Sorry, guys. I’m going esoteric again. Something has been irritating the hell out of me, and I have to complain about it, because, like so many other things in the world, people are getting it totally wrong.
There’s been a lot of talk lately of introducing more diverse characters into fiction, with a variety of media outlets calling for greater racial and gender diversity in books, movies, TV shows, and so on. I don’t find anything explicitly wrong with this, as the world is simply a more interesting place if people are able to experience more of it. This is why I like to go places.
But the demands for greater minority representation in media rarely have anything to do with this. It’s not really about broadening one’s horizons. It’s about providing heroes.
This boiled over recently when Marvel decided to cast a white actor as a white character in an upcoming superhero TV series. Yes, you read that right. People were upset that a white actor was chosen to play a white character.
If this all sounds perfectly acceptable to you, then congratulations, you’re a normal person! But a lot of people out there were hoping that Marvel would take the opportunity to change the ethnicity of Iron Fist from white to Asian, making him the first Asian-American superhero to be portrayed in TV or movies.
This effort attracted enough attention that it inspired a petition with thousands of signatures, and endless commentary on the “missed opportunity” that Marvel had with this particular character when it was finally revealed that they would leave him the way he was.
Now, ordinarily, I don’t really care about superheroes. In fact I find it astonishingly weird that spandex-clad crime fighters have somehow ascended to the pinnacle of the pop cultural hierarchy for some reason, and I expect it will collapse in on itself at some point or another. But this is such a perfect encapsulation of what’s wrong with the diversity-in-media debate that it might as well come wrapped in a little bow.
Granted, there were some partially-legitimate objections to the original character, who is a white person who goes to a fictional Asian country to learn martial arts, and brings it home to be a crime-fighting superhero. Several commentators have pointed out how frustrating it is that a white person would upstage Asian people at their own game, and it makes a certain kind of sense.
But on the other hand, you could just view it as a timeless lesson regarding how important it is to learn as much as you can from other cultures, because they might have something of value to offer…something that could make you, and your homeland, stronger for it.
See how that works? You can learn just about any lesson you want, whether positive or negative, from a work of art. The way you choose to interpret it often says more about you than it does about the work itself.
All of this is to say nothing of the fact that if Marvel had made the ethnicity switch, then the first Asian superhero would have been a perfect “all Asians know martial arts” Kung Fu stereotype. And how constructive is that?
Quite a few people have suggested that Marvel could instead develop a TV show or movie starring one of the existing Asian superheroes, instead of modifying an existing character and annoying the hell out of everyone, because nobody likes it when someone tampers with a beloved character. Besides, if it’s wrong to white-wash, why isn’t it wrong to white-erase?
But you know what would have been even better? Realizing that superheroes are stupid, and that you don’t need imaginary crime fighters in spandex to inspire kids to do something great. If you’re worried about your Asian kid not having Asian role models who are absolutely amazing, allow me to introduce you to someone who was pretty much a superhero in real life.
Bruce Lee was so goddamn good at what he did that the videocameras at the time allegedly couldn’t capture his movements, so the directors told him to slow down so people could see. And you’d rather get a fake superhero to inspire your children?! Over Bruce Lee?!?
But this still misses the point entirely. What bothers me the most about all this is that the Outrage Industrial Complex seems to have no understanding of the purpose of racial diversity in the first place.
They’ll keep telling you that black, Asian, hispanic, transgender and other people need characters just like them, or they won’t be able to relate. Clearly black people need black characters, or they just won’t care.
If this sounds stupid to you, that’s because it is. And we need only look to the wisdom of the Wu-Tang Clan to see why.
They are literally called the Wu-Tang Clan, because they adore and took inspiration from Kung Fu movies, which, as you may know, have a lot of non-black characters in them. And did they say they didn’t care about the non-black characters, simply because they were of a different race? No, you silly people, because you shouldn’t need a character to be of the same race as you to relate! In fact, if you do need a character to be of the same race, gender, sexuality, body type, blood type, hair color, and nationality as you to relate, then you are a terrible person.
“Ah, but wait,” they say. “What about the children? Surely small children need superheroes and other role models that look like them, so they can look up to those characters and be inspired by their actions, so they may someday follow in their footsteps and achieve great things, just like their favorite childhood characters!”
This is such a stupid argument that I’m literally going to use cartoon characters to show how wrong it is.
Take a look at the most beloved childhood heroes of the 1980s, in all their reptilian glory:
That’s right, my friends and loved ones. Everyone’s favorite childhood hero of the era was a goddamn turtle.
It wasn’t a white person. It wasn’t a black person. It wasn’t a Laotian, or a Peruvian, or an Uzbek, or a Greek. It was a goddamn turtle. And you know why? Because humans are capable of boundless empathy, you ignorant weirdos!
This is why this is so infuriating to me. All these “we need more characters of Ethnicity X so people of Ethnicity X can relate” people are saying we need diversity because they lack the empathy to care equally about other people. And not only do they not care, but they want to infect their children with the same failure of human compassion so their children won’t care equally about other racial groups either. They think it’s because their kids are incapable of being inspired by a hero of a different racial group, but their kids already have the capacity to be inspired by a goddamn turtle. They don’t even need to be the same species, much less the same skin color, and that is a beautiful thing that should not be ruined!
I mean, have you seen Beauty and the Beast? The movie with characters who were candlesticks and teapots?!? Or an ottoman?! Did you care any less about them because they “didn’t look like you?” Well, your kids sure didn’t! So why should you?
And has anyone seen The Secret of NIMH? That movie about a single mother who’s just trying her best to raise her children after the death of her husband? Because that is a really goddamn good movie for kids, and kids aren’t even single mothers! Do they need to be single mothers to relate to a character who is also a single mother? No, of course not! Oh, and did I mention the main character is also a mouse?! No? Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot! And you know why? Because it doesn’t matter! People should be capable of caring about other people, especially if they don’t look like them, because that is objectively better than only caring about people who look like you!
And this actually gets to the crux of the argument for why diversity in media is actually a good thing, because it’s clearly not for the “we should encourage children to care only for their own racial group” nonsense. The reason we should encourage diversity in media is because it encourages people of one group to care about other people from a different group. You know, empathy? Which is the root of literally all morally commendable behavior in the history of human civilization?!?
That’s why we need diversity in media. Because when you have a movie like Slumdog Millionaire, or Pan’s Labyrinth, or The Gods Must Be Crazy––a well-written movie, with well-written characters––you can actually get people to care about other people, who aren’t like them at all.
At least, not on the outside. Because it’s not what’s on the outside that matters. Remember that? From kindergarten? It’s a good life lesson. One you might want to teach your kids.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go watch Shaolin Soccer, which is a goddamn gift from heaven. I suggest you do the same.
Very interesting read (both the initial post and the comments)! I’d like to throw a somewhat elfish argument for more inclusive media representation into the mix….As a middle class, white guy I feel like that perspective has been pretty well covered. There are a lot of other interesting stories out there that I can learn from/enjoy that come from a different perspective. I’ve watched enough action movies and played enough video games that feature a gruff, military-ish, white guy with a take no BS attitude and a tortured past. It isn’t that that is a bad story, but it has been DONE. However, a Western told from the perspective of a female Native American…that is a story I don’t know, one that has a much higher potential to challenge/broaden my ideas. I want stories/games/comics/movies/TV shows/books that broaden and challenge me.
Oh and one other point while I’ve got the soap box out…I 100% agree with your idea that we should be able to find relatable ideas and empathy with characters who do not look like us. But, when a person who dwells at the top of the media representation pyramid makes that argument in response to people calling for more diversity in media it can come off as as implying “YOU need to learn how to empathize/identify with people that do not look like you,” when it isn’t something that I have to worry about.
Anyway, really enjoy your blog…rants and travel tips!
Definitely some good points; what I worry about, and I’ve seen this happen quite a few times in the last few years, is that these activists won’t accept those stories if they’re written by a white audience. It makes a certain amount of sense, but it just means those stories will be even more rare. A Western starring a Native American, for example, could be made by a white director who did plenty of research and consulted with Native Americans of the same tribe as the character, but people would still shout about how he’s profiting off of someone else’s story (which is a word for word quote I saw today). So the only effect is that either we’ll have very few of those stories, since they make up such a small percentage of the population, and white people will only write about white people, which I think is sad.
Think of To Kill a Mockingbird, for example. It portrays black people as working-class, uneducated servants. Which, at the time, was true. But it would be torn apart today because a white author includes negative portrayals of black people in a book, so it would be trashed.
You make a nice point about diversity in comics and in media in general. Providing heroes is a plus of painting a diverse picture in these forms of entertainment.
I can see the “we need heroes” argument well enough, and I have no problem with stories like that; I do, however, think it’s possible to gain something of value from watching characters screw up, too. Not every story needs to have a role model as the central character. Watching someone lose or fail can provide just as worthwhile of a story as well.
Hi, I read your blog and just wanted to give my 2 cents. I’m gonna assume that your post came from a good place where you are innocently stating your pov but maybe you should have more awareness from asian guys’ pov.
Imagine if the media industry is run by mostly Asian guys who for 2 centuries made movies in America where only Asian guys get the good roles. And for the whole time, they don’t give any roles to white people predictably and even more so, they went further and started a trend where they cast asian guys as hero knights in medieval Europe for a major tv show and no white person is even given a role for that. And they defend their position by saying that the original comics states that a bunch of chinese ruled medieval England so it’s okay.
I’m not white – I’m Tunisian (north African but look european) but i think the outcry is more on the concept of Goodwill where people are getting sick and tired of Hollywood tunnel vision of making movies despite america is becoming more multicultural. But I don’t think you’re a bigot or a racist, maybe an idealist who may not have grown up in non-white people’s shoes where they are more sensitive to these kind of issues.
What you are describing is Anime. It’s populated almost entirely by Japanese people, and Western stories are routinely remade with characters obviously speaking Japanese, voiced by Japanese voice actors, and with the profits going to Japanese studio executives. I have no problem with this at all, and I never felt singled out or insulted by having to watch characters that weren’t of the same racial group as me. This is true of a massive, global fanbase of non-Japanese fans, who have absolutely no problem watching movies featuring primarily Japanese characters, or characters in fantasy worlds who are obviously speaking Japanese, and still have Japanese social norms in some cases. This is a good thing. It means they have empathy across cultural divides. If everyone felt this way, there would have been no Holocaust. It is that serious.
I do think it’s a problem that white characters played Asian roles in the past. It was silly and ridiculous. I still remember watching a movie with a white guy who literally said “I’m proud of my Asian heritage.” It was hilarious. However, I don’t think that remakes are quite the same thing. The recent adaptation of Ghost in the Shell, for example, was accused of whitewashing, but you could just as easily view it as an adaptation in a different culture, much the same way as West Side Story doesn’t take place in medieval England, as was the case with the original Romeo and Juliet. I think it should be fine for people to adapt stories to fit their own culture, as long as the original work is recognized and respected. Nobody got mad at The Departed, for example, despite the fact that it was quite literally a reworking of a Hong Kong movie that replaced every Asian original character with a white character. Should they have simply remade the movie in English, but populated exclusively with Asian actors? I don’t see that as particularly necessary. I think remakes are fine, and it should be fine to change them to fit a different country or culture. Japan can do adaptations of Shakespeare, so I think we can do adaptations of The Departed. Fair’s fair. The adaptations can often lead to renewed interest in the original, even if the remake is unsuccessful. This is what happened with Ghostbusters. If Ghost in the Shell is terrible, and people keep talking about how great the original was, then people will go watch the original. Good for Ghost in the Shell.
I have a hard time thinking that it’s white people who have trouble relating to other colors of characters in this day and age. A huge number of Hollywood superstars are black, Hispanic, Asian, and so on. Some of the most successful actors are Will Smith, Denzel Washington, Eddie Murphy, and many others. I have a hard time thinking that they have all had wildly successful careers in a country that’s mostly composed of white people who can’t relate to black characters. Why would they see all those movies if they don’t like black people? I think the problem is that ethnic minorities are only seeing themselves rarely, because that is mathematically inevitable from being a minority. But that’s not evidence of discrimination. That’s just evidence of rarity.
In the case of Asian-Americans, they’re disproportionately less often represented on TV (whereas from what I’ve seen, this isn’t really the case with black actors); but on the other hand, Asian Americans are disproportionately overrepresented in technology and other skilled professions, and have the highest per-capita income of any racial group in the United States. It seems to me that drawing tens of thousands of Asian people out of the tech industry so they can wait tables while trying to make it in Hollywood isn’t really an objective step up. Maybe they’d just rather have a reliable job than get by as a wannabe actor. Good for them. But if they’re busy working in highly-respected professions and making more money than any other demographic, it only makes sense that Hollywood would have trouble finding enough Asian actors to achieve proportional representation, and might cast a few other people instead. That seems pretty fair too.
Also I like your blog especially on the one for duck down jackets but I think you should stick to travel articles as I do feel that you’re not seeing things from all angles but I do get why you would want to see a white Iron Fist and me too – cos it would be cool seeing a person explore things outside their culture – (i get it bruh) but your ignoring minorities growing resentment of the unbalanced nature of Hollywood itself which is a shame.
cos Hollywood is run by quite a lot of narcissistic white guys who are biased :(
hi, i left a post over here cos i thought i would contribute to this duscussion but found out that my posts were not published. I haven;t said anything offensive and very dissapointed that you chose to not piblish my post as I do feel that my statemnts highlight your own ignorance of how other’s feel about this topic and conflicts with your desired pov. I find that rather immature and hope that you re-consider publishing my posts as i took quite some time and thought to wirte that for you.
Hectic scheduling. It’s up now, including a response. But I’ll reiterate that I feel the same way about it as I did before. And I have been on the other side of this, every time I watch a movie like Enter the Dragon, Slumdog Millionaire, or any anime ever made. I don’t get annoyed that I’m not being served a perfect mirror of my racial group, because I don’t think racial identity is an especially constructive way to identify with someone. It’s like getting annoyed that someone is blonde instead of having my hair color. It just doesn’t matter to me at all.
Sorry – just realized it’s still awaiting moderation and I guess we all have our duties and responsibilities so makes sense that you just haven’t got around to it yet so disregard my last post and could you aslo delete this post and the last one. Thanks and sorry about that man :(
It’s alright. Misunderstandings are no reason to get upset.