That's the impression I've gotten since day one, unfortunately.
So how exactly should this have been addressed in Iron Fist? What would you expect to see while you're watching it that appparenty isn't there?
Iron Fist (Marvel/Netflix)
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As I said, it's complicated. There's no glib, singular, or unambiguous answer to that question. Racism is a terrible, terrible mess that we'll be cleaning up for generations to come. All we can do is try our best. And since I haven't seen the show yet, I obviously can't say anything for sure about how well or poorly it tries.
How many times do I have to say it's complicated? This is not a one-sentence issue. It's not something that can be glibly dismissed in a tweet. It's a whole passel of dynamics and problems that have been accumulating for centuries and have to be examined and thought about carefully.
Re-read post #282. And if you don't know what the words "glib", "singular", or "unambiguous" mean, consider consulting a dictionary. (That's a book or web site that explains complex words using simpler ones.) Until then, your apology is not accepted.
Ok.
Now we can't talk about all those animes/Mangas where some Japanese guy masters some "western" sport/martial art and become a World Champion? And all the western adversaries are some kind of horrible racist caricature?
But aren't you saying that?
So there's no answer to what they should do but we just know they didn't do it?
I'm merely saying that the reviews we have so far aren't encouraging. Of course that's a preliminary impression, and there's a big difference between a preliminary impression and a final conclusion. Learning is an ongoing process, and arriving at the truth is a series of successive approximations. Any claim or hypothesis must be tested against the evidence. What I've heard is not encouraging, but of course I still intend to watch the show, with the hope that it will disprove the impression I've gotten so far.
You're still trying to simplify it to one sentence. That will never work. If it were simple, it wouldn't be so hard to solve.
I addressed that last Thursday in post #233. Yes, there are several Asian-American showrunners and several more up-and-coming writer-producers.
Sorry, there's been so much back and forth with this thread that was having trouble remembering what had and hadn't been brought up.
With experience with big action scenes in Nikita, and the supernatural in Sleepy Hollow, it sounds like Albert Kim could have had potential.
With experience with big action scenes in Nikita, and the supernatural in Sleepy Hollow, it sounds like Albert Kim could have had potential.
Use as many sentences as you'd like. Doesn't have to be the only definitive answer, I'm genuinely curious what you would expect to see. You can't even say in general what the show should present? It seems to me easy to repeatedly suggest the show is lacking based on some reviews but then say the answer is too complicated to address.
Hard to say without seeing it. I mean, I never could've predicted what a rich and enlightening portrayal Luke Cage gave of African-American culture, all the music and art and literature and heritage that it celebrated while also confronting the racism and economic issues the community faces. What would be great to see is something like that, something that addresses and embraces the culture(s) involved and explores the complex issues with intelligence, nuance, and care. Something that -- as I have, in fact, suggested repeatedly over the course of this thread -- confronts and deconstructs the stereotypes and appropriative elements that are part of the premise rather than uncritically perpetuating them. Ideally -- as several of us have already been discussing, including in the immediately previous posts -- something that's told from the perspective of Asian-American writers, producers, and directors, in the same way Luke Cage benefitted from an African-American perspective and Jessica Jones from a female perspective. (If only Daredevil's writing staff had included more actual lawyers...) Something that had authenticity and depth and courage. I have said all this repeatedly.
Only because you're expecting absolutes. I didn't say the show "is" lacking -- it would obviously be a lie to assert such certainty about something I've never seen. I have merely said -- and I have been quite clear about this over and over again -- that the secondhand accounts I've heard of the first six episodes are discouraging. That's not about certainty, it's just about impressions. Naturally I'm hoping that my own opinion will be more positive than the reviewers', and that the final 7 episodes are stronger than the first 6 are reported to be. Naturally I would love to be pleasantly surprised. But the fact that the majority of reviews have been negative does not inspire confidence.
Well, that's reassuring (at least on the action sequences front) that maybe it'll improve later in the season.
Of the reviews I have skimmed over (NO SPOILERS!) a few of them made mention that the show only starts to find its groove on the 6th episode (the last one given to critics), where director RZA, known for his unabashed love of 70's Kung-Fu and Wushu films, brings a sense of flair and fun to proceedings, both to the cast and to the fights...
Interestingly, Game of Thrones wunderkind, Miguel Sapochnik directed episode 4... no Battle of the Bastards here I guess.
Hugo - is still giving it a go
Perhaps I'm dumb or I'm missing something, but even after I read the early reviews I can't understand the accusations about whitewashing or racism. The main character is an orphan, he learns kung-fu and then he returns to New York to take back what's rightfully his.
The kung-fu for him is just a tool. For the sake of the story it could be MMA, savate or fencing. He doesn't go around boasting of how white people are better at Martial Arts.
Heck, Stick (clearly a Western person) taught Daredevil ninjitsu. Where is the outrage?
The kung-fu for him is just a tool. For the sake of the story it could be MMA, savate or fencing. He doesn't go around boasting of how white people are better at Martial Arts.
Heck, Stick (clearly a Western person) taught Daredevil ninjitsu. Where is the outrage?
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It's not about the single story. As I've been saying, this is a massive problem whose roots have been laid over generations, and the problems with any one work are as much about its place in the larger cultural and historical context as about the work itself. It's not so much that any single movie or show doesn't have a seemingly valid explanation for putting a non-Asian character in the lead -- it's more that virtually every film and show does it, so collectively there's a pattern of exclusion. The problem is that too few films and shows are trying to break that pattern. The reason so many people don't see it is because we've been conditioned by Hollywood to accept white leads as the natural default. The inability to recognize that as a problem is itself the root of the problem.
Yes, what you say about the story is true enough. But that formula itself is an iteration of a generations-old Western story convention designed to filter non-European cultures exclusively through European protagonists by having them be white orphans raised in other cultures rather than actual members of those cultures. That in itself denies representation to other ethnicities. There's also the question of appropriation. Things like kung fu aren't just neutral tools, they're part of Chinese culture and belief. Stories told by Europeans that take things that are important, even sacred to other cultures and represent them in an inauthentic way, stripped of their context and meaning, can be offensive to the people who value those things. To turn it around, I've seen some anime films that appropriated ideas from Christianity in some very weird and twisted ways that would probably be very insulting to a devout Christian. Like, there was this one miniseries that was a crude sex comedy but whose plot revolved around the villains' evil scheme to clone Jesus from the Shroud of Turin or something.
The problem is that we are talking about this single story, like it was the only culprit of decades of Hollywood misrepresentation.
Ok, we aren't exaggerating a little bit? Kung-fu is basically a way to beat the crap out people. It's like saying that Ashita no Joe is offensive to Westerners, because Boxe is inherently a part of Western culture.
And then there is the whitewashing angle, that I find somewhat baffling. We aren't talking about major Motoko Kusanagi. We are talking about Danny Rand, who has always been a blond caucasian guy.
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