[chajin]

And while they are at it get rid of that gosh darn Shakespeare. Always making fun of Danish folks.

But wait: there's Moor...

I spent my teen years in Japan, have been back numerous times, studied tea ceremony for 30 years, and yes, Mikado is about as ignorant of Japanese culture as something can be. But you don't watch it because of its Japanese culture, you watch it because the music is enjoyable, and it is a unique example of what the West's first thoughts were about Japan after the latter was opened up to the West in the mid-1800s.

I'm sick to death of PC Stalinists telling me what we are supposed to enjoy and what we are supposed to be offended by. I will say to them when they say to us: IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, DON'T LOOK.

[DesertRhino]

“studied tea ceremony for 30 years”

A PhD in astrophysics might take 7-ish. Care to explain?

[artichokegrower]

Maybe we should burn the Mikado script. Maybe we should burn all books deemed inappropriate. Wait has this been tried before?

[Jimmy Valentine]

Probably shouldn’t ask you about “Porgy and Bess”.

[mdmathis6]

The Mikado, as one observes in many other G and S works, pokes fun more at Victorian era issues than it does with the oriental “paper screen” veneer applique of Japanese life depicted in this work. The songs “I’ve got a little list” and “The object all sublime” are very sharp satires of various aspects of British life and culture. To take the “orientalism” out of the Mikado is a fatal mistake....the joke was not on the Japanese, the joke was on the British and if “one has eyes to see”...much of western culture!

[Ditter]

Maybe you are the person to ask this question. Why is the word Orient/Oriental offensive to them now. We always said they were Oriental and no harm or insult was intended, they came from the Orient.

I am from Texas and I am not offended if someone calls me a Texan.

[Bernard Marx]

yes, Mikado is about as ignorant of Japanese culture as something can be. But you don't watch it because of its Japanese culture, you watch it because the music is enjoyable, and it is a unique example of what the West's first thoughts were about Japan after the latter was opened up to the West in the mid-1800s.

I agree with your post's conclusion but not the statement above. "The Mikado" wasn't intended to reflect the West's thoughts about Japan at all. It was merely another in a long line of G & S operettas intended to ridicule and satirize British government and culture. The Japanese theme was merely window dressing that gave Gilbert the opportunity to soften his sharp jabs at his own country's politics and institutions by using a foreign setting. He'd done the same thing in several previous librettos like "The Gondoliers."

All this PC nonsense makes me think present-day America greatly needs the services of one of the play's characters to deal with the PC cultural Marxist elite:

"Behold the Lord High Executioner,

A personage of noble rank and title

A dignified and potent officer

Whose functions are particularly vital..."