Joss Whedon probably doesn't want to kill Asian people

[seriousfic]

You know, perhaps it's just me, but having seen people saying that Joss Whedon has "well-documented issues with Asian culture" because there were no Asian characters in Firefly, I feel inclined to point out that it's a TV show that lasted 14 episodes and a movie. It's not like Friends, where they spent ten years shooting the shit and Tom Selleck got more screentime than the African people. They were canceled midway through the first season.

Besides which, they spent most of their time dealing with corrupt military/business types, criminals, prostitutes, and psychotic rape-cannibals. So if there had been an Asian character, there's a good chance you'd just be complaining "all the Asians in Firefly are villains or geishas!" I'm just saying, name a random recurring character and then imagine if they were played by an Asian. Would it be a "complimentary" role? Niska? "Fu Manchu wannabe!" Badger? "Scumbag!" Saffron? "Dragon lady!" Hell, you'd get that if one of the main cast were Asian. Jayne? "Oh, the Asian guy is treacherous, thanks Whedon!" Kaylee? "A cute, perky Asian girl? Fuck you, Whedon!"

So please, a little perspective, and let's conclude that while Joss Whedon may be flawed, as is his prerogative as a human being, he doesn't hate Asian people. That's M. Night Shymalan's bit.

ETA: Dichen Lachman as the Wasp? I could live with it. Although after watching her in Dollhouse, I'd buy it if you told me she was playing Captain America. Although then I'd have to start shipping Steve/Tony, because damn, Lachman and Downey? Hotness called, it wants its hot back.

Comments

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

Jayne as an Asian would actually be interesting, simply because his negative qualities - short-sighted, quick-tempered, crude, slovenly, deeply anti-intellectual, inclined to use brute force rather than wit - really don't correspond to any negative stereotypes associated with Asians. It'd be like casting the black character as the socially awkward nerd with the small dick - it's pretty much the exact opposite of what racists say about blacks.

And technically, Simon and River Tam's characters ARE Asian - Joss just didn't see fit to have them PLAYED by Asians.

[telepresence.livejournal.com]

I always wondered about Simon and River. Are they supposed to be literally ethnically Asian but played by Anglo folks? Are they supposed to be the product of a lot of cultures mixing (in various ways), for example I'm African American but have an Irish surname name due to delightful quirks of American history. :) Some mix of the two (for example someone like Martin Sheen who is ethnically half Spanish but basically always presents as Anglo).

I just never knew what they were supposed to be.

For me, the lack of Asian folks was mostly notable in the portrayal of the Alliance military and in say, Ariel. Places where you'd think Asians would have more mainstream influence and presence.

[prozacpark.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, but your argument fails at its conception because it's the argument slashers make for not having women in their fiction, because apparently, having women will lead to gender fail, so it's better to just write about men. And I guess having POC would lead to race fail, so we'll just write about white people all the time. This is exactly how we have ended up with a literary canon filled pretty much only with white men.

[ivanolix.livejournal.com]

You don't have to hate Asian people to appropriate their culture without being interested in their identity. Which is a form of racism, and a very prevalent one because it's not done with poor intentions.

I do think you have a point about switching some of the characters and finding that the stereotypes would be offensive. But, on the other hand, he could have written the characters to be different.

When it comes down to it, he had nine characters in a universe that was supposed to be an even mix of American and Chinese culture, and yet not one was Asian. We know he considered that aspect for Kaylee, Simon, and River. But still did nothing about it. Whether or not he has issues as a human being, I don't go about judging, but what he produced does have race issues.

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

Oh, come off it, you must admit there's a difference between a 2,000 word fic and a series that's 60K. With a short fic, a cast that is pretty much only the main pairing is understandable. When it hits epic-length and there are no women, then you can pull out the... criticizing people... instruments...

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

For me, the lack of Asian folks was mostly notable in the portrayal of the Alliance military and in say, Ariel. Places where you'd think Asians would have more mainstream influence and presence.

I don't think the criticism would be much mollified by nameless extras being Asian, which is what the people in the military and on Ariel amounted to.

[telepresence.livejournal.com]

Perhaps not, but that's where I noticed it most. It's like if Friends had an episode set in Harlem and even there still no black people.

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

I do think you have a point about switching some of the characters and finding that the stereotypes would be offensive. But, on the other hand, he could have written the characters to be different.

I, personally, haven't heard anyone complain about the acting from any of the principals or the group dynamics. I could see how you would want to mess with it in a while, when the formula had gotten stale, but off the bat, the cast was pitch-perfect. I just don't think it would be worth it to change (for example) Inara into an Asian woman who has nothing to do with geishas solely to avoid charges of racism.

When it comes down to it, he had nine characters in a universe that was supposed to be an even mix of American and Chinese culture, and yet not one was Asian.

And if you had stopped Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the middle of its first season, the cast would have been entirely white heterosexual people.

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

Well, just because they're an alliance doesn't mean they're fully integrated. In the European Union, I doubt there are very many neighborhoods where you have Dutchmen living next door to Germans living next door to Brits.

[prozacpark.livejournal.com]

Yes, because Buffy actually ended up being so racially aware and diverse in the next six seasons. Oh, wait, it didn't.

And even so? I would rather have Kendra and Nikki and fangirl them despite the narrative problems than not have them at all. Because you can't improve on their characterization if you never have them in your texts to begin with.

[prozacpark.livejournal.com]

In case you've forgotten, I don't exactly believe that there's a tolerable level of sexism/racism I must be subjected to before I can complain about it.

[liliaeth]

It mostly reminds me of that song in the Dr Horrible Commentary. I think it's called 'that's me' where he jokes about there being no Asians in the movies.

thing is, that song would be a lot funnier, if it weren't for the utter lack of major Asian characters in the Whedonverse. Or hell, Whedon's lack of an ability to deal with characters of color in general. Even Gunn, who could have been an awesome char was relegated mostly to the token black guy, or the foil to Wesley, instead of as a character in his own right.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

When you take someone's culture for the "fun" and "exotic" bits and then exclude the people the culture actually belongs to? That's racist. It doesn't matter if it's a 2 hour movie, half a TV season, or 6 TV seasons.

Also, look at Whedon's track record when he has included Asians. An evil lawyer, a slayer around just long enough for Spike to kill "with style," and his walking symbol for every rape and abuse the writers could think of. If your choice is to not have a group or to include them to be abused and/or make ablebodied white people look cool, then you are being racist. Ditto for when you take indenpendent white women with agency who are leaders who reject their abusers and turn them into Asian women who are hateful, abused shrews.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

There are important Asian characters in the Whedonverse! The evil lawyer, the walking symbol of rape and abuse deliberately deprived of agency, and the slayer around just long enough to give Spike's life a murderous meaining of cool.

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying the show isn't problematic, just that it's a leap from that to "well-documented issues."

And you're forgetting Chao-Ahn? She didn't speak any English, so not helping there, but points for trying?

[rann.livejournal.com]

So they couldn't make the sexism thing stick and decided to try anti-Asian racism?

Guess it just goes to show that you can't win. Make a show with all white people, you'll get called a racist for not including black people. Make a show with white people and black people, you'll get called a racist for not including Asian people.

People will find something to bitch about, especially where it comes to the I Am Less Racist Than You game. (Because it's hard work not being racist, but really easy to call someone else a racist to take attention away from yourself.) Creators cannot win, because no matter what they do there is something to accuse them of: Ethnic characters aren't there, exclusionism. Few ethnic characters are there, tokenism. More ethnic characters, you don't have enough ethnicities. Spread around as many ethnicities as possible, then the heroic ones are tokenisms but the villainous ones are how you really feel about the race. Heroic and near-flawless ethnic heroes and never any ethnic villains, positive discrimination which is still discrimination and condescending besides. Majority are ethnic characters, nobody watches it because it's an "ethnic series" and they're too busy going through Smallville episodes looking for more Clark/Lex subtext.

[alara-r.livejournal.com]

The problem with Firefly is that about half the characters should have been Asian.

Making a show about a culture that has absorbed so much of Chinese and Japanese culture that they have geishas and they swear in Japanese, but no one is Asian, is like making a show about a small town in the South, except no one is black. (Which happens, but no one pretends it's not racism when it does.) Fully half the characters should have been Asian. This isn't like "oh noes, Joss didn't toss Asians a token!", it's "the entire premise of the casting is flawed."

And your argument falls apart if we're not talking about one token Asian character, because if half the cast had been Asian it would have been really hard to bitch about it. I mean, I *like* all the actors we got, and it's not like I wanted there to be different actors, but if you're creating a culture that's a fusion of the Wild West and China/Japan, you kind of need to have characters who are visibly Chinese/Japanese, and they kind of need to be *main* characters.

If I'd been doing it I would have had the Tams and Inara be Asian, to set up a bit of "the outer planets are more dominated by white people, the core worlds more Asian" to justify why I didn't have to go out and cast all-Asian extras every time I wanted a scene in the Wild West. Then I'd have made either Wash or Jayne Asian also to balance things out so it wouldn't look *totally* "Asians are cultured and civilized and rich, white people are barbarians" (and, in fact, having an Asian actor play Jayne would have been 16 kinds of awesome, because that character archetype *never* gets played by Asians in American TV... you gotta go to Japanese or Chinese cinema to see scruffy, uneducated, loutish mercs played by Asians.) Then about 1/3rd to 2/3rds of my extras in *every* episode would be Asian depending on whether I was on a core planet or an outer planet, and Alliance crews should have been about 1/3rd white, 1/3rd black and 1/3rd Asian so it doesn't look like I'm making any race into the big meanie, and if the System was colonized by all of Earth, all of Earth includes a fuck of a lot more brown people than are running around in the United States, so in fact any time I was casting extras I would probably have about half the people that aren't Asian be black or brown.

Sure, had Joss gotten more than 14 episodes, he could have decided to add more token Asians, but the premise is flawed in that he took in a lot of cool ideas from Asian cultures and then didn't cast any Asians in his MAIN CAST, when in theory, with that much cultural admixture, more than two of his main cast should have been Asian. I mean, I come from New York, and much of what New York City considers New York City culture, including the accent and the foods we eat, is Jewish, and you will encounter significantly more Jews in New York than in the rest of the population, and these things are related. Places that don't have any Jewish people don't swear by calling people "schmucks" or talk about falling on your tuchis or have rugalech at every bakery, and they didn't eat bagels before it was cool. If you made a show in which you had eight people living in New York who were working together, and knew each other through a job, and none of those eight people were Jewish or played by Jewish actors, that would look just a tad anti-semitic on the casting side.

[alara-r.livejournal.com]

It'd be like casting the black character as the socially awkward nerd with the small dick - it's pretty much the exact opposite of what racists say about blacks.

No, that's been done. Urkel? Geordi LaForge?

The most awesome anti-stereotypical use of a black man I've ever seen was unfortunately in a comedy cartoon where almost none of the characters were sympathetic and there was no continuity, but he was the most likable character there. In Sealab 2020 on Cartoon Network, Dr. Quinn may be a horndog and play into stereotypes of oversexed black men, but he's also the smartest character and is usually presented as the Everyman who is the only smart, sane guy surrounded by utter idiocy. Quinn is usually the POV character, is always the smartest character, and gets to be a genius *and* sexy *and* black, whereas usually black guys either get to be smart and asexual or violent, brutish and sexy.

But you're right that Jayne being Asian would have rocked, because so far no one *has* done the dumb lout merc as an Asian guy, in American tv or movies. You have to turn to Chinese or Japanese tv and movies to see that. I would love to see a dumb lout merc who says funny things played by an Asian guy.

[rann.livejournal.com]

>>because if half the cast had been Asian it would have been really hard to bitch about it.

Yes, but you seem really determined so I'm sure you would have found a way.

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

What about Leverage? Hardison is the sexy nerd who's in the show's big "will they or won't they?" romance.

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

The problem with Firefly is that about half the characters should have been Asian.

Making a show about a culture that has absorbed so much of Chinese and Japanese culture that they have geishas and they swear in Japanese, but no one is Asian, is like making a show about a small town in the South, except no one is black. (Which happens, but no one pretends it's not racism when it does.) Fully half the characters should have been Asian. This isn't like "oh noes, Joss didn't toss Asians a token!", it's "the entire premise of the casting is flawed."

Not necessarily. Right now, America is integrated (for lack of a better term) with Mexico to the point of having Spanish voting ballots, but that doesn't mean half of every social circle or workplace is Mexican. I live in Texas and worked at a movie theater for two years, and I only met one Tejano employee in that time.

Wow...

[fig-aruna.livejournal.com]

You're doing really awesome at missing the point.

[fig-aruna.livejournal.com]

Actually, there *are* shows that win wrt race, just as there are shows that win wrt gender.

Why are you being so defensive?

[fig-aruna.livejournal.com]

I guess, then, that this is ultimately a debate on how much evidence constitutes "well-documented"...?


As for Chao-Ahn, I personally award no points. It's not like Joss Whedon is trying to break the mold of a Charlie Chan TV environment.

[mcity.livejournal.com]

I never understand why people complain about what's admittedly an oversight even when they know the show was being screwed as hard and fast as possible by Fox.

Incidentally, ScrewTheAlliance's excellent "The Treasure of Lei Fong Wu" series features both an Asian villain, and Asian allies. I have no doubt that if the series had been a story arc of the show, people would've been complaining about the villains, completely ignoring the allies part.

Also: Enver Gjokaj. I don't actually care who he's playing, just get him in there. He's a fantastic actor and he needs more work.