing tie-ins. I LOVE the idea that merchandise can be so elegantly blended to entertainment - who needs a damn Batman t-shirt when you can get cherry-scented TEA and kimono-sleeved shirts! Besides, fashion has long taken its cues from Hollywood.

By the way, my local Banana Republic has been hyping the clothing line for a while - I heard about the clothing line before I even knew that that movie had finished filming. And the cross-marketing gurus worked the movie into a recent episode of "Medium".

Maybe I'm mistaken, but wasn't some fancy-schmancy James Bond watch marketed to men a few years ago?

Oh, come on, get over it. If women love the movie, they'll love the merchandise. What's the big fucking deal?

Some other sites that geishaphiles might enjoy:

http://www.immortalgeisha.com

http://www.puchimaiko.com

Mandy Aftel makes a kick-ass, all-natural perfume (for the ass-kicking price of $170!) based on an actual geisha recipe. www.aftelier.com.

Break out those credit cards!

Am I the only person who's a little iffy on the production details of Memoir? I mean, cross-cultural productions are charming, but this is a movie about a deeeeeply traditional Japanese livelihood written by white men, produced and directed by white men, starring Chinese women.

Maybe it's because I lived in Yokohama for two years and so am constantly forced to quell my own 'I lived there so I know what it's like and you didn't so you don't' snark. I'm even a fan of the actresses involved- I was overjoyed to see Zhang Ziyi and Gong Li looking equally radiant in 2046 when it came out. But the movie's in English, for Western audiences, made by a Western studio, and what I've seen so far makes me want to hide my face.

Never mind that Banana Republic's Geisha line so far seems to involve as much Chinese as Japanese styling- frog closures, Chinese silk brocade, etc. etc. Note that their site now bills it as their 'limited-edition, Asian-inspired collection'.

Oh, I've been bitching for MONTHS about casting. I've lived in Japan and China and I love both countries, but I was horrified to see Chinese actresses cast in the main roles of a "Japanese" movie (and more disturbed to see more than a couple photos of said actresses mislabeled, as in a picture of Gong Li in some gossip mag, with the caption identifying her as "Ziyi Zhang").

It's obvious that there aren't any big-name Japanese stars that could carry such a movie, and that's too bad. I wish it were otherwise. Also, I really dislike Zhang Ziyi, with her pinched little pre-pubescent face, and her acting abilities (limited to what I call the glare-and-flare: eye narrow in anger, nostrils swell).

Of course, the book WAS written by a white American dude - with extensive research into the subject matter. So who says that the movie won't be an equally cross-cultural success? I wish it could be otherwise, and we could avoid this whole "they all look the same anyway" bullshit, but who else could have filled these roles and still pulled in the audiences?

As for the clothes, cosmetics, etc - Japan (and Korea, and Vietnam) borrowed so much from China that it is often hard to know where one robe began and another ended. I, for one, will relish the chance for a breath of fresh air in terms of laywomen's fashion - I'm sick of these goddamed Ugg boots and muffin-top jeans (that's where your jeans are so tight and low-riding that even slender women spill over the tops of them). I'll take faux pan-Asian prettiness over the current offerings any day.

If you are looking for books about geishas written by Americans, you should read "Geisha" by Liza Dalby. An anthropologist, she lived and worked as an apprentice geisha in Japan in the 1980's and wrote about her experiences. Arthur Golden's book owes her work a very large debt.

1. Zhang Ziyi is beautiful (to some) and a good dancer. The artists who busted ass to make her costumes and do her makeup did good work. Why not be inspired by that?

2. Everyone already knows that Hollywood doesn't contain enough non-white stars to faithfully render ethnicity in movies about non-white people. (Lou Diamond Phillips, anyone?) Why pretend it's something new?

And Golden does, in fact, offer sincere thanks to Dalby in the book's credits. It should be noted that Golden's book explores in entirely different cultural time in Japan, and is incredibly valuable, even as a work of fiction.

Mineko Iwasaki, who provided Golden with much of the material he used for his novel (and then later sued him for breech of confidentiality or some such nonsense) has also written about life as a geisha during the 1960s and 1970s, in a memoir called "Geisha: A Life". She's a terrible writer (or maybe the translator was terrible?), very self-serving and spoiled beyond all belief, and the golden era of the geisha was long over before she became a maiko - however, it's another interesting (and entirely Japanese) account of geisha.

I can't WAIT for the tie-ins for "Brokeback Mountain"!

Just imagine....

Of course, the book WAS written by a white American dude - with extensive research into the subject matter. So who says that the movie won't be an equally cross-cultural success? I wish it could be otherwise, and we could avoid this whole "they all look the same anyway" bullshit, but who else could have filled these roles and still pulled in the audiences?

As for the clothes, cosmetics, etc - Japan (and Korea, and Vietnam) borrowed so much from China that it is often hard to know where one robe began and another ended.

The thing is, if you know it, it's not. Take a hanfu outfit, or even a cheongsam, put it next to a hanbok, then toss in a kimono of the type seen on middle-aged Japanese ladies everywhere and a Vietnamese Áo Dài. I'm sure they all look the same to the untrained American eye, but they're not, and the fabrics and colors that they use are all very different. To lump them all together is an insult to the individual cultures that they represent, and costume designer Colleen Atkinson has admitted as much in several interviews.

As for the extensive research Golden put in, riddle me this: where do you suppose he found information on the 'virginity auction'? Answer: nowhere, because they didn't exist, at least not for geisha in Japan. But hey, it's exotic and kinky, so who will know the difference?