#Asian American issues

[defensenow]

#youtube #news #Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies #advocacy for AAPI community #APAICS Summit #Kamala Harris #Asian American and Pacific Islander community #Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders #minority representation #Vice President Kamala Harris #diversity in politics #Vice President Harris #Asian American issues #Vice President of the United States #importance of diversity #Asian American history #Asian American representation #diversity and inclusion #AAPI #Q&A

[rinissse]

Can people stop harassing random Asian American celebrities because an Asian person in Asia wasn't acting right. I know damn well y'all are not harassing random black, white, or latino American celebrities for shit happening in Africa, Europe, or anywhere south of the U.S. border. Nobody is harassing Jenna Ortega for any racism happening south of the border. Nobody is harassing Hailey Bieber for racism happening across the Atlantic. Also Asian American issues and issues in Asia are two completely different things. Thanks for coming to my TedTalk.

#asian american #Asian American issues #racism #anti-asian racism

[peridot-tears]

While Blue Eye Samurai is about how Edo-era Japan was hostile to women, and highlights the strides Japanese society has made then, let's not fall into the trap of thinking misogyny is in the past.

I saw this comment while scrolling, and it really highlighted a sentiment I've seen in a lot of another posts, not just this one:

Yes, we have made incredibly hard-earned gains in women's rights, but if you are a woman athlete or soldier, it would absolutely be turned into a big deal.

In the United States, for instance -- a western country that consistently praises itself for its progressive feminism -- women still see high sexual assault cases in the military. (source, source, source) You can see that I chose three very different types of sources that count the numbers differently, but they all come to the same conclusion. I remember the fucking fit people threw when women were finally allowed to join the infantry unit in the last decade on the basis that women are physically weaker than men and couldn't possibly hold their own in that position, when women had already been serving in non-combat positions that already required a shitton of physical work.

I'm going to fully admit I don't know what Japan's numbers are in the military, but I've always viewed women's rights as similar to here in the US. Anecdotally, my friends from there have told me about how in Japan, when a man and a woman are in a relationship, the woman is expected to be less smart than the man, which I always found similar to the still-lingering attitude here in the US where men are expected to make more than the woman. Not to mention that the whole reason there are women-only cars and buses on Japanese trains is precisely to protect them from perverts.

I'm not writing this post to dunk on the people with the mentality that things are better now, because hell yeah, a lot of things are! I just want us to remember that the reality is that in the US -- where the creators of Blue Eye Samurai are from -- and Japan, where the story is set, women's rights are not perfect, and both countries are still patriarchal societies.

I'm also wary of these kinds of sweeping statements about stories set in East Asia, because I have seen in past fandoms this idea that western progress is the only progress that exists in the world. I remember a particularly icky set of comments and reblogs that insisted that the society of Mo Dao Zu Shi (a Chinese story) would be vastly improved by putting democracy in its place, which is the biggest fucking imperialist dogwhistle I have ever seen.

I haven't seen this similar sentiment in Blue Eye Samurai at all...yet. But you'd be surprised at how easily people come to these conclusions, and how little they question it.

#also as a female asian american athlete #i've had to deal with ALL of these issues #the western imperialist dogwhistling the small dick energy the bioessentialism the objectification of women #blue eye samurai #mizu blue eye samurai #mizu #netflix blue eye samurai #bes #tears falling like peridots

[chalkeater]

Istg every time POC try to bring up a concern on racism. People will call US racist for connecting the dots. Like. Im sorry youre oblivious?

“youre racist for thinking this is racist / for connecting this to racism” hello??

#‘people headcanon frisk as black too. also a lot of ppl hc frisk as white’ #bro a lot of ppl headcanon frisk as asian to what is ur point #also im not saying people shouldnt fucking hc frisk/kris as asian ok! #if you HC frisk/kris as asian then you especially need to watch your ass #you are on thin ice with me #if i headcanond frisk as asian (which i do) i would not draw them yellow #also did i not say PREVIOUSLY that the humans being yellow in game normalizes people (especially young people) not caring?? #so people will HC frisk as asian and then no one tells them its fucked up if theyre yellow AGH. #‘UM EXCUSE ME why are you fucking hc’ing frisk and kris as asian’ bc im fucking asian???? #someone called me fucking racist?? #im asian and what to reclaim this weird fucking design and i also changed their skin tones?? #at least im not white who calls them asian and draws them yellow?? #fine. fine dont listen to me. dont listen to other asian people and other POC who bring this up #live in your oblivious world where you get mad that POC tell you shit abt this #literally every time Asian people and ESP Asian Americans bring up this issue you all get so pissed #im sorry for swearing at you?? whoever is reading this??? #weve been talking about this for literal years. #dont you fuckijng thing theres a reason it keeps getting brought up for the past almost 10 YEARS. #talking #sorry for bringing my im a poc card?? #god reminds me of what Chara was talking about last night #we grew up with debate classes and the reason for a good Discussion is bc you have to avoid fallacies right #so that means KNOWING your opponent #but in the internet were all anonymous. which is fine! you SHOULD NOT be obligated to bring up your identity at all #but do you know why in any other discussion thats why ppl online say ‘i have a doctorate and-‘ ‘ive studied thsi for 4 years and’? #and so i just keep thinking. ok so my perspective is i am asian right. #my perspective is i have heard from my brothers and sisters who LIVE in the west and their histories of racism and discrimination and propag #so im just wondering. who are the -eople mad at me?? what is your story? youre an artist who cant take criticism?? #ok logging off again to eat my fucking burger #(actually not having a hurger rn but i wish)

[mistninja]

I didnt even like barbie i just think its a very funny situation. Like oh no the movie that said it was about feminism but ended up being all about mens "oppression" is getting awards for the men but not the women involved in it oh no who would have thought

#this reminds me a bit of when jamie lee curtis won best supporting actress for eeaao instead of stephanie hsu #but obviously eeaao IS about asian american experiences so in that case it was the oscars that fucked up #but with barbie its like. they chose to make the movie all about ken they literally didnt have to #if all the awards are going to the men maybe the issue is that your so called feminist movie wasnt that feminist actually

[mymoviewatches]

ᐢ..ᐢ - Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

- - - - [Movie Rating 39] - - - -

★ Ratings ★

✩ Personal Rating: 9.5/10

✩ IMDb Rating: 7.9/10

#everything everywhere all at once #everything everywhere all at once 2022 #movie #movies #asian films #i cried so hard #1st gen american asians with mommy issues get it #SOBBED #michelle yeoh #stephanie hsu #ke huy quan #evelyn #joy #waymond

[chrishangry]

what an odd crossroads my identity stands at... as i watch video essays on youtube about my place in society as represented in media, i find that i understand more and more why it's so difficult to accept myself as aroace. in american media, asians experience this "model minority" stereotype, where the men are depicted as "almost asexual in a way that would not be predatory towards 'our women'" in a backhanded way basically saying asian men aren't good enough for american relationships. while i do not identify as cisgendered or heteronormative, it doesn't feel good to be told that. i dont want to be a threat to anyone, but i also do not want to be treated as a second rate citizen. some part of me, out of spite, thought being straight and being in a relationship with a white woman was me taking power back for myself from the societal norm. kinda feels like...i already play into so many of the stereotypes, i dont want to play into this one too just to prove them all right. but actually i dont know any asian guy friends of mine that are ace. and maybe the struggle is harder for them because they actually are interested in pursuing heteronormative relationships. and it makes me feel that i would misrepresent my fellow asian men by being me. there's no direction in this post, but this introspection will benefit me somehow, someday.

#asian american #asexual #aromantic #aroace #model minority #societal issues #societal expectations

[nerozane]

Maybe because I was spoilt by other character creator games, but it really does suck having facial options for your Tav be white, white, pretty white, hot white, black, Asian. Maybe lucky having a second vague Asian face.

And some of the smaller species don't have black or Asian faces which. feels bad. I wanted to make my eldritch knight fight, who is a Vietnamese half orc, but they are masculine body type but there's no Asian face for half-orcs.

Even for the male gnomes and dwarves have only white faces for those species and I'm >:/ and it sucks because Larian can make extensive facial options (dragonborn has so many I adore them), but for the others there's not any.

Paired with the fact that most of the origin cast + sidekicks and NPCs that visit your camp or play a huge part in each origin char is white. The only very significant bipoc characters to any arc is Wyll (black), Duke Ravengard(black), Thaniel(he's Asian tho you can interpret him as being white)... and Cazador(Asian). Which the latter is yikes since he's an abuser (and alluded rapist).

#bg3 critical #baldurs gate 3 critical #i fucking hated cazador as being asian simply because in a sea of white having an significant antagonist be asian featured is 😬 #it wouldn't be an issue if again... there were more bipoc npcs that were humanoid #like theres so many opportunities and also like the characyer we have doesnt speak except in a few moments #its just bums me out whenever i try to get motivation to do another playthru but i just dont feel it #i am struggling with playing origin wyll #also like the norm being white black and asian is frankly so irritating in general for all video games #theres like bipoc that arent white african american and east asian

[navree]

also this show (i think it's a tv show, imdb is saying it's a tv show) has the potential to be either very good or very bad purely based on time period because, well, they've made harley asian-american, jim gordon is black, bruce wayne is a jewish man, and depending how far they get into his life, he has a romani son and a daughter of east asian descent, all of which are identities that come with a lot of baggage in the 1940s in a way they don't in honestly any other time period and idk if i entirely trust bruce timm to handle that

#personal #batman: caped crusader #like am i reading way too much into a cartoon? yeah probably #but like jim gordon is a black cop in the 1940s that's gonna come with a lot of issues #harley is asian-american in this adaptation (they don't specify it beyond that) so how does she react to anti asian racism #that came from the us's involvement in the pacific theater in the 1940s? is that gonna affect her villain turn? (is joker even in this?) #bruce is a jewish man pursuing vigilante justice while an entire genocide against jewish people is happening one ocean away #that a LOT of people in his country are turning a blind eye to #how does THAT affect him and the vigilantism he participates in?

[magnoliamyrrh]

thats why it hurts my brain too when ppl have intense ass arguments abt what race specific "hard to classify" groups are

the balkans are just one example of this bc weve been considered a bunch of shit throughout history and we exist in a weird position always but. there are So Many ethnic groups and regions of the world which are like this

and ppl will go on entire things with the upmost seriousness trying to "race" whatever ethnicity when its like....... dude do you not understand.... does the entire argument itself not make you see.... this is all made up and this conversation makes no damn sense bc there isnt actually any sort of biological basis that this shit is based on ,, ,,, race is Largely some bullshit made up for the sake of oppression and youre trying So Hard to shove ppl into it instead of understanding the complexities of the situation...why..... pls stop

#are somalis black or arab? god i wish we could just stop w this also as if there aren't afro arabs as if historically #what we call arabs arent one of the fitst ppls out of africa as if there arent dark skinned arabs w curly hair #as if there isnt MORE diversity between africans than there is with non africans 😭😭 bro black or even african isnt any race theyre the #oldest ppl on earth the amount of genetic variation is insaaaneee #does the endless conversation itself not show this is a social issue not a real biological issue ppl are being shoved into and shoving #themselves into???? #are balkan ppl white. are slavs white. #dude what the fuck is the white race. weve been considereded white recently were also not like???? #are the kuchi people of aghanistan and india white? asian? #this entire convo is stupid race isnt a thing they are people they are a nomadic ethnic group w a history #STOP #are indigenous americans asians or indigenous??? well they come from asians but again this convo goes in circles bc neither asian or native #american as a Race is an actual thing that Exists #Race is some bullshit made up for oppression and which largely still exists today for oppression Or in the best case scenario to #classify broad groups of ppl together based on looks #but its not a Real Thing with Real Definine Lines and Real Biology which there are Real Answers To

[solipseismic]

on the one hand. but on the other. u ever look at a popular fandom wherein fic authors put all the EAsian characters next to each other and go "they would all be friends and bond by being asian together" ummm you put a deeply patriotic south korean character next to a deeply patriotic japanese character. perhaps .. this is not as thoughtful as you are thinking it is.

#like YES it's different in the states on account of the racisms do not care if you are japanese vs korean so generally: not an issue (to me) #it's different for different generations ime. but like. solidarity. some of the best n most understanding ppl ive talked to in recent years #have been japanese american chinese american etc #but u know i might as well say it since it's in the tags but #'he would not fucking say that' to overwatch fic writers who make hanzo and hana best friends because Oh #East Asian Buddies! #bro hana works for the SK government and hanzo was probably raised believing that japanese imperialism is the sole good in the world #like; a little thought please #thanks. #partially spurred by. waves hand #partially spurred by fic author going 'oh of course hanzo makes kimchi for hana he's like an older brother' #japanese kimchi is VERY DIFFERENT from korean kimchi and it's NOT THAT HARD TO MAKE. ESPECIALLY!!!!!!! if u have been raised in korea #but oh because they're both east asian-- #throws hands up #the most petty of trivial asshole things to be peeved by #however; #croidhe

[cheesey-rice]

And also I think I found it harder to understand/be sympathetic towards ambrosius when I read the comic but like having him and ballisters relationship shown up front is so important in adding just these Stakes of kind of showing what they had, and like the idea that you can survive in this institution with just this one person as your pillar of support but that it's also something that can exist without that system in a different context and having to rediscover that..... Hmmmnmm

#sorry this is on tumblr bc my frjends are sleeping now and ik still thinking about it #ALSO PROBABLY REALLY HELPS MY SYMPATHY TOWARDS AMBROSIUS THAT HE IS ASIAN AND PLAYED BY A GAY ICON #IN THE FILM. well like Wasian probably but still even in like a film with the kind of generic diversity that doesnt have to rely on like any #kind of basis of race irl and can just have characters of any color that we can relate to i do just have so many feelings about asian #ambrosius just because like i think his struggles are definitely things that a lot of asian american kids could see themselves in you know #abd i hadnt thought about the 'being the golden child' or like not asking for expectations but being born to them in quite that context of #like my experience of those things as the son of an immigrant when his design was white twink with princess hair #wasian experience in particular of sometimes convincing yourself youre an insider to a system that still on the whole regards you as other #and systematically affects you the same way as your peers and having to realize you are in some ways participating in your own oppression #if you act like passing and not discussing issues of race is the best way to get by #nimona spoilers

[booksandsocialissues]

Gender's Role in M. Butterfly

Gender is a social construct, a malleable idea that is influenced by society. Carolyn M. Mazure from Yale School of Medicine states gender as “self-representation influenced by social, cultural, and personal experience.”[1] Many people want to insist there is only the binary of male and female, man and woman, masculine and feminine. However, gender is more nuanced than a monolithic binary. A person’s gender is a personal matter based on how they perceive themselves: man, woman, nonbinary, genderqueer, gender fluid, agender, or transgender. Regardless of how a person identifies, the world can perceive that person differently, as is the case for Song Liling in David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly.

For those of you who have never read M. Butterfly, it is a play about Rene Gallimard, a cisgender white man, recounting his time with Song Liling – a Chinese, non-cisgendered opera singer who presents as a woman and a man. Gallimard is a married French man living in Beijing in the 1960s who becomes enamored with Liling after hearing them sing “Un Bel Di” from Madama Butterfly. Gallimard is so taken with the story of Lieutenant Pinkerton and Cio-Cio-San that he imposes the characterization of Cio-Cio-San onto Liling, calling them “Butterfly” for most of the play. Dressed as a woman in traditional Chinese female clothing, Liling lets Gallimard continue to believe they are a woman as they spy on Gallimard for the Chinese government. By the end, Gallimard cannot accept Song and their male body, so their story ends in tragedy.

While the fact that Gallimard is white and Liling is Chinese is important, M. Butterfly would be a different story without Liling’s gender influencing the story. Gallimard first sees Liling dressed as a feminine, graceful opera singer, and it is dressed as such that Gallimard assumes Liling to be a woman with female anatomy. Liling goes to great lengths to maintain their feminine appearance and persona as they spy on Gallimard, dressing as a woman when not performing and buying a child to claim him as Gallimard’s and Liling’s son. Yet, in act three, scene one, Liling dresses as man to match his sex during their and Gallimard’s espionage trial in Paris. Then, in act two, he takes of his clothes to prove to Gallimard that Liling was always a man, regardless of how Liling presented their gender to Gallimard. Yet Gallimard refuses to accept song as anything but a woman – his Butterfly. If Liling had been a woman all along, Gallimard would have rejected Liling for being a woman who dared to use, manipulate, and spy on him, calling into question Gallimard’s masculinity and his sense of power and authority. Since Liling does not have female anatomy, Gallimard focuses on his former lover’s body not matching their womanly presentation and, therefore, Gallimard’s delusion of Liling being his Butterfly.

As important and influential as Liling’s gender is to the play’s plot, their gender also plays a significant role with the play’s audience. Although transgender people can be found in literature throughout history, the quantity of the gender identity’s representation is low. As such, many readers view Liling as transgender due to Liling’s preference to dress as a woman more often than necessary. In act two, scene four, Liling’s handler, Comrade Chin, calls out Liling for this preference, “…You’re wearing a dress. And every time I come here, you’re wearing a dress.”[2] Liling does not outright call himself a woman, though. In act three, scene two, during his physical reveal to Gallimard, Liling undresses for Gallimard in an attempt to convince him that Liling, regardless of clothing and anatomy, is still Gallimard’s Butterfly. Liling calls their time in the kimono and wig a part they played. They strip completely, revealing their male body, and then they have Gallimard touch their skin while they cover his eyes to remind his that the skin Gallimard is touching is the same skin he touched when Liling dressed as a woman. While Gallimard does accept Liling’s male body, he refuses to accept that his Butterfly is male. Liling insisting Gallimard accept their male body does not negate the opinion of reader’s that Liling is a transgender woman. The play contains enough evidence to support that opinion. Yet the play also contains enough support for another opinion on Liling’s gender: Liling is a cisgender male and a drag queen. Even though Liling dresses as a woman for acts one and two, using she/her pronouns anytime they are dressed thusly, Liling spends act three dressed as a man and uses he/him pronouns. A drag queen makes sense because they have their male identity for their everyday lives, and then they have their female persona when they perform, and Liling is a performer, an opera singer. With both transgender people and drag queens being negatively portrayed in the media and targeted in numerous bills in the United States, both readings of Liling’s character are valid and important because both interpretations show there is more to gender than man and woman, masculine and feminine.

In her essay, “We’re All Someone’s Freak,” Gwendolyn Ann Smith – a transgender woman, writer, and activist – discusses people’s need to put others in nice, neat boxes, to make others be an either/or: man or woman, normal or freak. Smith writes, “We just want to identify the ‘real’ freaks, so we can feel closer to normal. In reality, not a single one of us is so magically normative as to claim the right to separate out the freaks from everyone else. We are all freaks to someone.”[3] Like transgender people and drag queens are “freaks” in today’s society, Liling – whether transgender or a drag queen – was Gallimard’s freak. Gallimard could not put Liling in the nice, neat “woman” box, could not accept that he fell in love with a male body in woman’s clothing. Liling being Gallimard’s freak prevented the latter from accepting the former as they are, leaving Liling alone and Gallimard lost to his fantasy of his Butterfly.

The takeaway from this is that M. Butterfly would not be the lasting, influential story that it is without the role of Song Liling’s gender. Liling having a male body while dressing in women’s clothing shaped their relationship with Gallimard, played a significant role in their ability to spy on Gallimard, and lead to the tragic ending of Liling’s and Gallimard’s relationship. Transgender or drag queen, Liling was Gallimard’s freak, and Liling being who they were will continue to be valid and important in a reality where gender is a social construct.

[1] Mazure, Carolyn M. “What Do We Mean by Sex and Gender?” Yale School of Medicine, Yale School of Medicine, 19 Sept. 2021, medicine.yale.edu/news-article/what-do-we-mean-by-sex-and-gender/.

[2] Hwang, David Henry. M. Butterfly. Penguin Books, 1989, pp. 46.

[3] Smith, Gwendolyn Ann. “We’re All Someone’s Freak.” The Norton Reader: An Anthology of Nonfiction, edited by Melissa A. Goldthwaite et al., 15th ed., W. W. Norton, 2020, pp. 145-47.

#literature #asian american literature #gender identity #social issues

[shirkers2018dirsanditan]

The pressing issue was land. In the post-Civil War years, Black-freedom advocates such as Edward P. McCabe proposed flooding Indian Territory with Black towns, establishing the demographic foothold for a future Black-majority state. As the chronicler A. G. Stacey wrote at the time, “There is a secret political society in existence . . . which is based upon the principles of Negro advancement, mentally and morally, and the future control of Oklahoma whenever it shall become a state.” The creators of such plans were blind to the concerns of Indians and did not hesitate to align Black and white settlers against them. Frederick Douglass assured a crowd in 1869, “The negro is more like the white man than the Indian, in his tastes and tendencies, and disposition to accept civilization.” Where the Indian “rejects our civilization,” he went on, “it is not so with the negro. He loves you and remains with you, under all circumstances, in slavery and in freedom.”

Gayle is not wrong to name Claude Cox and Alexander Posey as anti-Black racists. The more interesting question, however, is how their racism was shaped by concerns for their people, their polities, and their dwindling land. At the Sequoyah Constitutional Convention of 1905, several tribes sought to establish an Indian state from Indian Territory, bringing a petition to Congress that was swiftly rejected. The secretary to that convention was Posey, a complicated, sometimes contradictory thinker who was devoted to the politics and the aspirations of his tribe. To see his racism clearly is to see a desperate collision between the ambitions of Black and Native peoples.

....

When it comes to belonging, two cultural problems intertwine. Black Creek claims to Creek identity—at least in Gayle’s account—tend to be genealogical, full of blood essentialisms, and sometimes disengaged from the ongoing vitality of Muscogee culture. Figures such as Jake Simmons, Jr., for instance, seem to care most about leveraging Black success out of Native citizenship, leasing and selling Creek land to corporations. At the same time, the historically rooted culture of Muscogee anti-Black racism is not merely abhorrent but unsustainable, offering no path to the future for anyone involved. When it comes to citizenship, two political problems intertwine. Native sovereignty, in the American context, rests upon the legal authority of treaties. So, too, do Black rights to Native membership. The various arguments about Native identity bounce between cultural ties and political claims, all exuding moral authority but none fully authoritative. In this sense, one of Gayle’s maxims proves compelling: Black Creek stories, rich with both the subtleties and the crudenesses of America’s racial history, force us all to contemplate new forms of reckoning.

#this article is crazyyyy good #it provides a great perspective on slavery in the civilized tribes; ongoing conflicts over tribal membership; and is not overly simplistic #the more that we talk about slavery in the civilized tribes and discrimination against freedmen in these tribes the more the issues gets #shoehorned into the afropessimist perspective #even when people attribute the conflict to white supremacy #and yes. although beneath white supremacy is capitalism and forced scarcity #not to mention nationalism and nation state politics #but my point is always. always. that history never actually fits into the narratives we create to understand it #just like the present doesn't #its hard to avoid essentializing issues because you want to have a moral center and you want to comprehend something #especially through the lens of current politics and social organizations #and our historical foundation literally has taught us to look at american society as divided into a hierarchy #that roughly goes white/east and south asian/everybody else/brown latinos/natives/black people with natives and black people sometimes #reversed #and then we operate with the idea that someone is always on the bottom and someone is always on the top #and that oppression is the product of individuals all together choosing to hurt others for their own gain #or that certain elites use various oppressed people like marionettes to do their bidding #white elite rich elite whatever #and that oppression is a sliding scale based on how much you are oppressed but also how you are used to or on your own will oppress others #but there is not a single group in america that has not contributed to the oppression of another #not to say of what we do to people in the third world #none of our hands our clean and we are not ‘innocent’ #but the vast majority of us are oppressed and suffering in one way or another #and any liberation will be by for and with all of us #yeah

[revenge-of-the-shit]

Anyway now that the hype has long passed I do want to note (as I'm sure this has been noted in many other places) that Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings was a double-edged sword in terms of Chinese American representation.

On one hand, it had a good story, some of the best choreography in the MCU, beautifully designed costumes and fantastical worlds, Tony Leung, Michelle Yeoh, and truly did portray Chinese American & Chinese characters as fleshed-out complex characters. There were quite a few elements of it that made me feel seen, quite frankly, for the first time ever in the Western superhero genre without leaving a bad taste in my mouth. The team did a good job with discarding the extremely racist comic book origins to come up with a new background and storyline that made the movie pretty enjoyable overall and left me feeling quite satisfied once I left the theatre.

That being said-

It was deeply, deeply sanitized for a (mass) white audience. It still falls into many stereotypes and tropes. Shang-Chi is a secret kung fun master with ties to a secret mystical Chinese crime organization. Katy has an H. B. from UBerkley and is a prodigy at archery. Xialing is ALSO a kung fu master. The entire storyline revolves around the return to China trope, and while it does take the characters back to America at the end, the overall storyline seems to hover around this premise: that China is where all the action must happen for characters of Chinese ancestry, that all Chinese people are secretly kung-fu masters or smart prodigies, that the East has this *woo secret mystical oriental flavour with dragons (because what Chinese media isn't complete without dragons haha amirite)!!* that can't be found in the West. As much as I did appreciate the film (and still do somewhat), it's undeniable that this is watered down so that a Western audience could consume it.

There's a reason mainland Chinese audiences didn't like it. The action sequences are like every other Jackie Chan or wuxia sequence you've ever seen in Chinese film. Given how these sequences are almost always extremely high quality, there's a reason this looks amazing compared to the MCU but pretty standard compared to what the usual Chinese moviegoer would see. The worldbuilding in Ta Lo is minimal and clearly written from a Western perspective, especially when compared to much of Chinese fantasy or xianxia media. Every time someone tells me that this film was made for mainland China, I laugh - this movie couldn't be more clearly targeted to a Western audience. Overall, while Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings certainly has its merits and is indeed a step forward in bringing Chinese American superheroes to mainstream media, it's also a continued step on the wrong path of stereotypes and overused tropes.

Anyway if you want a good film with Chinese American representation PLEASE go see Everything Everywhere All At Once that movie is better in literally every single way

#mcu #chinese representation #shang-chi #shang chi and the legend of the ten rings #scatlottr #non sw #this movie also devolved into the mcu issue of turnign into a CGI fuckfest at the end and that took away a lot of the emotional impact #mcu critical #there's also the fact that they keep calling this the first asian american hero and made a big deal about asian american representation #yes Shang-Chi is Chinese and so he's also Asian but #China is NOT all of Asia as a lot of Westerners like to think it is?? #like there's so many other rich cultures in Asia and pretending that China encompasses all of it is lazy and ignorant #and just looking for brownie points because wowie representation!

[melancholyjones]

Re: lagoona not being Australian anymore

White Australians are not an underrepresented group in American media. "Underrepresented" doesn't mean "doesn't show up a lot in media", it means "doesn't show up a lot in media compared to how much of the real life population they comprise"

Nothing about being Australian is integral to lagoona's character beyond surface level. It was literally only for the sake of "down under (the sea)" jokes. The important part is that she's an exchange student

The creature from the black lagoon (the film/character lagoona's inspired by) is set in south america

The same goes for abbey not being Russian. Her race/ethnicity was always ambiguous. She IS from the Himalayan region, ie south/central Asia. The russian accent only happened bc mattel wanted her to be a "funny sounding foreigner" but had the sense not to apply that to an asian accent. So they gave her a russian 1 instead, bc american audiences assume russian = white

#once again a social equity concept/term has been oversimplified & misused #racially/ethnically authentic casting choices are an issue of UNDERREPRESENTATION not 'ACCURACY' #I'm of 2 minds about draculaura bc eastern europeans have been subsumed into the american idea of whiteness #but i know in europe they're not #& eastern european accents don't have the same stigma in the US that 'nonwhite' accents do #in terms of ppl making assumptions about the speaker's intelligence/morality/aggression #so losing the draccent isn't a big deal to me #& in terms of how vampires specifically are depicted in american media it's more refreshing to see a phenotypically asian drac #than another pale skinned dark haired racialized as white drac #so i dunno #monster high