Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs sparks cultural appropriation controversy

… it’s in the director’s handling of the story’s human factor that his sensitivity falters, and the weakness for racial stereotyping that has sometimes marred his work comes to the fore. Anderson, a stickler for verisimilitude even in the weirdest situations, has the human residents of Megasaki City speak their native Japanese, a choice that would seem respectful enough except for the conspicuous absence of English subtitles. Much of the Japanese dialogue, especially Atari’s, has been pared down to simple statements that non-speakers can figure out based on context and facial expressions … The dogs, for their part, all speak clear American English, which is ridiculous, charming and a little revealing. … all these coy linguistic layers amount to their own form of marginalization, effectively reducing the hapless, unsuspecting people of Megasaki to foreigners in their own city.

Worse still is an American exchange student, Tracy (Greta Gerwig), with a crush on Atari, and who leads a singlehanded campaign to turn the tide of public opinion against Mayor Kobayashi, thus reifying old stereotypes about Japanese passivity. Ostensibly for laughs, one scene sees Tracy angrily throttling a crestfallen Japanese scientist (voiced by — and also inexplicably named after — Yoko Ono) by the neck. Given the painstaking frame-by-frame choreography of a film like this, it seems Anderson failed to entirely consider how this might come off to an even remotely skeptical viewership.

This may not bother everyone, but it needs to be mentioned that Anderson’s blanket appropriation of Japanese style and culture has the potential to leave a mildly gross, Orientalist aftertaste in some viewers’ mouths. The fact that (outside of young Atari) our main heroes are Western-voiced dogs and a white, American foreign exchange student draws additional attention to the too-often-“wacky” otherness of the film’s setting. (Poisoned sushi, sumo wrestler thugs, et al.) While the effect was surely unintentional, it’s still problematic; you get the feeling that if this weren’t an animated movie people would have been up in arms about it.

… the specter of cultural appropriation haunts a production that clearly revels in the design elements and mood-board inspirations of Japanese technology and art, but also commits a few patronizing missteps. One subplot features Greta Gerwig as Tracy, a spirited American exchange student who rallies her meekly obedient Japanese cohorts to save the dogs, at one point literally throttling a scientist named Yoko Ono who is voiced by Yoko Ono. Ha … ha?

If this is meant to be Japan, why are the canine voice actors mostly American? If this is meant to be Japan, why is there this incredibly twee bulls–t disclaimer in the intro explaining that all dog dialogue will be translated into English, but that of the humans will not (and therefore be delivered in Japanese, with no subtitles)? It’s such a strangely self-satisfied half-joke — see, it’s a movie from the perspective of dogs, not humans! English is default, enjoy — but it has no sensible logic in the fictional world. If everyone speaks Japanese, what is the purpose of the English translator working for television/radio broadcasts? Why would this world need her? Why are there two romantic subplots, one including a foreign exchange student who, conveniently, speaks English and runs white-savior-rampant through the third act? Is the implication that the dogs are the empathetic guides for the audience, and the Japanese characters are the “other” in this scenario? Is it not bad enough that a white American filmmaker is utilizing the language and visual qualities of another culture, but simultaneously distancing them from the viewer through some arbitrary mechanism we’re meant to applaud?