Dusty Ayres
Commodore
More bitching about Joss Whedon, this time about how he appropriates Asian culture to be used on Firefly and Dollhouse:
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Joss Whedon and the blurry line between homage and appropriation
- Thread starter Dusty Ayres
- Start date
Oops.
Is this about the legendary Hawaiian lounge singer Don Ho?
Let the copyright holder on Asian culture sue through the courts.
Dusty Ayres
Commodore
Sorry, everybody, but I'm using a crappy old computer because my regular ones's in the shop. 
Here's the text in question:
Joss Whedon and the blurry line between homage and appropriation
Here's the text in question:
Joss Whedon and the blurry line between homage and appropriation
^Still can't see it. Link?
EDIT: Thanks.
EDIT: Thanks.
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This part:
I must admit I always wondered about that. I imagine, if asked, that Whedon would have an answer - but I've never run across it and confess that I'm not so much interested in either the hostile speculations of the author of this piece or the defensive rationalizations of fellow whedonites (okay, I hate that. Whedonista would be just as trite. Whedoholic? Whediot?). I'd like to hear what Whedon would say, though.
I must admit I always wondered about that. I imagine, if asked, that Whedon would have an answer - but I've never run across it and confess that I'm not so much interested in either the hostile speculations of the author of this piece or the defensive rationalizations of fellow whedonites (okay, I hate that. Whedonista would be just as trite. Whedoholic? Whediot?). I'd like to hear what Whedon would say, though.
I think Joss Whedon holds hands with George Lucas while they rape Asian cultures and childhoods, respectively.
S
Stone_Cold_Sisko
Guest
I read the entire post and I don't see anything overly hostile there. In fact it was pretty restrained considering the nature of the complaint.
You're posting on a Star Trek board. If people didn't take entertainment too seriously there would be no such thing.
In any event, "simple entertainment" generally = crap. It's a waste of time unless someone just needs background noise on while they drink.
The two most populous planets of the human civilization in "Firefly" represent the eastern and western cultures - Sihnon and Londinium. So the writer may have gotten the details wrong, but certainly understands the premise fine.
The fact that the Mandarin/Cantonese the actors were allegedly speaking was horribly pronounced is admitted to on the commentary tracks of the DVDs. It's shoddy work, to be sure, but it definitely slips by me, in the same way that the gibberish the American Indians in Dances With Wolves slips by me. They should have had a dialogue couch, but I can understand how this concept wouldn't receive much attention under the arduous schedule of weekly television.
What doesn't slip by is the complete lack of Asian faces on the series, especially considering the premise, and especially considering the population distribution between the United States and China, the two surviving superpowers (or, the two surviving powers, anyway) after Earth's abandonment. Actually, the history is a bit muddled, since we don't have much to go on beyond a few comments and that montage that opens Serenity, but that seems to be the general idea.
What doesn't slip by is the complete lack of Asian faces on the series, especially considering the premise, and especially considering the population distribution between the United States and China, the two surviving superpowers (or, the two surviving powers, anyway) after Earth's abandonment. Actually, the history is a bit muddled, since we don't have much to go on beyond a few comments and that montage that opens Serenity, but that seems to be the general idea.
MeanJoePhaser
Admiral
Maybe there were almost no asians left in China on Earth. There was mass immigration into China and those people took over and started speaking mispronounced Mandarin/Cantonese.
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