When I think about great representation of Asian-Americans in media, my mind goes straight to Joan Watson of Elementary. She’s shown as a full and flawed person, one who was uncertain about her career, who experienced trauma, struggled with the urge to please someone she felt beholden to, and has a complex but entirely normal family history and relationships. Her wry line about not speaking Chinese as well as her mom would like her to is the sort of thing I’ve heard over and over from Asian-Americans I know.

I was also deeply moved by the story of her biological father’s struggle with mental illness and homelessness, the sadness she felt about it and the way she turned it to positivity–as she always does–by helping people. Mental illness is taboo in a lot of Asian communities, and Western media portrayals of Asian minority populations tend to either erase the subject entirely or use it to demonize characters. The story of Joan’s birth father was a refreshing break from that.

I also love Joan with her adoptive father Henry, their argument over Henry’s book, his attempts to reconnect with her through his craft in admittedly cringey ways. I loved the casual recognition of Joan’s multiracial family, Henry’s white and he’s her dad, no big issue there. As a family they deal with normal if sometimes very fraught family stuff like father-daughter relationships and marital problems and Joan’s mother being eccentric. I also liked the subtle recognition that Joan is very much Henry’s daughter when she wrote her own novel about Sherlock’s cases, though she is more ethical and did not try to publish it without Sherlock’s consent.

Elementary might not be a perfect show but it got a whole lot of things right and Joan’s characterization is one of them. I hope more creators take note of how it was done.

I’m nervous to even ask a question that I need to give a disclaimer to, but my intention with this ask is only to learn about representation in media, and what to look out for in the things I enjoy as well as what I create. Given the recent reveal of Nagini by J.K. Rowling, it’s been on my mind a lot what is racist and problematic representation. We want to see difficult, nuanced roles given to POC. Unfortunately, some of those roles by nature will include sketchy backstory and/or (1/)

thehungryvortigaunt:

lj-writes:

irrefutable analogues to real life or history that makes that
representation icky or racist. Let’s take Nagini for instance. Imagine a
raceless character for a moment. A girl is born into a magical world
with a disease that will slowly transform her from a human form. As she
grows up, she learns this is passed on from her mother, who knew this
would happen, but had her anyway. She grows to resent her mother as she
starts to turn, and begins to buy into a blood purity narrative she
hears from(2/)

the corners of society. She finds someone in Riddle who
simultaneously loves her and understands her in her new form and shares
her purity beliefs. She devotes her life to him and views carrying a
piece of his soul as the deepest form of love he knows. So, I’ve read
now from countless Asian people why this character is so problematic,
and it seems so obvious to me once I heard from their point of view. Yet
the ignorant part of me wants to say, “This could be such an incredible
character. (3/?)

Why shouldn’t she be able to be played by someone of Asian
descent just because the real world sucks and has disgusting parallels.”
So my ultimate question is, is there a point where we are so aware of
problematic representation that we miss out on opportunities to
represent? If the creator is of a particular culture or color, does that
change what is acceptable, because we can trust them better to
represent without leaning on inherent biases? (4/4)

I think a work or character can be profoundly moving and deeply problematic all at once. For instance we can criticize the ableist implications in Gollum’s depiction while still enjoying the character and his story. Maybe Nagini’s will similarly be a well-told story that rings true like the one you describe, even if it would leave a bad taste in my mouth.

The questions you raise are ones I’ve struggled with, too, as have many others. We want marginalized identities to be represented as complex and meaty characters, obviously, not just bland, smiling tokens. That complexity includes great evil. I myself envisioned Bellatrix as a Korean-Chinese woman in a fanfic written between Books 4 and 5 before her name and details came out, and readers commented positively on how scary she was even as a teenager. Her brand of violent fanaticism from the Book 4 trial scene really resonated with me, and I drew from Korea’s post-liberation history of ideology-driven atrocities for her depiction. All this is to say I am most definitely not averse to evil characters who look like me, and I imagine this is true of many others who criticize Nagini as Asian representation.

So what’s the line between racist demonization and full, rich depictions of evil characters who happen to be minorities? I think one major issue with Nagini in the context of the HP franchise and the media environment in general is lopsidedness. If Western media had many examples of positive as well as negative representations of Asians and one of them, Nagini, happened to have taken up beliefs about blood purity as a wrongful response to understandable resentments and being preyed on by a powerful Dark magic user, I don’t think I’d mind as much. I mean I’d still be weirded out by her being a Korean woman with a Sanskrit name, but that could be Voldemort being a racist shithead because quelle surprise. Heck, if HP itself regularly treated Asian characters as complex and complete characters instead of bit parts and misogynistic caricatures torn down for the sake of the main white girls, I would not mind as much either. Instead, one of the very few times there is a major Asian character she’s the animal thrall of a magical fascist and thaaaat’s pretty uncomfortable.

Your question about the creator’s identity is an interesting one, too. I mean maybe I’d feel more comfortable if the creator were Asian herself, but that’s more as a matter of statistical probability since a lot of biases get internalized. Personally I think empathy, a sense of balance, and humility go a heck of lot farther than identity alone. What’s really terrifying about societal bigotry is that it allows people in the dominant group to get a pass for underdeveloping and underusing these qualities when it comes to people different than them. Empathy is not inherent in any one race but if you’re, say, a white person in the West you are encouraged in large and small ways to withhold empathy from racial minorities and you can function without being empathetic to their marginalization. The same goes for representation–there’s nothing saying that a white woman can’t depict a fictional Asian woman with sympathy and nuance, but societal racism means that she can get away with not doing so and will still be praised for it.

“Imagine a raceless character for a moment.”

LOL

I don’t see anything more than just tired regurgitations of the tragic Asian lover from shitshows like Madame Butterfly/Miss Saigon and the ‘sexy evil Dragon/Serpent Lady’ that westerners LOVE to perceive Asian women as. Even if this character were white, this retcon is also utterly pointless and misogynistic because of how the main text in Harry Potter literally dehumanizes her to the point that she’s a tool whose destruction to weaken the male villain is celebrated. People have pointed out that Cho and the Patil sisters, the most prominent Asians in HP, are either marginalized OR presented as inferior to Cool Girl Ginny because they’re “too emotional”/literally traumatized by the loss of a lover. And in Fantastic Beasts, every non-white woman is either portrayed as an incompetent racist obstructive bureaucrat, a servant, or an executioner.

People really need to stop giving the mediocre racist JK a pass and realize that she’s an opportunist who takes credit for her fans’ attempts to ‘diversify’ the text without actually taking any lessons from them in improving her own writing.

P.S. For what it’s worth, I imagined Bellatrix Lestrange as an Indian Brit – but in my experience, ‘racebending’ from fans generally prefers to brownwash characters they believe are sympathetic rather than evil.

fuckyeahasexual:

Asexuals In Fiction 4.0

It’s the fourth year I’ve put together this list and it’s so huge I can no longer host in on tumblr. Click over to google database and you will find 51 YA novels, 14 New Adult novels, and 22 Adult novels. As well three video game characters and five comic books characters.

Not only will this database tell you if there’s an asexual it also includes the following: Series name, character name, own voice authors, type of rep, genre, main character or minor, and if it includes other representation of some sort.

I know you’re mainly a star wars blog but I wanted to know what you think of Nagini being a korean woman?? I don’t want to rain on her actor’s parade but the whole thing doesn’t look good imo

sophrosynic:

lj-writes:

lj-writes:

I fucking hate it. There are so many layers of fuckery here it’s hard to unpack, but just confining myself to the casting:

Nagini is a Sanskrit name and yet she is played by a Korean woman. Not that casting an Indian woman would have made this shitshow any more palatable, but the idea that Asian identities are largely interchangeable? The levels of racist ignorance wow.

Yet again, the face of “Asia” is the palest East Asians. We already have a problem with Asia, the largest continent in the world and a hugely diverse one, being thought of as mostly Northeast Asia, with other groups regularly erased. Nice way to make this explicit. Again, not that casting a Desi woman would have made it better because this whole idea is so fucked from the start, but it is an extra shit cherry on top.

The exotic Asian slave woman who in this case is literally dehumanized, just gahhhhh no.

I don’t blame Claudia Kim for taking the role, actors of color often have to make the choice between shitty jobs and no jobs at all. This may well have been one of her better offers for all we know. I do blame Rowling for masterminding this total shitshow.

I’d like to correct myself on one point: At the VERY LEAST, if this massive fuckup of an idea was going to go through they should have cast an Indian/Desi actress. This whole character concept is a shitty ripoff of South/Southeast Asian culture and an actor from that culture should have benefited from it career-wise. Kim might not have been responsible for the final decision but she did benefit from her privilege as a lighter-skinned woman who keeps being seen as more “Asian” and more acceptably exotic than Desi women and many many other groups of Asian women.

No offence but as a south asian woman this whole “representation” bullshit is the least of our problems. Like, the idea that we would want or need an incredibly racist caricature like this to be “”“accurate”“ in its racism is a fucked up take.

Nobody benefits from this mess. JKR should never have touched this story with a ten foot pole to begin with. Nobody needs shitty crumbs like this for representation. “But at least it would have helped someone if it were accurate!” Oh goodie. Because *that* makes up for what a racist, exotifying, fucked up mess of a story all of this is, where a white British racist eventually keeps the trapped spirit of a brown woman in a snake as a pet. Yeah. That’s not fucked up and terrible at ALL.

There are multiple layers of fuckery to this and all of them are terrible and awful and something JKR should have never engaged with because she is a white British woman who cannot even remotely conceive of including non-white, non-British characters and mythologies in her story in a decent way. Woc deserve better representation than this, we always have, and always will. We deserve narratives that treat us with respect. Period.

Oh I don’t mean this is good representation at all in any way, of course. I completely agree this should not have been a thing in the first place. I was talking purely about an actor’s career that would have been helped or even launched by this shitty, shitty role that would enable her to be in exponentially better movies in the future. Representation wise I can’t even begin to wonder if casting a brown woman as Nagini would be better or worse than the blatant cultural misrepresentation and lightwashing. It’s like trying to decide whether diarrhea or pus is more disgusting.

birdcagesanddemons:

chuchisriyo:

forestpenguin:

GET A LOAD OF THIS BS

The actress who plays Nagini is… Korean.

(also Indonesia is far from the only place with Naga snake myths, the word naga itself is Sanskrit which is from India/South Asia….. JKR keeps digging herself a deeper and deeper grave)

they literally had a bollywood movie called nagin a couple decades ago about a snake who could transform into a woman like gtfo jkr

Did someone ask her why Nagini is played by a Korean actress?

This bitch would probably go “Indonesia? India? Korea? Pfffffft. Same difference.” Also she’s not the casting director, so the fuckup goes way beyond her. It’s societal and systematic.

I know you’re mainly a star wars blog but I wanted to know what you think of Nagini being a korean woman?? I don’t want to rain on her actor’s parade but the whole thing doesn’t look good imo

thehungryvortigaunt:

lj-writes:

I fucking hate it. There are so many layers of fuckery here it’s hard to unpack, but just confining myself to the casting:

Nagini is a Sanskrit name and yet she is played by a Korean woman. Not that casting an Indian woman would have made this shitshow any more palatable, but the idea that Asian identities are largely interchangeable? The levels of racist ignorance wow.

Yet again, the face of “Asia” is the palest East Asians. We already have a problem with Asia, the largest continent in the world and a hugely diverse one, being thought of as mostly Northeast Asia, with other groups regularly erased. Nice way to make this explicit. Again, not that casting a Desi woman would have made it better because this whole idea is so fucked from the start, but it is an extra shit cherry on top.

The exotic Asian slave woman who in this case is literally dehumanized, just gahhhhh no.

I don’t blame Claudia Kim for taking the role, actors of color often have to make the choice between shitty jobs and no jobs at all. This may well have been one of her better offers for all we know. I do blame Rowling for masterminding this total shitshow.

Does Rowling have a personal grudge against Asian women? First Cho getting screwed over, now this…

She didn’t treat Parvati and Padme all that well, either. Can white women stop projecting their insecurities and aggressions on Asian girls, like, 100 years ago?

animatedworldsworld:

Women barely get any notice in animation let alone WOC so here’s an appreciation thread for them

Josie Trinidad a Filipino story artist who was head of story on Zootopia,Wreck It Ralph and the upcoming Ralph Breaks the Internet

Jennifer Yuh Nelson is a Korean Story artist at Dreamworks also director of Kung Fu Panda 2 and Kung Fu Panda 3 Yuh is the first woman to solely direct an animated feature from a major Hollywood studio.

Fawn Veerasunthorn,who was born and raised in Thailand who moved to America to work at Disney without knowing English and now works at Disney Animation as a Story Artist and Story Supervisor

Domee Shi a Story Artist and Director at Pixar who was born China and Raised in Toronto she just recently directed Bao the short in front of the incredibles 2 and is now set to direct her first full length feature at Pixar

Feel free to add more that I may have missed

Live-action Avatar on a Marco Polo budget also has the potential to bring a level of scale that the show couldn’t always achieve because of budgetary constraints. All realized through appropriately casted actors.

bubblepunk99s:

lj-writes:

I would love that to happen. And to the people crying “Why not do a new thing?” Well… that really comes down to the budget part. A sequel, side story, or new story isn’t going to get anywhere nearly the investment of a story that’s already enjoyed worldwide popularity for 10+ years now. That sucks, but it’s a business decision at heart and well in line with current trends. No one has to like it, but to act like the original show is some kind of holy thing that can’t be touched as opposed to a commercial property that can be used to make money, and even worse, to say Asian actors can’t surpass the original, mostly white VAs in portraying Asian characters? That’s just yikes.

Also it might just get tiring to do new additions to the series without end. Looking at the old with fresh eyes could be warranted and make for an interesting experience when compared to the original @lj-writes

Yeah, this geek fallacy that “my favorite thing is the height of perfection and nothing could improve on it” is old and tired, not to mention it intersects in obnoxious ways with the newer trend of greater diversity and representation. Maybe the new show will be great, maybe it won’t, but there’s really no point in tearing it down before we even know anything about it.

kittenn1011:

frisktastic:

gayamericanoutlaw:

shipwhateveryouwant:

just-antithings:

frisktastic:

tumblr: when people include racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. ideas in their stories it has real life consequences

also tumblr: but ships are never problematic, what’s with all these “antis”? it’s just fictional and can’t affect anything

Just Anti Things: I honestly don’t see any difference between popular mass media and someone’s obscure fanfic

this….isn’t a new argument. we’ve had it before. many times. representation matters, people can also ship what they want. those don’t contradict each other.

Here’s the thing:

Fiction does not equal reality, nor does fiction have a 1:1 influence on reality.

However, good fiction — even (and in some ways especially) speculative and genre fiction — REFLECTS reality.

An example could be film noir, which experienced a boom during and directly after World War II because its gloomy moods, jaded protagonists, and disillusioned view of the world mirrored that of wartime and postwar America. Another could be the influx of ‘fuck the system’ films like “Bonnie and Clyde” or “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” during the countercultral 60s and 70s (granted, this was also partially due to the lifting of the Hays Code and the end of the Hollywood Blacklist). Yet another could be the theory that zombie and vampire films experience surges in popularity depending on who’s president (according to the theory, zombies are rightists as seen by leftists and vampires are leftists as seen by rightists). Every piece of fiction, ultimately, is in at least some small way a product of its time and its creator. Even the most out-there fantasies or the grittiest thrillers have universal archetypes at their core. When someone sets out to write a story, they are at the core of it either writing about their own experience, or writing about some aspect of the human condition that fascinates them. (Which is where “problematic” content comes in, because let’s be real: many, many aspects of the human condition aren’t pretty.)

So, the anti-anti/pro-fiction belief is as follows:

1: Fiction is not reality. Writing about something does not mean that you condone it IRL. 2: Fiction does not directly influence reality in a ‘monkey see, monkey do’ sense. Someone who had no plans to commit an atrocious act isn’t suddenly going to start making those plans because they read in a novel about said act being committed. Furthermore, someone who is psychologically able to distinguish reality from unreality, and morally able to distinguish an acceptable action from an unacceptable one, isn’t going to start condoning atrocious acts committed by other real-life people because they read about them in a novel. 3: Fiction does reflect reality. Representation matters because everyone deserves to see their own reality reflected in the stories they consume — and, for the general betterment of society, everyone needs to see other people’s realities reflected in the stories they consume, because the old adage about not judging someone’s life until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes holds true. Furthermore, if stories are being produced that are sexist/racist/homophobic/transphobic/ableist — especially if it’s a recurring trope — that needs to be addressed because it reflects the sexism/racism/homophobia/transphobia/ableism present in culture at large; for example, the “Bury Your Gays” trope, which originated with restrictions present in the Hays Code, draws such backlash because LGBTQ+ audience members want fiction to reflect that our culture has grown in acceptance of LGBTQ+ people since the Hays Code era.

TL;DR: “People should be allowed to write and read what they want because fiction isn’t reality” and “Representation matters because fiction should reflect ALL realities,” are not mutually exclusive ideas, and, in fact, both are important to understand in order to criticize media responsibly.

I suppose I shouldn’t be suprised that this is what ended up happening to the post, but I think it’s good opportunity to point out something

for like 90, 95% of cases, “antis” (wish there was a better term) and antiantis actually agree

I literally agree with everything the person above said.

Most antis are NOT saying you shouldnt be allowed to reflect reality. For some reason, antianti’s understanding of anti’s position is almost always this strawman

People aren’t saying you can’t show murder, or pedophilia, or racist things

We’re just saying you shouldn’t be condoning them, or romanticizing them. That’s it. Whether that’s in fiction or fanfiction or in posts online.

Point 2 is something I really agree with! That’s why “video games make people violent” is wrong.

But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m not talking about a monkey see monkey do kind of thing.

“Furthermore, if stories are being produced that are sexist/racist/homophobic/transphobic/ableist— especially if it’s a recurring trope—that needs to be addressed.“
This is all I’m saying. This is literally the whole “anti” argument.

It’s frustrating that most people reblogging this post now will probably never see my clarifications, but I hope a few people will.

Also this is exactly why “anti” and “antianti” are such bad terms. Anti WHAT? The long but more accurate terms would be “believes even fan fiction and shipping can spread problematic ideas” and “believes fan fiction and shipping don’t have that kind of power.”

Okay but jumping back a few posts… “the difference between mass media and obscure fanfic” seems to be referencing the major difference being the size of the consumer base… but like, since when was how much you were influenced by a piece of media dependent on the number of people who also read that media?

The thing about the fanfic community is that, yeah, each individual fanfic could have no more than 20 readers they might potentially influence, but that’s still 20 people your work might have real life consequences for, 20 people you might have an impact on.

And unless you’re writing in a void, chances are, you’re not just a single obscure fanfic that might influence 20 people but part of a trend, one fic of many that also follows those same trends which those 20 readers and more are specifically searching out and consuming in as great a quantity as they can. There’s a huge difference in influence between consuming one piece of media with Thing in it and consuming many pieces of media with Thing in it, with the higher consumption side being more influential in favour of Thing… and fanfic readers are wont towards consuming fanfic en mass.

As someone who grew up in fanfic… recurring problematic things in fanfictions had way more of an influence on me than problematic things I encounter in isolation in mass media. Especially regarding things I, as a lonely preteen and later lonely teenager (right up until I wasn’t), had no experience with in the real world like social behaviours and norms portrayed in fanfic after fanfic.

rockcubes:

rockcubes:

luffykun3695:

erikkillmongerdontpullout:

neilnevins:

neilnevins:

Man I’m tired of live action remakes

i know Mike and Bryan are working on the Avatar live action series. Which bodes well for it considering the bar was set incredibly low in 2010. But the continuing idea that animation is a lesser way of telling a story that and that live action remakes are “how it was meant to be seen” just don’t sit well with me.

even with the most cutting-edge CGI, you’d be able to tell when a Fire Nation airship sorely stands out or when Appa has been superimposed in a shot. Every frame of the original show is so beautiful and animation made EVERYTHING feel like this world was completely realized. To date I’d argue it’s one of the most perfect examples of a well told and contained story. Everything felt fleshed out and lived in. What does live action bring to the table that was lacking 13 years ago? I dunno, man.

People forget the beauty of 2d animation

This puts into words exactly what I have been feeling about the live action version. I can’t understand what live action could bring to the story that animation did not. And honestly, I don’t think they can find a cast that is as good as the voice actors. ATLA didn’t just have an amazing story and animation, it had a talented voice cast that I’m just not sure could be replicated.

Im literally screaming to the heavens because I get to see actual Asians and non-white people in live action media that’s based on non-western ideas and here you all are creating a problem that doesn’t exist ain’t nobody talking about trying to surpass the animated series like shut the fuck up

Bitch and wtf u mean they can’t find a cast that is as good as the original voice actors? In case you didn’t know Asians are talented and can bring something amazing to the table

I understand if people don’t think this is necessary or whatever, cool, don’t support it. It’s kind of like how they never made a live-action movie adaptation of ATLA (no they didn’t shut up), you can see a live-action TV version as similarly unnecessary and you can ignore it until the heat death of the universe if you so desire.

But. Like it or not, remakes are a huge trend and it’s also one of the few ways shows can gain traction and recognition in an increasingly competitive media market. This goes double for a cast that will be made up of young actors of color, they’re going to need all the boost they can get. It’s an industry-wide trend that even fucking Disney has deemed to be a good bet.

So why shouldn’t young Asian actors get a better chance at stardom from one of the few cases where Western media portrayed their cultures respectfully and positively, to great acclaim? It’s especially not a great look to say the original, mostly white, actors were irreplaceable, implying they did a better job of portraying the Asian characters than Asian actors could, Like seriously fuck that noise.