Board Thread:Rant and Rave/@comment-34935885-20180308085918/@comment-1916997-20180310024705

EvilSkillet wrote: CoolDudeAl wrote: EvilSkillet wrote: CoolDudeAl wrote: EvilSkillet wrote: Eskaver wrote: I wouldn’t use the word “Arab”. I believe Deniz was Turkish and Jafar version 1, version 2, were Indian and Iranian. Peter Gadiot is Mexican/Dutch.

Being upset over one representation missing is impractical. Plus, they lean on more European and more female above most others. One representation missing adds up. Tell me, why does they ONLY East Asian woman on the show have to fall in love with the non Asian guy? Tell me how many western media have the Asian woman being with a non Asian? Answer: It's most of the time. And tell me, how many times does western media show a normal Asian man and Asian woman couple, or hell a normal Asian man in  a relationship that doesn't demean him in any way while also not being a stereotype? Answer: very rarely. I think Esk's point, that you then illustrate in your post, is that this is hardly a problem exclusive to Once. Also, Mulan didn't fall in love with any guy, period. People misinturpeted the Phillip thing. I do think they could have shown more from Mulan's area of FTL, including more characters though. Like personally, I would have done a Mulan backstory with Shang, during the time Mulan is in the army, but the twist is Shang is gay and only attracted to Mulan when he thinks she is a man. Mulan reveals she is a woman, and Shang no longer likes her. If they do show Shang why does he have to be gay? No offense to gay Asians but it's absurd to make him gay for the sake of it. With the limited amoun of Asians in western media, making them gay is not the way to do it. If Shang was in the show and he was gay, lots of Asians will be tired of the bullshit of make an Asian man not get a female love interest, which happens a lot already. There are countless times where an Asian man in western media will not even get a love interest and act as sidekick to the white guy. With Asian women in western media, they will always be paired up with and fall in love with a white man. Producers, writers, directors, etc. in western media love to shit on Asian men by making them the stereotypes that aren't even true. And they like to make the Asian women the sexual piece of meat that loves to obey, to a white man.

Not a lot of people may not like what I say, but it's true. They say Asians are like what, 5-7% of the population in the US? But western media loves to stereotype Asians in roles. Sometimes, they'll throw them a bone, but then there seems to be some sort of little kink they throw at them that makes it so off putting that it ruins their character and puts them back to a stereotype. My thing of having Shang be gay is because it would play into the story that Mulan pretends to be a man. And your really asking for tv shows to be oddly specific. You want a Asian male character, and for him to have a lead role, and for him to be straight, and for him to be paired with an Asian female romantically. I think if you just want more Asian representation, you should be happy with any positive representation. Complaining about an asian character being gay or in an interracial relationship is like saying that Asians that are gay or in an interracial relationship is bad and shouldn't be shown in media. Anyway, while I agree that Asians could be represented better overall, I do have to say ABC at least does an okay job. Just off the top of my head, here are shows ABC has done within the past 15 years with positive portrayals of Asians in lead roles (specifically far east Asians, since I believe that is your focus), including 3 where there is an Asian couple shown: Grey's Anatomy (Christina), Mistresses (Karen), How To Get Away With Murder (Oliver), Lost (Jin and Sun), Fresh Off The Boat (The Hwang family), and Dr. Ken (The Park Family). First off, you don't want to know my stance on interracial relationships between Asians and non Asians, so we'll leave it at that.

Second of all they could write scenes of Shang and Mulan breaking it off, giving the reason why Mulan is traveling and is heartbroken. That's easily writable and doesn't mess with the story (as fas I got to).

Third of all with those shows, I can nitpick things from the shows that doesn't flow well with me. For example:

The shows like Grey's Anatomy and Mistresses show the Asian women in relationships with white men exclusively after a few seconds researching.

With How to Get Away with Murder, never really watched the show so I can't comment if it's a positive Asian male. Plus he's mixed. There's a grey line with mixed people, they're usually too white to be Asian and too Asian to be white.

Never really watched Lost, but I will give a thumbs up since Daniel Dae Kim is a stand up Asian man in western media.

I've watched Fresh Off the Boat, it was okay but then just got boring like a lot of comedy shows. It's basically the same comedy shows ABC like to put but with an Asian mask.

Finally with Dr. Ken, I refuse to watch Ken Jeong because he's one of those actors that will reinforce how Asian men are seen in the west which started with the Hangover movies. Since then, he seems to be a laughing stock. With other comedic actors, people are laughing with them. With Asian comedic actors, people are laughing at them.

At this point it's safe to assume that we don't see eye to eye that's fine. You can keep discussing but it's tiring to say these things time and time again where producers, writers, directors, etc. keep doing to Asian actors/actresses. Personally if they didn't even have Mulan show up I wouldn't be so annoyed. No representation is better than bad representation. I'll end this discussion with this note: next time you watch a show with an Asian in it. see how many stereotypes there are and compare to other roles on different shows. And then compare those roles to Asian movies and TV series from Asia. And with that I'm done with this discussion. Well if you are going to dismiss almost every show with Asians in it for various reasons, you will never be satified. Also, anyone advocating against interracial relationships being shown is actually very racist, so I agree you shouldn't expand those views on here (or anywhere else for that matter). Thirdly, no representation is a million times worse than bad representation. No represtation is basically saying people don't exist period, and despite you saying you would prefer that, I can guarentee if all Asian people were removed from all media, you wouldn't prefer that. Lastly, naturally media from China, Japan, Korea, etc. is going to show more Asians, as those countries are almost exclusivly Asian. I'd pose to you the question for those countries how great is there representation of whites, blacks, latinx, etc.? I'd guess it isn't very good or diverse, and also probably incorporates alot of stereotypes. Again, I'm not saying Asians can't be handled better in American media, but I also think you are being overly selective with the type of representation you want to see. I'd like to see more gay characters and/or disabled characters on things, but sometimes they just don't fit the story being told, or they can only fit in a very niche role, so I am grateful for what I do see, because something is better than nothing.