It astounds me how often we fail at being able to comprehend two complex concepts at the same time.
I’ve been seeing this post going around in two forms, about how Rogue One (which I have yet to see, so please NO SPOILERS) has an extreme lack of women (including background characters). That’s a really good, important point to discuss. And then there’s a post bashing that same article, pointing to the fact that the film highlights many non-white men and dismissing the article as white feminism.
No.
Both of these may be correct.
The ability of a film to have great representation for men of different races, creeds, abilities and backgrounds does not for a moment contradict the inability of the film to have adequate representation for women of any race, creed, ability or background.
This is why I hate the “trash fire” all-or-nothing mentality. It cannot cope with the notion that something can be good and bad at the same time, in different corners and contexts. For example: something can be great for racial representation and terrible for LGBTQ+ representation. The former does not automatically make the thing great; the latter does not automatically make the thing terrible. (Key word: automatically.)
Not only that, things can have different meanings to different people based on their different experiences. For someone mixed race Asian-white, a main character like Chloe Bennet’s on Agents of SHIELD may be hugely important. For someone black, the show’s troubling history of killing off most of its black characters may be deeply problematic. Neither is wrong.
Personal experiences shape our interpretations of things. Experiences are not universal. The world is not comprised of absolutes. The stunning lack of women in film (at every layer) intersects, of course, with the stunning lack of non-white people in film (at every layer), but neither is more or less important than the other. (Especially since the doubly stunning lack of non-white women in film is something we should talk about more.) It is not “white feminism” to point out that a film with ten character posters had only one devoted to a (white) woman (even if she is the lead), just because the remaining men are non-white. Nor is it misogynistic to appreciate the film’s focus on (male) non-white heroes.
Let’s start with Chirrut, played by Donnie Yen. When Chirrut first showed up in the movie, I had a sense of dread: “ah, here we go with the magical Asian stereotype.” After all, he was wearing robes, carried a staff, and offered some vague, mysterious platitudes about the kyber crystal necklace Jyn was wearing. He knew martial arts, and it looked like that was going to be his defining characteristic. But the more interactions we saw between Chirrut and the other characters, the more revolutionary he seemed as a character — while the TV Tropes page may technically list Chirrut as a “Magical Asian” (your mileage may vary, obviously), in many ways, he turned the stereotype on its head. After all, here was an Asian male character who was also Force-sensitive, religious, a badass, and disabled. He was wise, sure, but he was also impish and wry.
In a lesser movie, he’d have been the Mr. Miyagi or Pai-Mei of Rogue One, whose sole purpose was to offer bland mystic platitudes while teaching the white protagonist. But Chirrut didn’t just speak in platitudes or proverbs, even though his most memorable line is a prayer chant. He made jokes and cracked wise, most memorably when he asked “are you kidding me?” as Saw Gerrera’s rebels placed a black bag over his head. He also didn’t offer to teach any of the other characters (and what good would that have done, really, in the timeframe this movie takes place in?), and Jyn, the sole white protagonist, didn’t exceed his particular skills by virtue of being white and “special.”
I am all for poc being cast in roles that highlight their cultural history and struggles
But can we also campaign for giving poc roles that are about an average person with average problems????? Roles that are given to white people by default…….
A black girl in a romance movie where the greatest obstacle isn’t her race and the greatest reward isn’t that she ends up with the white dude…….
A romantic comedy where all the poc characters aren’t stereotyped by what Hollywood classifies as their culture…..
A coming of age story starring a diverse group of children instead of a token (stereotyped) minority character…..
Can we make movies that don’t make the family dynamics in black or latinx culture dramatic or toxic?????
Can we have more Muslim representation in general????????
Can we show non-christian religions as more than oppressive?????
Can we give poc more roles than the ones that were “written for them”?????
Can we make movies showing the true diversity of society rather than trying to convince ppl that poc are just sprinkles in a white world ????????
Representation is so important. I am so happy Hidden Figures celebrates the story of brave, brilliant African-American women in STEM.
And a soapbox side note: If any of you are still trying to figure out what you want to do with your life and like science and tech, give computer science a try! It’s a myth that you have to be a genius to do it- anyone can code. I will be more than happy to talk to you about it or give you advice (I’ve worked at Google and start-ups).
I took my father to see Rogue One today. I’ve wanted to take him for a while. I wanted my Mexican father, with his thick Mexican accent, to experience what it was like to see a hero in a blockbuster film, speak the way he does. And although I wasn’t sure if it was going to resonate with him, I took him anyway. When Diego Luna’s character came on screen and started speaking, my dad nudged me and said, “he has a heavy accent.” I was like, “Yup.” When the film was over and we were walking to the car, he turns to me and says, “did you notice that he had an accent?” And I said, “Yeah dad, just like yours.” Then my dad asked me if the film had made a lot of money. I told him it was the second highest grossing film of 2016 despite it only being out for 18 days in 2016 (since new year just came around). He then asked me if people liked the film, I told him that it had a huge following online and great reviews. He then asked me why Diego Luna hadn’t changed his accent and I told him that Diego has openly talked about keeping his accent and how proud he is of it. And my dad was silent for a while and then he said, “And he was a main character.” And I said, “He was.” And my dad was so happy. As we drove home he started telling me about other Mexican actors that he thinks should be in movies in America. Representation matters.
Hello Guys! A lot of you have been asking for my dad’s reaction after Diego Luna tweeted out my post, and here he is. He was off to work this morning when I snagged him…
Steel Phoenix Studios 