#if anyone attacks tea anon and spouts some racist bullshit then I'm coming for their asses

[thewhizzyhead]

yay!!! friend-friends!! :D

and... *sigh* rant time.

please note that I have never watched or listened to this musical, nor do I ever plan to, as I find it very offensive to me and my culture. everyone can have their own opinion, of course, and my opinion should not be considered representative of the entire Vietnamese community as a whole.

(also, major suicide, war, racism, and death tws)

jsjdjf please do not attack me for this

let’s start from the very beginning. the Wikipedia summary of Miss Saigon states that it tells “the tragic tale of a doomed romance involving an Asian woman abandoned by her American lover.”

... okay. okay. first off, that’s just. that’s the basic Wikipedia summary of the musical. and, well, it. doesn’t make me particularly thrilled. It’s also stated that Miss Saigon is based off of the opera Madame Butterfly, a racist and stereotypical piece of media set in Japan (I can’t remember what time period.) this means a couple of things, but to me it kind of means that they didn’t particularly do as much research on the actual experiences of vietnamese people during the Vietnam war as much as they should have.

so the musical basically centers around Kim, a 17 year old girl who works as a prostitute in order to get by. she falls in love with an American soldier who’s name I legitimately do not remember, and falls in love. they both fall in love with each other, but then Saigon falls, America pulls their troops out, Kim is left in Vietnam with soldier-dude’s child. soldier-dude is in despair in America, gets married with another lady, later goes back to Vietnam to find Kim. upon realizing soldier-dude is married to another lady, Kim is in despair, blah blah stuff happens idk what though, and then Kim kills herself so that her son can be adopted by soldier-dude and brought to America for a better life.

... yeah. okay sure. sure, this has it’s roots in true stories and experiences. but. but really, out of everything else, they had to use this. it paints south Vietnam as a victim, and while this war is complicated, with 3 sides (north, south, and America), they barely focus on the fact that the south is fighting to save themselves, too. pretty much every viet character in the musical hates themselves for being Vietnamese (apparently they actually say in the musical that the Vietnamese “think only of rice and hates entrepreneurs”) and the goal of pretty much everyone is to leave and run to America.

oh and also one of the Viet characters calls Vietnamese people “greasy chinks” which. Uh. hello???? what???

god I hate this musical so much. how many people watched it and cried and though they were having an educational experience??? before I was born, my dad actually was attending protests against Miss Saigon, as were many of his friends.

let me just say, if the world’s largest Vietnamese community outside of Vietnam is protesting it... there’s probably something wrong with the musical.

ugugugjghhfh I hate it so much. and then. and then. they sold shirts with Ho Chi Minh and the communist flags on them, and really? selling that stuff as merchandise at a musical about south Vietnam and the effects of the Viet Cong.

anyways. yeah. that’s. that’s the general gist of it I guess... not to mention some of the yellowface casting and ughhhh I don’t really have the energy I need any more but god I hate. this. musical.

haha I’ll go before I say something *too* controversial... I’m just tired of everything these days and I just- this really isn’t the best representation of the Vietnamese community and hhh yeah.

-🍵!

woah holy shit... i didn't know miss saigon was um THAT bad holy shit. all i knew about it was that this musical made lea salonga very famous (which um yea as much as i admire lea i personally believe that vietnamese actors should be the one playing these roles because duh vietnamese story but that's just my opinion) so um wow hearing about this shocked me. from what i'm understanding from what you said, it seems that the musical has some white-savior-ish undertones? like um moving to America and leaving Vietnam the overall goal of the characters that, like you said, hate themselves for being vietnamese is rather yikes... and then selling that kind of merchandise on order to promote the musical is um very tone deaf of them fjdjdjd this was very interesting to read tho tea anon!! Thank you for educating about this and if I'm ever gonna research about Miss Saigon musical context and controversies someday then I'm definitely gonna keep these in mind!

#i have some more thoughts on these but um i'm not that eloquent so welp #and frankly i dont think it's really my place to comment more because a. not vietnamese and b. i dont know much about vietnam history #but yea wow reading this was very enlightening so thank you tea anon!! #i know understand why you want your musical to be some sort of a middle finger towards miss saigon jdjs #i hope you guys get better representation! (and hopefully also in the form of your musical YAYYY) #suicide tw #war tw #racism tw #death tw #also my dudes i Do Not Wanna See Discourse regarding Miss Saigon in my asks (unless you're tea anon and if you're vietnamese) #if anyone attacks tea anon and spouts some racist bullshit then I'm coming for their asses #yay tea anon's here! #ask me stuff