I used to be excited for Big Hero 6...

[Shaka Zulu]

...well, not me, somebody else was-and he's not pleased with the new movie at all:

Unlike the original version of the character, Hiro Hamada is not Japanese, but a biracial Asian-American. Aside from his westernized last name—which they “Americanized” from the already manageable “Takachiho” for easier pronunciation for the West—apparently making the main character and his brother completely Asian was too controversial to do. With this decision, we can assume that according to Disney, 2014 American audiences wouldn't have the cultural capacity to accept a lead who isn't at least part-white for once.

There are other objections mentioned in the article, but they can be seen by clicking on the link.

Personally, I wan't too excited about the movie due to the change in character from the original as I knew it (isn't Sunfire supposed to be a part of this group?) and the silly moving of the main characters to a fictitious city called San Fransokyo. But now I can really see why people of color would be pissed off and disappointed with this movie.

I used to be excited for Big Hero 6...

 

[Anwar]

They couldn't use characters like Sunfire because they belong to the X-Men license under Fox.

They made Hiro biracial because the actor voicing him is as well.

And his new named "Hamada" is an actual Japanese name whereas "Takachiho" is just made up.

 

[Christopher]

I'm okay with the level of diversity in the main cast -- Hiro, Tadashi, and Go Go are Japanese-American, Wasabi is African-American, and Honey Lemon may be Latina (since her voice actress is), leaving Fred as the only unambiguously white character in the main team (well, Baymax is literally white, but you know what I mean). But I'm disappointed that the diversity doesn't really carry through to the supporting cast. Aside from the bot-fighters in the early scenes, pretty much everyone in the supporting cast is white, and that comes out to a majority of the speaking characters in the film overall. Which is ironic, because San Fransokyo is supposed to be a more Asian-influenced version of San Francisco, but the demographic makeup of the film's cast actually skews somewhat more white and slightly less Asian than the actual population of San Francisco. Also the Asian characters are apparently all Japanese, whereas the largest ethnic minority in San Francisco is Chinese.

It's a sad commentary that when a film tries to be more ethnically diverse than the typical American movie, it still ends up being slightly less diverse than the actual population of the United States, or at least of San Francisco in this case. But at least they're trying. I just wish they'd kept trying once they'd gotten past the core cast.

 

[mos6507]

Racial quota aside, Big Hero 6's story being just "meh" is the #1 reason why someone should lose their excitement.

 

[Christopher]

^I thought it was pretty good. Not quite Pixar-level, but a lot of fun, and I like its pro-science message, such as it was.

And inclusion is not about "quotas." It's about recognizing the reality that humans are diverse. "Quotas" implies that there's something artificial and constructed about it. The artificial construct is the conceit that most people are white. Like I said, the real population of San Francisco is even more ethnically diverse than the white-majority population shown in this movie or Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Diversity is everyday reality, but most movies choose not to reflect it accurately.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

Diversity is everyday reality, but most movies choose not to reflect it accurately.

True, and it's getting even more so all of the time. That, and Disney could have set the film in Tokyo itself rather than this silly hybrid.

I might go and see it, but it will be with the skepticism imbued in me by this article. I really wish that this had been done at Fox instead, so that they could get the use of Sunfire, and as the completely Japanese original team. But we have what we have, sadly.

 

[Gaith]

My home town of San Francisco is awesome and deserves all the media attention, even in fictional animated hybrid form.

 

[Tulin]

Couldn't care less about racial quotients, which itself is a form of reverse racism.

The film opens here on Boxing Day and we cannot wait - the preview looks fantastic and it's going to be a tough call that day whether we see "Big Hero 6" or the final Hobbit movie. Either way, we'll be seeing both at the cinema!

 

[Christopher]

Couldn't care less about racial quotients, which itself is a form of reverse racism.

No, it isn't. Again, it's not about "quotas" (which is the actual word you're looking for), it's about reality. The real population of the US, let alone that of the world, is full of ethnic, religious, and sexual diversity, but the characters portrayed in fiction are disproportionately biased in favor of whites and heterosexuals. That's an artificial misrepresentation of reality. Attempting to correct that to something that's accurate to the real, everyday world is not "reverse racism," it's just honesty. And claiming that it's unfair to take away the unfair privilege of whites and mails is dishonesty, a false pretense that the privileged are somehow being treated unfairly if they aren't allowed to keep their unfair advantage over everyone else.

As I already said, if you go to the real San Francisco, you'll see a population that's about as diverse as what you see in Big Hero 6, and actually a bit more so. How is it any kind of racism to depict the city's population in a way that's close to what it actually is in reality?

 

[Tosk]

Which is ironic, because San Fransokyo is supposed to be a more Asian-influenced version of San Francisco, but the demographic makeup of the film's cast actually skews somewhat more white and slightly less Asian than the actual population of San Francisco.

Not unlike Firefly, where you almost never saw a Chinese person, despite the Anglo-Sino Alliance and everyone being "fluent" *ahem* in Chinese.

 

[Dr. Funkenstein]

It's strange how no one ever criticizes movies/television shows that feature few if any white characters at all. Because that's certainly every bit as realistic. Nevermind all the rampant and direct anti-Caucasian racism you can find in many of those same movies/television shows.

 

[mos6507]

No, it isn't. Again, it's not about "quotas" (which is the actual word you're looking for), it's about reality.

Let's phrase it this way. Would you enjoy a really bad story as long as the racial breakdown reflected "reality"? Unless someone were a big fan of the source-material and wanted a slavish adaptation, I'd say the ethnicity of characters is a non-issue in whether you'll enjoy the film.

 

[Christopher]

Let's phrase it this way. Would you enjoy a really bad story as long as the racial breakdown reflected "reality"?

Of course not, because that's a straw man. Not everything is symmetrical. A bad story won't be saved by good presentation. But a good story can be marred by flaws in the presentation.

Unless someone were a big fan of the source-material and wanted a slavish adaptation, I'd say the ethnicity of characters is a non-issue in whether you'll enjoy the film.

Easy to say if you're a member of the ethnic group that is routinely represented in film, which I assume you are. But to those people who belong to groups that are constantly ignored and marginalized, it's frustrating to be left out. And frustrating to be offered a ray of hope, a chance to be fairly represented in film at last, only to find that it's half-hearted and still clinging to white privilege. Ethnicity is only a non-issue to white Americans, to people who don't find themselves denigrated and marginalized and ignored on a daily basis because of their ethnicity.

Granted, I'm a recipient of that white privilege myself, but I have the imagination and empathy to look beyond the borders of my own life and think about how other people experience the world. And if you can do that, then it becomes clear that American society is still very, very far from being truly fair to a huge percentage of its citizens. It won't become a non-issue until we all dedicate ourselves to making it a non-issue, and things are nowhere near balanced enough yet for that to be the case.

 

[Tulin]

I just watched the "Family Guy" episode "Something, Something Darkside" and Brian's closing words come to mind.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I just watched the "Family Guy" episode "Something, Something Darkside" and Brian's closing words come to mind.

Care to share?

 

[publiusr]

(well, Baymax is literally white, but you know what I mean).

A lot of work is going into that:

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/D...ps_Spark_Idea_for_Silver_Screen_Star_999.html

It's just a good thing that airbag wasn't named "Takata."

 

[Trekker4747]

Based in a established fictional character or real helper robots or not, I find it hard to finda giant balloon creature as the focal point of a mivie hard to get behind. Cute animals, sure. Giant balloons? Not so much.

 

[auntiehill]

^I thought the movie was pretty good and Baymax was adorable. I thought some of the movie might be a bit too intense for the very small kids but everyone I went with--adult males--really enjoyed it.

 

[Dr. Funkenstein]

Out of curiosity, how does making the lead character Asian-American (ie, an American who's Asian) make him whitewashed?

 

[Gaith]

Hey, at least Baymax has limbs... *cough, cough, Cars/Planes, cough*