Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
Firefly and/or Joss Whedon
ayvah:
--- Quote from: Akima on 03 Mar 2011, 02:25 ---I have only seen a few episodes of Evangelion, and only in English re-dubs, so I don't claim to be expert, but I never got the impression that the makers tried to pretend that their imaginary world was a fusion of Japanese and German culture. I don't recall the non-part-German characters scattering their dialogue with gratuitous German swearing, or remember badly-written German signs posted in shops etc. I don't mind Creator Provincialism in TV; Godzilla always attacks Tokyo, Dr. Who aliens always attack England, America always saves the day. The offensive thing about Firefly is that it claims to include Chinese language and culture in its world, makes a big deal about it, but then handles it incompetently, and doesn't include Chinese people except in the background. As far as Firefly is concerned, Chinese people have "cool stuff" to appropriate, but nothing to say.
--- End quote ---
Fair enough. It's not a great comparison, but it's something I've watched recently. Regardless, I do feel it's a similar phenomenon as Nerv is run by the UN and it has deep international ties, and there's really no reason why only there should be just one token foreigner. (I should also correct myself regarding Asuka, as she is explained to be 1/4 German, but 1/2 "American" and only 1/4 Japanese.) Naturally, animation is not going to provide the best examples -- considering that making someone foreign is as easy as drawing them that way. (On a related note, it seems to me that the people in QC's new bakery are conspicuously black, as if to make up for the low black presence earlier in the comic.)
Due to the lack of convenient analogies immediately coming to mind, I think I'll just emphasise Legend of the Seeker's use of New Zealand actors because it was in New Zealand.
Regardless, my point with the Charlie's Angels reference is that casting an actress with Asian heritage does not somehow mean they're showing respect to her Asian heritage. That said, I don't think Asian actors should have to be typecast into playing "Asian roles" and vice versa. It is disappointing that Firefly didn't have something resembling an Asian presence, but I can only come to the conclusion that they got unlucky when they got to casting.
--- Quote ---the only culture that prevails with any notable parallel is that of the Confederate States of America
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Shows like Star Trek portray the future as a sort of super-America, and the idea here was to portray that in a more morally ambiguous way. I do feel that the story was intended to provide a metaphor to the American civil war and the struggle of ex-Confederates without the spectre of racism. Starship Troopers was a film I enjoyed, which similarly was a metaphor for Nazi Germany without the spectre of racism. I wouldn't accuse either story of having a secret racist agenda.
Is it cold in here?:
Was the background Chinese in Firefly wrong, or just different?
In other words, was in in the realm of stupid and careless mistakes, or was it a conceivable variant, as was the show's English?
cabbagehut:
--- Quote from: ayvah on 03 Mar 2011, 12:59 ---Fair enough. It's not a great comparison, but it's something I've watched recently. Regardless, I do feel it's a similar phenomenon as Nerv is run by the UN and it has deep international ties, and there's really no reason why only there should be just one token foreigner. (I should also correct myself regarding Asuka, as she is explained to be 1/4 German, but 1/2 "American" and only 1/4 Japanese.) Naturally, animation is not going to provide the best examples -- considering that making someone foreign is as easy as drawing them that way. (On a related note, it seems to me that the people in QC's new bakery are conspicuously black, as if to make up for the low black presence earlier in the comic.)
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IIRC, the show focused on the Japanese branch of Nerv - I think I remember them mentioning various branches in Germany, China, and the US. I haven't seen the show in a while, but I was always under the impression that there were a lot of branches of Nerv, and we only got to see the one, which just so happened to have founded the organization and has all the interesting things happen to it. Correct me if I'm wrong, please!
As for unlucky casting, I don't really believe in the "getting unlucky" thing. If you want a specific ethnicity, you can find it. The debacle with The Last Airbender showed that it's pretty easy to whitewash a cast when you feel like it. The way you word a casting call is important, and if you have the idea that white casts do best, you might choose white actors instead of equally-talented, but non-white actors. It may not have been important to Whedon to have an East Asian cast member. He might not have been fully aware of how it looked to other people. I don't think he was evilly cackling away, going, "MWAR HAR HAR HAR, I SHALL ONLY HAVE THE WHITE PEOPLE IN HERE!", but when you've got so many East Asian influences in your work, it seems weird not to have a single main cast member that's Asian. Akima makes these points more saliently than I do.
Odin:
--- Quote from: Is it cold in here? on 03 Mar 2011, 17:06 ---Was the background Chinese in Firefly wrong, or just different?
In other words, was in in the realm of stupid and careless mistakes, or was it a conceivable variant, as was the show's English?
--- End quote ---
It was horribly, horribly wrong from the standpoint of someone supposedly reverting to that language when swearing (as one would if it was the first language you learned growing up), and when it comes to languages, horrible mispronunciation in that context is a terribly condemning point against any possibility of realism or whatever you want to call it.
It's akin to the gibberish Indian/"injun" languages you would run across in older westerns and moronic shows like Bonanza.
Is it cold in here?:
How about the signs in the marketplaces? That's an area Akima flagged as problematic.
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