Outcry over inserting white savior in movie about Hiroshima victim

A statue  above of Sadako Sasaki in Seattle is often festooned by paper cranes. Another statue of Sadaki is part of
the Children's Peace Monument located in the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima.

When the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, 60,000 to 80,000 people died from the blast. Children on their way to school melted into the sidewalks. People walking down the street turned into shadows and ash. Whole city blocks vanished.

The radiation killed perhaps 100,000 more in the years that followed. Every one of the victims had compelling stories that could be told.

One of those true stories is the story of Sadako Sasaki, who was two-years old when the bomb destroyed the Japanese city in WWII. Her story would make a great movie. 

Casting of Evan Rachel Wood to portray author Eleanor Coerr who wrote teh children's book Sasaki and One Thousand Paper Cranes, has raised concern among Asian Americans who fear the Japanese story will be told through a Western eyes.

Asian Americans are angry that telling story of Sasaki through Coerr's perspective is a form of white-washing what is essentially a Japanese story.

One Thousand Paper Cranes is a movie about the true story of Sasaki played by Shinobu Terajima. Her character will apparently take a back seat to then one played by Rachel Wood, Eleanor Coerr, according to the Huff Post.

Actress Evan Rachel Wood, left, will portray the writer who wrote about Sadako Sasaki, right.

“It’s a story that was amplified and became a phenomenon because of the author, Eleanor Coerr,” Variety quoted director Richard Raymond. “This film shows for the first time the untold truth behind these two remarkable women, and how their lives are intricately connected. I’m honored by the trust Eleanor’s family and the Hiroshima Film Council have bestowed upon me to tell this story.”

Sociologist Nancy Wang Yuen told HuffPost that the film exemplified how “Hollywood cannot deal with U.S./Asia wars without co-opting Asian voices.”

“I wondered whether a story about the devastation of Hiroshima told through a white author’s lens would ever address the fact that the United States committed an act of war that killed a total of 192,020 people (including those killed instantly and those killed by the radiation in the aftermath),” she said.

“This type of story typically does not honor the victims because, like ‘The Help,’ the white female author’s voice becomes privileged over those of the women of color she tried to capture,” she added.

Others used social media to protest the way Hollywood is Westernizing the Hiroshima story.

The story of one thousand paper cranes is legendary. Sasaki’s condition worsened in the years after the atomic bomb drop. A high school club brought folded paper cranes to Sasaki to cheer her up. She took it to heart and set out to fold one thousand cranes as a symbol of good fortune and longevity.

After the criticism gained momentum, Raymond tried to quell the storm of criticism by contradicting what he told Variety.

According to Resonate, Raymond saidt he has “seen all the feedback and recognize everyone’s concerns. We would love to use this moment as an opportunity to clarify a couple aspects of our film.”

He added that the film is based on Takayuki Ishii’s book One Thousand Paper Cranes: The Story of Sadako and the Children’s Peace Statue. Ishii was contacted by the director five years ago “in the spirit of a close collaboration to ensure Sadako’s story, and that of all Hibakusha, was honored with the utmost cultural respect.”

Raymond said the film will be told from Sadako’s “point of view, filmed in Japanese with a Japanese cast.”

“The film separately tells the story of Eleanor Coerr, who wrote the fictional children’s book Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes (which this film is not based on) and brought the story to international fame, further cementing Sadako’s legacy of peace and hope through the powerful symbol she created,” he said, again walking back on the Variety story.

ASAM NEWS contributed to this report.

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