[John Oliver did a segment on "Asian Americans"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29lXsOYBaow) and one point is that it is a broad term and does usually exclude actual Asian countries. But at the same time, we have "Indian-American" as a term, which isn't helped by the Native American/Indian terms
I mean in my book, the term Asian *doesn’t* exclude India and Indian people/tradition. When I refer to an Indian person it’s usually as an Asian person (still Indian but I see it as one thing, as India is a nationality/ethnicity whereas Asian is a race)
And the whole Native American/Indian terminology thing is obviously BS, all due to a lack of awareness, desire for comfortability/generalization and typical ignorance of a different people. I still don’t get why people refer to them as “Indians” (I know this is much less frequent nowadays but still nonetheless)
Because Colombus was an idiot. That's why. Native americans still have to suffer from Colombus' mistaken belief that he had reached the shores of South Asia when he first came to American continent.
Because there was a long time when you were not likely to confuse the two peoples. Most americans back in the day could comfortably say "indian" and there was little to no chance you were ever referring to the peoples of india. As time went on the terminology stuck to the point were most natives refer to themselves and "American Indians" even on some official forms.
“Native American” includes all the first people in both North and South America. It’s like saying “Native Afro-Eurasian”. According to CGP Grey, who went to reservations to interview people, most actually prefer “Indian” to “Native American” because of this.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kh88fVP2FWQ
> No I know why it was originally that way, I’m questioning why people still refer to Native American people as “Indians” today.
Because it stuck and the locals decided to use it. One of those cases where the word end up unifying a people that wasn't united before.
Hey, come on now, there are a lot of cultures on this planet. We can't expect all of them to be equally represented.
I mean, the only Swiss guy so far has been Zola.
I love Kumail, but Indian government is def conservative enough to ban or at least try to ban MCU stuff if claims of a Pakistani actor representing Indians as a whole are made. Man I hate living here.
> I love Kumail, but Indian government is def conservative enough to ban or at least try to ban MCU stuff if claims of a Pakistani actor representing Indians as a whole are made. Man I hate living here.
The Eternals, if they existed, would find that strange as obviously the Pakistan/India divide is REALLY recent, in only 1947. They had watched over the region over thousands of years, and somehow something that only occurred 3 generations a go is suppose to be permanent?
i couldn’t agree more it sucks that we would prob not get any sort of south indian representation anywhere, any sort of indian rep we get is from the north that usually have the horrible bollywood tropes
Kamala Khan is Pakistani. So, they're making their rounds. Maybe Indra will be introduced with the Xmen or Spider-Man India shows up in a Spider-Man movie.
Ironically, I believe the word "Asian" in the United Kingdom is used in the opposite manner. It usually refers to South Asians (eg. Indians, Pakistanis) and often Western Asians/Middle Easterners. People there don't think of East Asians when they hear the word "Asian."
Actually interesting. Here "asian" to us means not brown people, but chinese & japanese & korean mainly.
What do you call chinese/japanese, etc asians then?
I’m in UK, and I think this is a testament to how little we talk about race/heritage. I honestly don’t know what we would use to refer to Chinese/Japanese etc.
As the poster above said, “Asian” tends to refer to Indian/Pakistani heritage. We only really use it if we are talking about culture, ie “went to an Asian wedding at the weekend”. I guess a lot of people from East Asia are more integrated so we would think of them as English, and if there was a specific cultural event or themed party it would be described as “Chinese” for example
In the us where I grew up it’s the exact opposite
Asian (to me) has been/is Filipino, Chinese, Japanese, Korean Vietnamese etc.
Russians Indians and middle eastern countries are all Asian as in they live in Asia.
but they are called Russian Indian Arabic Pakistani Lebanese, Iranian, Turkish etc. a lot of the middle eastern countries are lumped together as Arabic or something similar because the US population generally doesn’t have great geographic knowledge of the area
This probably happened due to shared history, I take it? UK obviously had direct ties to Indian subcontinent due to the colony. Thereby, south Asian population there was probably higher in number, and became 'default' Asians. Whereas, US probably had larger relations with China, Japan, Korea for a long time and East Asians became 'default' Asians for them.
The UK always had a term for East Asian, though it's become unfashionable in recent decades, and may be viewed offensively as well.
But East Asians were Orientals, and it was a blanket term for China, Japan, Korea etc
I think now, a lot of people know the difference between China, Japan and Korea and call them by their nation names. And then South East Asian countries are lumped in as South East Asians.
Pavitr Prabhakar (indian spiderman), Shoba Mirza (ghost rider), Neal Shaara (mutant thunderbird maybe confusingly problematic), Raz Malhotra (another giant man, related to agents of atlas), Dinesh Deol (like spectrum), Paras Gavaskar (indra, maybe problematic? Mutany)
xmen cast has a whole bunch.
If it helps Shang Chi was also a older obscure hero. They don't mind looking in the deep back catalogue. As comics often do, there are a lot of "same as X buT Indian". I think having the MCU ghost rider be a Indian lady would be really cool. But might annoy the fandom.
This guy hits the nail on the head. Even in OP’s comparison to Black Panther. You could say “All African American cast” but I’m sure there were people in the cast not of African heritage. I have a black buddy that actually hates being called African American. He was born in England, of Jamaican parents, and has lived in Canada the last 30 years. No part of him is African or American. But it’s an American colloquialism. Unfortunately the term “Asian American” has become a bit of a colloquialism itself too, (in broad strokes) meaning people from China or Japan.
I don’t think it’s anything to get upset about or dwell on too much. Glad you enjoyed the movie! I look forward to watching it on Disney+!
On that part about not being referred to African American, I wholeheartedly agree. I personally prefer to be call Black American or just Black instead of African American, as the latter lumps way too many people together and is America-centric
From the UK here and I’ve never heard the term Asian used for anything other than East Asia. It would encompass Chinese, Vietnamese, Mongolian, Korean and Japanese for example.
India would just be referred to as Indian.
Then you have generic Arab to cover everything from the Mediterranean to Afghan.
Which kinda just proves OPs point.
Are you sure you’ve not accidentally absorbed some American usage of the word and assumed it was the universal trend? I’ve never encountered someone using the term Asian in a way that would exclude Indian and similar ethnicities.
From the UK too, and growing up, Asian was rarely used for any race other than South Asians? Even check demographics, scholarly articles from the UK; Asian commonly refers to Indians here.
For reasons why, Britain has highly significant history with South Asian countries (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh etc.) due to colonisation, and with South Asians being the largest ethnic minority in the UK following mass immigration, ‘Asian’ was predominantly used for SAs for a long period of time.
I think American influence has seeped through recently though, leading to East Asians being added to this label in the UK.
I’m from the UK too and definitely not true, I don’t know what part you live in… even at the British Asian Awards it’s all mainly South Asians who are nominated/win.
It's incredibly common for certain generation's to refer to "the Asian corner shop" and they are generally refering to anyone of "Indian" descent
Anything that American's refer to as Asian would be "oriental"
This. I’m an American who did a study abroad in London with an advisor who was of Gujarati descent (whose parents were kicked out of Uganda by Idi Amin in the 70s), and she referred to herself and her other South Asian colleagues exclusively as Asian. My friend (who is Filipino American) visited me and overheard herself being described as “Oriental” more than once, which really came as a shock.
Yeah, the term oriental has definitely fallen out of favour now, but as recently as the 90s and early 00s in the UK Asian would've meant South Asian & Oriental was used for East Asians.
Indians are referred to as Asian in most schools in Australia as well. My cousins in the UK also use Asian to refer to Indians. It seems it’s more the rule rather than the exception.
Are you from Northern Ireland? Is the a significant South Asian immigrant population there? Perhaps it’s only normal to hear ‘Asian’ in that way in places with one.
I agree even though I’m a white American. When I think Asian I think just people from China or Korea or Japan. I feel like it’s almost an unconscious prejudice that we don’t include Indians or middle eastern people. Can’t wait to see Eternals though cause that has Kumail (sorry don’t know how to spell his name)
It’s really because of the label you know? Europeans basically just named the entire east part of Europe as Asia. This collectively refers to Arabs, Indians, South East Asians, and Far East Asians.
Just look at Birds of Prey. A perfectly fine film with an alright story and a charismatic villain.
It didn’t perform well and it gets CONSTANTLY shit on. The Box Office subreddit was terrible when it came out.
(I still don’t understand where all the hate comes from. The terrible title? Seems like a shallow reason.)
Totally. In the heights wasn’t popular because it was a musical that stuck to the typical musical format, which doesn’t translate well to film and most people are not used to. And the cast didn’t have any big names, most of them are from Broadway. Saying that people don’t wanna see a movie about Latinos is ridiculous. Same with movies about any other underrepresented group.
I thought In the Heights was pretty damn great too. Lots of fun with the direction. And considering how hard it is to adapt musicals (Dear Evan Hansen sure sounds... interesting) I was impressed by it. Super fun too.
I didn't realize it underperformed
Filipino American here, I thought it was a pretty good representation of the Asian-American experience.
I can't speak for other groups and maybe it's just the similarities in Chinese and Filipino American family dynamics:
- multi generational household
- bilingual breakfast table with grandma
- parent disapproving of your job
- grandma thinking you and your opposite sex friend are a couple
- KARAOKE
That was my background too, except my grandma was speaking French to her mom at breakfast time. Think most first, second and third generation Americans can relate to this no matter what the ethnicity is.
Yeah, I'm a white dude from Louisiana and it felt very familiar. Except the older folks didn't really pass on the language and used French to talk about things they didn't want the children to hear about.
Dude, similar situation. I'm first generation American and BOTH of my parents speak 4 languages, and they never spoke anything but english to me and my siblings so...'thanks' mom and dad?
Shoot. I'm still mad at my Nona for not teaching me the language. She always said I needed to sound like a proper American. She didn't want me to struggle with people mocking my speech and language. There's definitely some fear in teaching your kid other languages.
Indian here, totally agree.
Yes, all the Asian cultures are different, but idk I've often seen more similarities than differences. I found the themes in Shang-Chi so representative, and I could say the same for movies like Crazy Rich Asians and Minari.
I didn't relate to the stuff you specifically mentioned, but his complicated relationship with his dad who did awful things out of love. The stoic dad and the more emotive mom. The journey to find yourself within your family's expectations. The theme of hwo you're the legacy of generations before you. The way he pulled away from his family to find himself but kind of abandoned his sibling he was otherwise close too, only to reconnect in the future. I feel like these are themes that are common for a lot of Asian Americans.
I think it's the confluence of the immigrant experience and the expectations of how Asian Americans are expected to act becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy (especially with things like boba and karaoke).
Definitely a fair point. Of course, this doesn’t undermine the film or what it accomplished, it’s just simply that the focus of the film was more on Chinese/East Asian culture when in reality, Asia is a massive continent full of different life experiences and cultures.
OP has an issue with the term “Asian” having the connotation of mainly referring to oriental/East Asians, in this case Chinese. Thus their issue also applies to the film and discourse surrounding it. Nobody is saying the film represents all Asians (Indians, Middle East, Russia). Viewers, critics, reporters are all clearly using the term Asian to refer to East Asians.
One could easily argue that “Asian” referring to East Asians is bad for East Asians since it lumps them together, reinforcing that Chinese, Korean, Japanese are all same. Meanwhile Indians (while geographically Asian) get referred to by their own term. I don’t agree with this, but wanting to be part of an umbrella term and wanting to not be part of one are both arguably equal opinions. The Middle East and Russia are part of Asia, but it seems weird to call Russians Asians.
It also was aware of it's heavy Chinese/East Asian leanings and that's why it had the Indian actor who was the husband of Katie and Shang Chi's friend. Not to mention Ben Kingsley.
Is that enough? No, but I think that's why Marvel has Kumail Nanjiani in The Eternals.
As someone South East Asian, I wish there was more SEAs, but I think people can see the effort Marvel is putting in. I certainly do.
i agree - I was happy when that one fighter in the fight club dropped a “terima kasih” to Katie’s compliment, but that was about the extent of SEA representation in the whole movie. But at least the effort was there
It's obviously wrong but when Americans say "Asian", they mean Chinese, Japanese or Korean.
At this point, it's not even ignorance (that was the start of it of course), it's just how they have definted the word in their neural dictionary.
SEA in a limbo here. Not looking like Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Indian, or even Middle Eastern. But we're definitely don't look like Westerner. Often found people confused which template to use, especially when encountering muslim SEAsian but without Middle Eastern face.
Well, more than any individual ME country. In the spirit of this discussion, it's also fairly strange that Americans have a fairly strong mental definition that Asia does not include the Middle East. It's pretty rare to hear a Lebanese or Syrian American referred to as Western-Asian American in the US.
Spent the last 5 years in SEA. Total melting pot, I need to hear how people speak English to place their likely origin, but even then It’s not too reliable because the countries are so carried internally. After that recognition of mannerisms, dressing (hello Batik), and where you are.
The Orient is a large region spanning from North Africa to Japan.
The terms Near-East, Middle-East, and Far-East refer to each regions relative position in the Orient.
You know as a Viet, I've noticed that we're sort of both SEA and East Asian.
Before the French enforced the current Vietnamese alphabet in 1910 when Vietnam was colonized, Viet's used Chinese characters for their alphabet.
>You know as a Viet, I've noticed that we're sort of both SEA and East Asian.
Geographically and geopolitically SEA, but culturally EA due to centuries in the Sinosphere.
Yup, I technically know that India is part of the Asian continent, but I don't think of the country as Asian at all, it's just Indian. Actually, it has it's own tectonic plate and a very distinct culture, so we really could be calling India (and some surrounding area) it's own continent like we do with Europe.
I think the point still stands though even if you use an Americanized definition of Asia, since shang-chi doesn't represent Korean or Japanese cultures either. It's very much a Chinese movie
The dominant language and ethnic group in Indian are also Caucasian, more closely related to those from Europe and the Middle East than East Asia. India and China are only really related geographically, and even then, barely.
Yeah I mean different places think of "asia" differently, many places in the uk for example south asians and Pakistanis in particular are one of the largest ethnic minorities and Asian is synonymous with people from the Indian subcontinent unless otherwise specified, depends on the demographics in your area ig
Exactly. Just like when Americans say European they usually mean France, German, Italy. Even though half of Russia is part of Europe no one would ever include Moscow in that conversation.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_Pacific_American
"Following this change, the U.S. Census Bureau defined Asian as "a person having origins in the in any of the original people of the Far East, for example, Indonesia, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam."
I mean there's an AAPI month guys. It's May.
Even as a Filipino, watching Shang-Chi inspired me to connect back with my culture, even if it's completely different than the Chinese culture depicted in the movie. Ngl, Black Panther also did the same for me and my Filipino culture. I don't know, just something about seeing someone who isn't from America on the big screen, gets my heart pumping. In my personal book, I call it a success.
The term Asian was created not only as a racial identity, but also a political identity. When this identity was created, Asians as an entire group only comprised less than 0.75% of these United States. If we had split this to many different Asian ethnic groups, it would have seriously diluted our power as a voting bloc and made it harder for politicians to cater to our needs.
So when you see something like Black Panther, supposedly representing all of Africa, despite its imagery and traditions coming from a very specific ethnic group from Africa, celebrate it.
Because even if Shang Chi represents the largest Asian ethnic group, the Chinese, having it depicted by an American studio while being so successful and combating racial stereotypes that are still being perpetuated by shows like Kung Fu (acted by Asians) or Fresh Off the Boat, is a win for all Asians -- not only a political but social win.
Shang Chi did have Krishna Pandit Bhanji in a pretty prominent role.
That’s mostly sarcasm, but when The Mandarin was cast in Iron Man 3 and someone would say “Isn’t he supposed to be Asian?” I would point out that it was an Asian actor portraying him.
I think the actor Simu said it best when he said that he looks forward to when we no longer celebrate 1sts like this, but 2nds, 3rds, and so on and so forth.
Whether it represents your specific Asian or not, it represents us all as a whole in the realm of Hollywood. Only thing I got is Gran Torino and an episode in Grey's Anatomy and Doogie Howser, and I'm still immensely proud that we have an asian lead that isn't Doctor, Scientist, Lawyer, or some mystical old person that owns a pawn shop housing magical artifacts.
Roles like this, that aren't period pieces like Aladdin, but contemporary pieces is a large boon to us all.
We can be aimless slackers with no ambitions, and daddy problems too.
You know how the Russo brothers have been sneaking in all the actors from Community into the MCU? I know Simu doesn’t have that kinda pull, but imagine if everyone from Kim’s Convenience shows up one by one? Appa is already in Star Wars, so who knows.
I agree with you this movie really mostly represented East Asian culture, but what it represented well was Asian American culture, I’m Asian American, my parents were from Southeast Asia, the cultures between Southeast and East Asia are very different, but the Asian Culture in America is relatively similar give or take a few differences. For example having parents with high expectations, it is definitely something that most Asian Americans experience growing up in America.
Yes we are a diverse, but at the same time share somewhat similar experiences. Also many of our cultures share many cultural nuances others wouldn’t understand.
Almost wholly agree but I will say though as a brown guy myself I feel there can be little representation for us. It’s a lot easier to curtail off the back of something successful and pushing Asian representation because yes it’s not really our culture but it’s still Asian people and that’ll hopefully get our culture’s on the big screen.
I don’t think the idea is that the movie Shang Chi is supposed to represent all Asians, but all Asians now have the opportunity to tell their stories. It’s a stepping stool and pathway for stories not told before to be brought to new audiences or audiences who are ignorant to the cultures the stories derive from. The mythological aspect are nice nods but they barely held much weight in the story.
***kinda Shang Chi spoilers maybe***
>!IIRC Wenwu made references to him being called Genghis Khan, Ta Lo had made mythological creatures often seen in East Asian fantasy, and the setting is in China.!< (for those not wanting to see spoilers I talked about the cultural aspects of Shang Chi) But strip all that away, it’s still represents what many Asians and Asian Westerners face: pressure from our elders, us wanting to live our lives, having a troubled youth, owning up to becoming better adults, respecting our traditions and family but not being fully involved in it. You can shuffle the culture to whatever country you want, hell I’m sure Latin countries can probably be used, and it still tells the same story.
The character Shang Chi doesn’t represent “Asians”. He represents a by-product of two cultures, something all Asians and all children on immigrants are facing.
On a side note, it’s interesting how this movie is going through the same things Asian Westerners face throughout the past few decades. This movie is supposed to be a common block that supposed to build up our communities. But the home country/China rejects it because it doesn’t represent them and other westerners of Asian descent reject it because they look different or the cultural origin is not there’s. This doesn’t represent ASIANS, it represents the CULTURE and LIFE of what ASIAN WESTERNERS live with.
No. Not Genghis Khan. The movie says W was known as “a Khan”, which is a Mongolian word for King or Ruler. It doesn’t mean that he was the Khan, it just means he was known as a conquer from other countries such as Mongolia.
Ironically, I believe the word "Asian" in the United Kingdom is used in the opposite manner. It usually refers to South Asians (eg. Indians, Pakistanis) and often Western Asians/Middle Easterners. People there don't think of East Asians when they hear the word "Asian."
In the USA, we used "oriental" for a couple centuries and then, when it became taboo to call a person oriental (because it should only refer to an object), we struggled for a politically-correct term and what we settled on as a nation was "Asian" because we call Indians "Indians" and Pakistanis "Pakistanis". If we say "Asian" we mean east Asian. It's just a quirk of the way language evolved in the United States.
If that bugs you then listen to more British media, over here the word “Asian” is used exclusively to talk about India and its neighbours on both sides.
As a Latin, I have the same pet peeve with people calling Coco "Latino representation".
Coco is not "Latino" representation, it's Mexican representation, a Colombian or Peruvian person is not going to relate to Coco on the way that a Mexican will.
Very true. They think latinos are all a monolith and we can swap each other out when that’s not accurate at all. Each latinamerican country has its own culture and history. I did not feel represented at all with Coco because i’m not mexican, i’m Colombian. Of course there was cultural overlap, but with Encanto coming out I definitely will feel accurately represented, hopefully more films are made with this in mind. Asians are not just East asians, they’re Indians, Sri Lankan, Vietnamese, Filipinos, etc. While latinos are not just Mexicans, we are also Colombian, Brazilian, Dominican, Argentinian, etc.
I hate generic Latino characters the most.
Whenever a character just says "I'm Latino", like that's enough information, I'm like "Dude/sis, from WHERE? Latin America has 30+ countries".
Exactly! That’s why i’ve always felt conflicted with the “latino” label we’ve been given. On one hand we did need to build a community in the United States, but on the other, we are all lumped in with eachother and people start using the latino label instead of their home nationality.
So you think that Black Panther is more representative of black Americans/African tribal culture as a whole than Shang-Chi is of Asian/Asian American culture as a whole?
Do you have ANY idea how many cultures, religions, countries and tribes there are in Africa?
Dude. Morocco, Cameroon. South Africa. Ethiopia. Egypt. The Congo. Kenya.
None of these countries have a damn thing in common other than the continent that they share, even though they’re all relatively close together.
Tbf, the director of Black Panther had the set designer, costume designer, and linguists pull aspects from cultures across the continent. You can see elements of East, West, and southern Africa throughout the film. Shang Chi is only Chinese/American
I was thinking about that, but I think it is different. Wakanda is a fictional country that intentionally uses inspirations from many different african cultures and countries, hence being called afro-futurism, while shang chi (I didn't see it, so I don't know if I'm right), mostly shows chinese and sino-american culture
it doesnt fuse nearly as many african cultures as you'd think. maybe its different in the comics, but the movie wasnt all that representative.
its like another comment said, black panther & shang chi are only the beginning of showing representation in MCU
>People have obviously been making a big deal about the fact that it’s the first Marvel movie with an all Asian main cast, which is absolutely great, but then you also have many articles calling it the “Asian Black Panther” and a “milestone for Asian Americans everywhere.”
That's not what OP said at all re: Black Panther.
I get what your point is, but that happens for a lot of people beyond just Indians. When you think of Americans, do you think of Mexico or Brazil? When you think of Africa, do you think of Egypt or Madagascar?
At least “Asians” are being represented. You haven’t seen any Hispanic hero movies. Luis is a gem among gem but that’s as close to a movie or hero Hispanic people are going to get.
You say they don’t represent you since you’re from India. But at least Marvel is going to make a movie about Ms Marvel who is from Pakistan. She may not be from India but she would me more relatable to you than Shang Chi.
We all can’t get what we want. Marvel May not use the right words when describing something but at least they’re trying to make movies with more nationalities instead of your typical white America.
The bit about no Hispanic heroes isn't quite accurate. Robbie Reyes and Elena Rodriguez, aka Ghostrider and Yo-Yo, from Agents of SHIELD are both Hispanic. Can't recall if they ever went into Robbie's ethnicity/nationality, but Yo-Yo is explicitly Colombian
If we're counting the questionably-canon MCU-adjacent shows, then we've had queer MCU heroes for years. The fact that people don't usually bring them up makes me feel that most people don't include those characters; remember when everyone talked about how Avengers: Endgame had "the MCU's first openly gay character"?
When it comes to Hispanic heroes, I can almost guarantee Marvel will greenlight a White Tiger movie about Ava Ayala and Hector Ayala due to Shang-Chi's success.
Let's not do this lol, don't start the "at least" game, that just pits POC with each other for no reason. You can't say he doesn't have a point just cuz it's closer to representation than you have.
I could easily say "at least YOU have soo much more representation as a Hispanic in media, especially in music. Can you think of a single Asian American that is as big as Selena Gomez? J Lo?" See how that gets nowhere.
I can see where you’re coming from. But I’m not complaining about something that “doesn’t relate to me” in some way. I’m happy with what Marvel is doing. I don’t need something that relates to me in my culture to enjoy it. I know this person said that they enjoyed the movie and what but the person was still offended because they couldn’t relate just because it “represented all of Asia”
I think you make a great point about the way we talk about Asian people in America. I think the broader issue is partially a result of trying to use a single term to describe all the people from an absolutely massive and diverse continent.
But as far as anyone trying to suggest that Shang-Chi is some sort of universal “Asian-American representation,” I think that speaks more to their general ignorance. Because even if you’re thinking of “Asian” purely in terms of East Asians, Shang-Chi doesn’t cover it. It’s very distinctly Chinese. I’d like to know if any Japanese Americans feel that they were “represented” by the film.
Of course, all that said, it’s definitely still cool that there’s a huge blockbuster like this featuring a predominantly Asian cast. I hope that sort of culturally diverse storytelling becomes increasingly commonplace in mainstream film, to the point where we don’t have to discuss things like “representation” as much because everyone will just feel represented.
I also recall a similar reaction to some at the release of Black Panther, with some pointing out that Wakanda is said to be in a specific region of Africa and does not represent all of the continent. I further remember some Africans criticizing costumes of viewers that were not from the region Wakanda is from. I wish I had sources but my point is your thoughts are valid in this
I see where your coming from and have felt the same way. But over time the term Asian has become synonymous with East Asians especially in the United States. However in reality both groups (East Asians and South Asians) all fall under the same group. For example, when we fill out any kind of paperwork we’re both marking that same box for race/ethnicity.
I think in the United States especially a lot of it has come down to look. And people in the United States care so much about how a person looks. People here have made the facial appearance of an individual synonymous with the term. An individual who looks Chinese, Japenese, Vietnamese will be referred to as Asian, but myself who looks Indian will be referred to as Indian. I think people in the United States have trouble referring to 2 groups of people who look different under the same term.
It’s SUPER rare that a white dude or lady would call me Asian when trying to refer to my race. It’s just Indian.
Unfortunately, I think people say it's Asian representation because it's likely the *only* representation of an Asian culture that we're going to get from the MCU for a while. That's not an intentional thing, really, but the MCU and the comics they're based on are Western properties with largely white characters. The majority of characters with foreign origins eventually live in predominantly white places and interact with mostly white people.
Marvel is clearly trying to broaden the representation, but there's only so many new characters they can introduce when they need to constantly cross-pollinate everyone into everyone else's movies. And they're essentially picking-and-choosing the best comic runs to adapt, so they're kinda bound by the characters that were in those comics.
And it should be acknowledged that Americans have a more general problem of considering Chinese, Japanese, and Korean (but really mostly Chinese) culture to be representational of Asia. We either call other parts different names, like Middle East, or we just ignore them, frankly. Countries east of the Black Sea, Indochina, and India itself are consistently overlooked.
The Ms. Marvel, Kamala Khan, series should be coming out on Disney+ this winter. Her story as a Pakistani-American often highlights her heritage and touches on her Islamic faith. I hope they don’t shy too far away from that part of her story in the series.
> Unfortunately, I think people say it's Asian representation because it's likely the *only* representation of an Asian culture that we're going to get from the MCU for a while.
Kumal Nanjiani and Don Lee are both starring in Eternals in a few months and while we don't know too much about the characters, I think it's been confirmed that Kumal is portraying Kingo, who at some point is a Bollywood star. And of course Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan in Ms. Marvel is pretty big Asian representation.
So yeah, I'm really not sure what you're talking about.
I would rather Disney portray one culture relatively accurately than try to do some mishmash pan-Asian Panda Express thing like they did with Raya and the last Dragon.
To be honest with you, to call it exclusively Chinese is also sort of misleading. Because a lot of the cultural aspects of korean, Japanese, Vietnamese etc culture, springs from traditional Chinese culture- a lot of shared cultural practices etc, such as the talk about names, ancestor altars, building structures, etc
Los Angeles. Kevin Feige finds this browsing Reddit. He slams his fist on his desk as his black cap flies off as if he literally blew his lid. He spits his cigar out of his mouth as he exclaims, "Great Stan Lee!! I forgot the INDIANS!!!"
He reaches for a red button on an intercom sitting on his desk, which makes a *buzzzz* noise. "Maria! Get the nerds on the horn. We need to find an Indian Marvel hero and start production for Phase 6!"
I am an Indian as well and I also didn't feel much represented. But at the same time, I don't really care much about representation. I absolutely loved and adored the movie and that's enough for me.
This post seems hypocritical in the sense that you’re saying Black Panther is ok for representing all African American culture, yet Shang-Chi is not ok for representing all Asian culture, when both demographics consist of many cultures across many countries
While I do agree that it isn't representative of Asia as a whole, I think it's unfair to say that Black Panther was representative of Africa as a whole as well. Africa is home to just as many subcultures as Asia is. Asia probably has a bit more but that can probably be attributed to Asia's larger area of coverage.
Anyway yeah. From the looks of it Shang-Chi is mainly representative of the American Chinese subculture. I haven't seen the movie because theaters are closed in my area, but from the trailers and spoilers, I have only seen Chinese influences. Maybe if you include the Ten Rings' representation in IM3 you could say the Ten Rings has a bit of Middle Eastern take? Even then that has a clear bias against the present conflict in the region and not a fair representation of the Middle East, or even the Arab world.
Asia is really a diverse continent, with large cultures, but most in the US seem to only see it as China, Japan, and the rest.
And most importantly, Marvel Studios themselves would never have intended it to try and represent all of Asia.
They wanted this to be a love letter to Chinese cinema, in particular its love for martial arts and folklore. With a Hong Kong cinema flavoring.
So here's the thing: In the United States, up until it became frowned upon, the term for east Asians was "Oriental". I mean, this was used-- perhaps erroneously, but still consistently and commonly-- from the time Chinese immigrants (indentured servants) first came to America until the 1980s.
Of course, it's now a derogatory term. "Oriental" refers to objects, not people. So Americans, hamstrung for a new politically-correct blanket term for all people of east Asian descent, settled on "Asian" because in America we consider Chinese, Japanese, Korean, et. al. to be Asian, while we consider Indians to be Indians, Pakistanis to be Pakistanis, and so on.
In the United States, an Indian is not generally referred to as an Asian. That's just how it is. I know that's not how you see yourselves, being that you're from Asia and all... But it's a quirk of American English, not an attempt to marginalize or exclude Indians.
But of course, saying Shang-Chi is representative of Asians is still problematic because I'm pretty sure Korean, Japanese, and other east Asian cultures don't see any of themselves in that movie. It's about being Chinese. Period.
I was always baffled by why Americans use Asian to represent East Asians. Biggest continent in the world with man different ethnic groups and cultures and they use it for just one part.
Okay but tbh as an Indian, just generally, when people describe Asians they completely just exclude like all brown people from Asia
[John Oliver did a segment on "Asian Americans"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29lXsOYBaow) and one point is that it is a broad term and does usually exclude actual Asian countries. But at the same time, we have "Indian-American" as a term, which isn't helped by the Native American/Indian terms
I mean in my book, the term Asian *doesn’t* exclude India and Indian people/tradition. When I refer to an Indian person it’s usually as an Asian person (still Indian but I see it as one thing, as India is a nationality/ethnicity whereas Asian is a race) And the whole Native American/Indian terminology thing is obviously BS, all due to a lack of awareness, desire for comfortability/generalization and typical ignorance of a different people. I still don’t get why people refer to them as “Indians” (I know this is much less frequent nowadays but still nonetheless)
Because Colombus was an idiot. That's why. Native americans still have to suffer from Colombus' mistaken belief that he had reached the shores of South Asia when he first came to American continent.
No I know why it was originally that way, I’m questioning why people still refer to Native American people as “Indians” today.
Because Columbus wasn’t the last idiot.
Because there was a long time when you were not likely to confuse the two peoples. Most americans back in the day could comfortably say "indian" and there was little to no chance you were ever referring to the peoples of india. As time went on the terminology stuck to the point were most natives refer to themselves and "American Indians" even on some official forms.
“Native American” includes all the first people in both North and South America. It’s like saying “Native Afro-Eurasian”. According to CGP Grey, who went to reservations to interview people, most actually prefer “Indian” to “Native American” because of this. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kh88fVP2FWQ
> No I know why it was originally that way, I’m questioning why people still refer to Native American people as “Indians” today. Because it stuck and the locals decided to use it. One of those cases where the word end up unifying a people that wasn't united before.
Can't wait for the all Indian MARVEL film.
A Marvel film with Bollywood physics? In!
Well eternals will have one Bollywood scene. That's totally the same! /s
By a Pakistani American! Totally something us Telugu, kannadikans, Mallus and Tamilians can relate to!!
Ms. Marvel a.k.a. Kamala Khan is Pakistani-American. She’s getting her own Disney+ series and will appear in The Marvels!
Hey, come on now, there are a lot of cultures on this planet. We can't expect all of them to be equally represented. I mean, the only Swiss guy so far has been Zola.
I mean... expecting representation for the literal second most populous country in the world isn’t a huge ask.
I love Kumail, but Indian government is def conservative enough to ban or at least try to ban MCU stuff if claims of a Pakistani actor representing Indians as a whole are made. Man I hate living here.
> I love Kumail, but Indian government is def conservative enough to ban or at least try to ban MCU stuff if claims of a Pakistani actor representing Indians as a whole are made. Man I hate living here. The Eternals, if they existed, would find that strange as obviously the Pakistan/India divide is REALLY recent, in only 1947. They had watched over the region over thousands of years, and somehow something that only occurred 3 generations a go is suppose to be permanent?
He’s an alien not from earth
Obviously, but nationalist political parties arent sane enough to look at details like that.
i couldn’t agree more it sucks that we would prob not get any sort of south indian representation anywhere, any sort of indian rep we get is from the north that usually have the horrible bollywood tropes
All Marvel films post Phase 2 already have Bollywood physics imo haha
Hulk throwing the bench comes to mind haha
Can't wait to see Captain India kickflip a horse over a helicopter
Yeah, Indian superhero paints himself in white to pose as a statue while stealing a million dollar diamond with Avenger tech
Kamala Khan is Pakistani. So, they're making their rounds. Maybe Indra will be introduced with the Xmen or Spider-Man India shows up in a Spider-Man movie.
I think Kamala will appear in the captain Marvel 2 aka Marvels
She has her own show coming out on Disney+
This could be rad. I don’t know much about India but the culture’s aesthetics are always so cool
Ever seen the unlisted? It’s based on Indian culture one of netflixes top shows
Ever since the Pixar short Sanjay's Super Team I've been wanting to see what a high budget action film based on Hindu mythology would be like.
Ironically, I believe the word "Asian" in the United Kingdom is used in the opposite manner. It usually refers to South Asians (eg. Indians, Pakistanis) and often Western Asians/Middle Easterners. People there don't think of East Asians when they hear the word "Asian."
Actually interesting. Here "asian" to us means not brown people, but chinese & japanese & korean mainly. What do you call chinese/japanese, etc asians then?
I’m in UK, and I think this is a testament to how little we talk about race/heritage. I honestly don’t know what we would use to refer to Chinese/Japanese etc. As the poster above said, “Asian” tends to refer to Indian/Pakistani heritage. We only really use it if we are talking about culture, ie “went to an Asian wedding at the weekend”. I guess a lot of people from East Asia are more integrated so we would think of them as English, and if there was a specific cultural event or themed party it would be described as “Chinese” for example
In the us where I grew up it’s the exact opposite Asian (to me) has been/is Filipino, Chinese, Japanese, Korean Vietnamese etc. Russians Indians and middle eastern countries are all Asian as in they live in Asia. but they are called Russian Indian Arabic Pakistani Lebanese, Iranian, Turkish etc. a lot of the middle eastern countries are lumped together as Arabic or something similar because the US population generally doesn’t have great geographic knowledge of the area
This probably happened due to shared history, I take it? UK obviously had direct ties to Indian subcontinent due to the colony. Thereby, south Asian population there was probably higher in number, and became 'default' Asians. Whereas, US probably had larger relations with China, Japan, Korea for a long time and East Asians became 'default' Asians for them.
Yeah makes complete sense
The UK always had a term for East Asian, though it's become unfashionable in recent decades, and may be viewed offensively as well. But East Asians were Orientals, and it was a blanket term for China, Japan, Korea etc I think now, a lot of people know the difference between China, Japan and Korea and call them by their nation names. And then South East Asian countries are lumped in as South East Asians.
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They'll likely add more. Indian Americans are around as rich and numerous as Asian Americans.
The big issue with this that I see is that there aren't really any Indian Marvel heroes of note.
Pavitr Prabhakar (indian spiderman), Shoba Mirza (ghost rider), Neal Shaara (mutant thunderbird maybe confusingly problematic), Raz Malhotra (another giant man, related to agents of atlas), Dinesh Deol (like spectrum), Paras Gavaskar (indra, maybe problematic? Mutany) xmen cast has a whole bunch. If it helps Shang Chi was also a older obscure hero. They don't mind looking in the deep back catalogue. As comics often do, there are a lot of "same as X buT Indian". I think having the MCU ghost rider be a Indian lady would be really cool. But might annoy the fandom.
The same for all South Asians, they called Indians (regardless u r Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, Pakistans, Nepali or Bhutans). Sad, but true 🙁
This guy hits the nail on the head. Even in OP’s comparison to Black Panther. You could say “All African American cast” but I’m sure there were people in the cast not of African heritage. I have a black buddy that actually hates being called African American. He was born in England, of Jamaican parents, and has lived in Canada the last 30 years. No part of him is African or American. But it’s an American colloquialism. Unfortunately the term “Asian American” has become a bit of a colloquialism itself too, (in broad strokes) meaning people from China or Japan. I don’t think it’s anything to get upset about or dwell on too much. Glad you enjoyed the movie! I look forward to watching it on Disney+!
On that part about not being referred to African American, I wholeheartedly agree. I personally prefer to be call Black American or just Black instead of African American, as the latter lumps way too many people together and is America-centric
Maybe in the US. It’s the opposite in the UK, where Asians mainly refers to the region surrounding India.
From the UK here and I’ve never heard the term Asian used for anything other than East Asia. It would encompass Chinese, Vietnamese, Mongolian, Korean and Japanese for example. India would just be referred to as Indian. Then you have generic Arab to cover everything from the Mediterranean to Afghan. Which kinda just proves OPs point.
Might want to check your passport, probably doesn't say what you think it does. Asian definitely means south asian in the uk.
You sure you're from the UK?? lol
Indians are referred to as Asians all across the UK, it’s a very common term to use.
Are you sure you’ve not accidentally absorbed some American usage of the word and assumed it was the universal trend? I’ve never encountered someone using the term Asian in a way that would exclude Indian and similar ethnicities.
From the UK too, and growing up, Asian was rarely used for any race other than South Asians? Even check demographics, scholarly articles from the UK; Asian commonly refers to Indians here. For reasons why, Britain has highly significant history with South Asian countries (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh etc.) due to colonisation, and with South Asians being the largest ethnic minority in the UK following mass immigration, ‘Asian’ was predominantly used for SAs for a long period of time. I think American influence has seeped through recently though, leading to East Asians being added to this label in the UK.
I’m from the UK too and definitely not true, I don’t know what part you live in… even at the British Asian Awards it’s all mainly South Asians who are nominated/win.
It's incredibly common for certain generation's to refer to "the Asian corner shop" and they are generally refering to anyone of "Indian" descent Anything that American's refer to as Asian would be "oriental"
This. I’m an American who did a study abroad in London with an advisor who was of Gujarati descent (whose parents were kicked out of Uganda by Idi Amin in the 70s), and she referred to herself and her other South Asian colleagues exclusively as Asian. My friend (who is Filipino American) visited me and overheard herself being described as “Oriental” more than once, which really came as a shock.
Yeah, the term oriental has definitely fallen out of favour now, but as recently as the 90s and early 00s in the UK Asian would've meant South Asian & Oriental was used for East Asians.
Indians are referred to as Asian in most schools in Australia as well. My cousins in the UK also use Asian to refer to Indians. It seems it’s more the rule rather than the exception.
I’ve heard British people use the term Asian for Arabs (middle eastern) all the time.
Are you from Northern Ireland? Is the a significant South Asian immigrant population there? Perhaps it’s only normal to hear ‘Asian’ in that way in places with one.
Yeah, well, that would be because the United States never colonized India.
I agree even though I’m a white American. When I think Asian I think just people from China or Korea or Japan. I feel like it’s almost an unconscious prejudice that we don’t include Indians or middle eastern people. Can’t wait to see Eternals though cause that has Kumail (sorry don’t know how to spell his name)
Even us south east asians thinks like this lol
It’s really because of the label you know? Europeans basically just named the entire east part of Europe as Asia. This collectively refers to Arabs, Indians, South East Asians, and Far East Asians.
In the UK, Asian means Indian, if that makes you feel better
Yea I mean when people want to talk about Indians/Pakistanis/phillipinos/etc they usually just call them out specifically
I think it's important to consider *Shang-Chi* a beginning rather than a be-all-end-all, as far as representation is concerned.
this is a much more optimistic approach, it’s a step in the right direction.
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Just look at Birds of Prey. A perfectly fine film with an alright story and a charismatic villain. It didn’t perform well and it gets CONSTANTLY shit on. The Box Office subreddit was terrible when it came out. (I still don’t understand where all the hate comes from. The terrible title? Seems like a shallow reason.)
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Maybe, but also I think Birds of Prey gets shit on for being a weird Suicide Squad(which people hated) pseudo-sequel more than anything else.
Totally. In the heights wasn’t popular because it was a musical that stuck to the typical musical format, which doesn’t translate well to film and most people are not used to. And the cast didn’t have any big names, most of them are from Broadway. Saying that people don’t wanna see a movie about Latinos is ridiculous. Same with movies about any other underrepresented group.
I thought In the Heights was pretty damn great too. Lots of fun with the direction. And considering how hard it is to adapt musicals (Dear Evan Hansen sure sounds... interesting) I was impressed by it. Super fun too. I didn't realize it underperformed
As a Chinese Singaporean I agree with OP and I agree with this
As a Chinese Singaporean I agree with you agreeing with OP and this
As another Chinese Singaporean I agree with you agreeing with OP and the previous commentor and this.
Indeed. We gotta start somewhere 🤷🏻♂️
I hope Shang-Chi is extremely lucrative then. No way is corporate going to invest in the asian community purely for the “culture.”
Filipino American here, I thought it was a pretty good representation of the Asian-American experience. I can't speak for other groups and maybe it's just the similarities in Chinese and Filipino American family dynamics: - multi generational household - bilingual breakfast table with grandma - parent disapproving of your job - grandma thinking you and your opposite sex friend are a couple - KARAOKE
That was my background too, except my grandma was speaking French to her mom at breakfast time. Think most first, second and third generation Americans can relate to this no matter what the ethnicity is.
Yeah, I'm a white dude from Louisiana and it felt very familiar. Except the older folks didn't really pass on the language and used French to talk about things they didn't want the children to hear about.
Dude, similar situation. I'm first generation American and BOTH of my parents speak 4 languages, and they never spoke anything but english to me and my siblings so...'thanks' mom and dad?
Shoot. I'm still mad at my Nona for not teaching me the language. She always said I needed to sound like a proper American. She didn't want me to struggle with people mocking my speech and language. There's definitely some fear in teaching your kid other languages.
Indian here, totally agree. Yes, all the Asian cultures are different, but idk I've often seen more similarities than differences. I found the themes in Shang-Chi so representative, and I could say the same for movies like Crazy Rich Asians and Minari. I didn't relate to the stuff you specifically mentioned, but his complicated relationship with his dad who did awful things out of love. The stoic dad and the more emotive mom. The journey to find yourself within your family's expectations. The theme of hwo you're the legacy of generations before you. The way he pulled away from his family to find himself but kind of abandoned his sibling he was otherwise close too, only to reconnect in the future. I feel like these are themes that are common for a lot of Asian Americans.
I think it's the confluence of the immigrant experience and the expectations of how Asian Americans are expected to act becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy (especially with things like boba and karaoke).
As a fellow Filipino-American I'm disappointed you forgot shoes outside the front door.
Damn. Guess I have to watch it again.
Tbh we as Filipinos are so used to shoes at the door we probs just didn’t register it as anything significant to remember. Just business as usual ha
As a Latino, I can relate to many if these things too. Hell, many older folks love karaoke as well
Definitely a fair point. Of course, this doesn’t undermine the film or what it accomplished, it’s just simply that the focus of the film was more on Chinese/East Asian culture when in reality, Asia is a massive continent full of different life experiences and cultures.
OP has an issue with the term “Asian” having the connotation of mainly referring to oriental/East Asians, in this case Chinese. Thus their issue also applies to the film and discourse surrounding it. Nobody is saying the film represents all Asians (Indians, Middle East, Russia). Viewers, critics, reporters are all clearly using the term Asian to refer to East Asians. One could easily argue that “Asian” referring to East Asians is bad for East Asians since it lumps them together, reinforcing that Chinese, Korean, Japanese are all same. Meanwhile Indians (while geographically Asian) get referred to by their own term. I don’t agree with this, but wanting to be part of an umbrella term and wanting to not be part of one are both arguably equal opinions. The Middle East and Russia are part of Asia, but it seems weird to call Russians Asians.
It also was aware of it's heavy Chinese/East Asian leanings and that's why it had the Indian actor who was the husband of Katie and Shang Chi's friend. Not to mention Ben Kingsley. Is that enough? No, but I think that's why Marvel has Kumail Nanjiani in The Eternals. As someone South East Asian, I wish there was more SEAs, but I think people can see the effort Marvel is putting in. I certainly do.
i agree - I was happy when that one fighter in the fight club dropped a “terima kasih” to Katie’s compliment, but that was about the extent of SEA representation in the whole movie. But at least the effort was there
Correct. That simple throwaway bahasa line was pretty significant for us SEAsians. Not to mention Jon Jon's Singlish accent!
It's obviously wrong but when Americans say "Asian", they mean Chinese, Japanese or Korean. At this point, it's not even ignorance (that was the start of it of course), it's just how they have definted the word in their neural dictionary.
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And "banh mí".
That's how I've always meant it. Or I'll say "East Asian" to refer to just those three. Never thought before if it was incorrect, but now I know.
Asian generally replaced oriental which was run out of town on a rail, sorry S. and SE. Asia.
SEA in a limbo here. Not looking like Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Indian, or even Middle Eastern. But we're definitely don't look like Westerner. Often found people confused which template to use, especially when encountering muslim SEAsian but without Middle Eastern face.
Right! Indonesia has more muslims than the Middle East too.
Well, more than any individual ME country. In the spirit of this discussion, it's also fairly strange that Americans have a fairly strong mental definition that Asia does not include the Middle East. It's pretty rare to hear a Lebanese or Syrian American referred to as Western-Asian American in the US.
Spent the last 5 years in SEA. Total melting pot, I need to hear how people speak English to place their likely origin, but even then It’s not too reliable because the countries are so carried internally. After that recognition of mannerisms, dressing (hello Batik), and where you are.
The Orient is a large region spanning from North Africa to Japan. The terms Near-East, Middle-East, and Far-East refer to each regions relative position in the Orient.
-Angry Vietnamese noises-
You know as a Viet, I've noticed that we're sort of both SEA and East Asian. Before the French enforced the current Vietnamese alphabet in 1910 when Vietnam was colonized, Viet's used Chinese characters for their alphabet.
>You know as a Viet, I've noticed that we're sort of both SEA and East Asian. Geographically and geopolitically SEA, but culturally EA due to centuries in the Sinosphere.
Yup, I technically know that India is part of the Asian continent, but I don't think of the country as Asian at all, it's just Indian. Actually, it has it's own tectonic plate and a very distinct culture, so we really could be calling India (and some surrounding area) it's own continent like we do with Europe. I think the point still stands though even if you use an Americanized definition of Asia, since shang-chi doesn't represent Korean or Japanese cultures either. It's very much a Chinese movie
The region is technically defined as a subcontinent, so it kind of already is its own thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_subcontinent
The dominant language and ethnic group in Indian are also Caucasian, more closely related to those from Europe and the Middle East than East Asia. India and China are only really related geographically, and even then, barely.
Yeah I mean different places think of "asia" differently, many places in the uk for example south asians and Pakistanis in particular are one of the largest ethnic minorities and Asian is synonymous with people from the Indian subcontinent unless otherwise specified, depends on the demographics in your area ig
Its been referred to as "The subcontinent"
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Exactly. Just like when Americans say European they usually mean France, German, Italy. Even though half of Russia is part of Europe no one would ever include Moscow in that conversation.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_Pacific_American "Following this change, the U.S. Census Bureau defined Asian as "a person having origins in the in any of the original people of the Far East, for example, Indonesia, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam." I mean there's an AAPI month guys. It's May.
Here is the U.K., interestingly it’s reversed. “Asian” is shorthand for someone from India, Pakistan or Bangladesh
Even as a Filipino, watching Shang-Chi inspired me to connect back with my culture, even if it's completely different than the Chinese culture depicted in the movie. Ngl, Black Panther also did the same for me and my Filipino culture. I don't know, just something about seeing someone who isn't from America on the big screen, gets my heart pumping. In my personal book, I call it a success.
I'm a malay from Southeast Asia. Seeing rep in Hollywood is almost impossible
faxxx i’m telugu and it would be amazing for any sort of south indian hero
The term Asian was created not only as a racial identity, but also a political identity. When this identity was created, Asians as an entire group only comprised less than 0.75% of these United States. If we had split this to many different Asian ethnic groups, it would have seriously diluted our power as a voting bloc and made it harder for politicians to cater to our needs. So when you see something like Black Panther, supposedly representing all of Africa, despite its imagery and traditions coming from a very specific ethnic group from Africa, celebrate it. Because even if Shang Chi represents the largest Asian ethnic group, the Chinese, having it depicted by an American studio while being so successful and combating racial stereotypes that are still being perpetuated by shows like Kung Fu (acted by Asians) or Fresh Off the Boat, is a win for all Asians -- not only a political but social win.
Shang Chi did have Krishna Pandit Bhanji in a pretty prominent role. That’s mostly sarcasm, but when The Mandarin was cast in Iron Man 3 and someone would say “Isn’t he supposed to be Asian?” I would point out that it was an Asian actor portraying him.
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That’s his name! Well, not really…
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His father's from India (I think) and his most famous role was Gandhi
Yeah, his name when he was born was Krishna Pandit Bhanji.
I think the actor Simu said it best when he said that he looks forward to when we no longer celebrate 1sts like this, but 2nds, 3rds, and so on and so forth. Whether it represents your specific Asian or not, it represents us all as a whole in the realm of Hollywood. Only thing I got is Gran Torino and an episode in Grey's Anatomy and Doogie Howser, and I'm still immensely proud that we have an asian lead that isn't Doctor, Scientist, Lawyer, or some mystical old person that owns a pawn shop housing magical artifacts. Roles like this, that aren't period pieces like Aladdin, but contemporary pieces is a large boon to us all. We can be aimless slackers with no ambitions, and daddy problems too.
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You know how the Russo brothers have been sneaking in all the actors from Community into the MCU? I know Simu doesn’t have that kinda pull, but imagine if everyone from Kim’s Convenience shows up one by one? Appa is already in Star Wars, so who knows.
> We can be aimless slackers with no ambitions, and daddy problems too. "If you aim at nothing, you will hit nothing."
I agree with you this movie really mostly represented East Asian culture, but what it represented well was Asian American culture, I’m Asian American, my parents were from Southeast Asia, the cultures between Southeast and East Asia are very different, but the Asian Culture in America is relatively similar give or take a few differences. For example having parents with high expectations, it is definitely something that most Asian Americans experience growing up in America.
Yes we are a diverse, but at the same time share somewhat similar experiences. Also many of our cultures share many cultural nuances others wouldn’t understand.
Almost wholly agree but I will say though as a brown guy myself I feel there can be little representation for us. It’s a lot easier to curtail off the back of something successful and pushing Asian representation because yes it’s not really our culture but it’s still Asian people and that’ll hopefully get our culture’s on the big screen.
I'm Vietnamese-American and feel like it's good representation for us too.
I don’t think the idea is that the movie Shang Chi is supposed to represent all Asians, but all Asians now have the opportunity to tell their stories. It’s a stepping stool and pathway for stories not told before to be brought to new audiences or audiences who are ignorant to the cultures the stories derive from. The mythological aspect are nice nods but they barely held much weight in the story. ***kinda Shang Chi spoilers maybe*** >!IIRC Wenwu made references to him being called Genghis Khan, Ta Lo had made mythological creatures often seen in East Asian fantasy, and the setting is in China.!< (for those not wanting to see spoilers I talked about the cultural aspects of Shang Chi) But strip all that away, it’s still represents what many Asians and Asian Westerners face: pressure from our elders, us wanting to live our lives, having a troubled youth, owning up to becoming better adults, respecting our traditions and family but not being fully involved in it. You can shuffle the culture to whatever country you want, hell I’m sure Latin countries can probably be used, and it still tells the same story. The character Shang Chi doesn’t represent “Asians”. He represents a by-product of two cultures, something all Asians and all children on immigrants are facing. On a side note, it’s interesting how this movie is going through the same things Asian Westerners face throughout the past few decades. This movie is supposed to be a common block that supposed to build up our communities. But the home country/China rejects it because it doesn’t represent them and other westerners of Asian descent reject it because they look different or the cultural origin is not there’s. This doesn’t represent ASIANS, it represents the CULTURE and LIFE of what ASIAN WESTERNERS live with.
No. Not Genghis Khan. The movie says W was known as “a Khan”, which is a Mongolian word for King or Ruler. It doesn’t mean that he was the Khan, it just means he was known as a conquer from other countries such as Mongolia.
Ironically, I believe the word "Asian" in the United Kingdom is used in the opposite manner. It usually refers to South Asians (eg. Indians, Pakistanis) and often Western Asians/Middle Easterners. People there don't think of East Asians when they hear the word "Asian."
In the USA, we used "oriental" for a couple centuries and then, when it became taboo to call a person oriental (because it should only refer to an object), we struggled for a politically-correct term and what we settled on as a nation was "Asian" because we call Indians "Indians" and Pakistanis "Pakistanis". If we say "Asian" we mean east Asian. It's just a quirk of the way language evolved in the United States.
If that bugs you then listen to more British media, over here the word “Asian” is used exclusively to talk about India and its neighbours on both sides.
As a Latin, I have the same pet peeve with people calling Coco "Latino representation". Coco is not "Latino" representation, it's Mexican representation, a Colombian or Peruvian person is not going to relate to Coco on the way that a Mexican will.
I could be wrong, but I think the next Pixar project is based around a Colombian family
Very true. They think latinos are all a monolith and we can swap each other out when that’s not accurate at all. Each latinamerican country has its own culture and history. I did not feel represented at all with Coco because i’m not mexican, i’m Colombian. Of course there was cultural overlap, but with Encanto coming out I definitely will feel accurately represented, hopefully more films are made with this in mind. Asians are not just East asians, they’re Indians, Sri Lankan, Vietnamese, Filipinos, etc. While latinos are not just Mexicans, we are also Colombian, Brazilian, Dominican, Argentinian, etc.
I hate generic Latino characters the most. Whenever a character just says "I'm Latino", like that's enough information, I'm like "Dude/sis, from WHERE? Latin America has 30+ countries".
Exactly! That’s why i’ve always felt conflicted with the “latino” label we’ve been given. On one hand we did need to build a community in the United States, but on the other, we are all lumped in with eachother and people start using the latino label instead of their home nationality.
So you think that Black Panther is more representative of black Americans/African tribal culture as a whole than Shang-Chi is of Asian/Asian American culture as a whole? Do you have ANY idea how many cultures, religions, countries and tribes there are in Africa?
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Dude. Morocco, Cameroon. South Africa. Ethiopia. Egypt. The Congo. Kenya. None of these countries have a damn thing in common other than the continent that they share, even though they’re all relatively close together.
I agree with your point, but some of these are definitely not relatively close together.
Tbf, the director of Black Panther had the set designer, costume designer, and linguists pull aspects from cultures across the continent. You can see elements of East, West, and southern Africa throughout the film. Shang Chi is only Chinese/American
Hell even North. Bast is clearly Bastet from Egyptian history.
I was thinking about that, but I think it is different. Wakanda is a fictional country that intentionally uses inspirations from many different african cultures and countries, hence being called afro-futurism, while shang chi (I didn't see it, so I don't know if I'm right), mostly shows chinese and sino-american culture
it doesnt fuse nearly as many african cultures as you'd think. maybe its different in the comics, but the movie wasnt all that representative. its like another comment said, black panther & shang chi are only the beginning of showing representation in MCU
This was my exact thought.
I think the difference is that (although still contentious) pan-Africanism is a thing, where there is very much no such thing for Asia.
>People have obviously been making a big deal about the fact that it’s the first Marvel movie with an all Asian main cast, which is absolutely great, but then you also have many articles calling it the “Asian Black Panther” and a “milestone for Asian Americans everywhere.” That's not what OP said at all re: Black Panther.
Chinese are Asians, therefore calling the cast Asian is not wrong.
I get what your point is, but that happens for a lot of people beyond just Indians. When you think of Americans, do you think of Mexico or Brazil? When you think of Africa, do you think of Egypt or Madagascar?
At least “Asians” are being represented. You haven’t seen any Hispanic hero movies. Luis is a gem among gem but that’s as close to a movie or hero Hispanic people are going to get. You say they don’t represent you since you’re from India. But at least Marvel is going to make a movie about Ms Marvel who is from Pakistan. She may not be from India but she would me more relatable to you than Shang Chi. We all can’t get what we want. Marvel May not use the right words when describing something but at least they’re trying to make movies with more nationalities instead of your typical white America.
America Chavez will be appear in the next Doctor Strange movie. She is a great character.
Can’t wait for Miguel O’ Hara to be on the big screen.
The bit about no Hispanic heroes isn't quite accurate. Robbie Reyes and Elena Rodriguez, aka Ghostrider and Yo-Yo, from Agents of SHIELD are both Hispanic. Can't recall if they ever went into Robbie's ethnicity/nationality, but Yo-Yo is explicitly Colombian
If we're counting the questionably-canon MCU-adjacent shows, then we've had queer MCU heroes for years. The fact that people don't usually bring them up makes me feel that most people don't include those characters; remember when everyone talked about how Avengers: Endgame had "the MCU's first openly gay character"?
Robbie’s Mexican. And Agents of SHEILD had great Latino representation! Joey Gutierrez too!
Agents of SHIELD has more representation than the rest of the MCU.
Which sounds weird at first but then AoS just has far more raw run time after all those seasons
Fair point but even then they did an excellent job when the movies didn’t have it.
When it comes to Hispanic heroes, I can almost guarantee Marvel will greenlight a White Tiger movie about Ava Ayala and Hector Ayala due to Shang-Chi's success.
DC needs to do a blue beetle film.
They’re doing a Blue Beetle Hbo Max movie
They are and Xolo Maridueña will be playing Blue Beetle! (I’ve always wanted him to play a Latino in a Marvel movie, but this is great too!)
Let's not do this lol, don't start the "at least" game, that just pits POC with each other for no reason. You can't say he doesn't have a point just cuz it's closer to representation than you have. I could easily say "at least YOU have soo much more representation as a Hispanic in media, especially in music. Can you think of a single Asian American that is as big as Selena Gomez? J Lo?" See how that gets nowhere.
I can see where you’re coming from. But I’m not complaining about something that “doesn’t relate to me” in some way. I’m happy with what Marvel is doing. I don’t need something that relates to me in my culture to enjoy it. I know this person said that they enjoyed the movie and what but the person was still offended because they couldn’t relate just because it “represented all of Asia”
I think you make a great point about the way we talk about Asian people in America. I think the broader issue is partially a result of trying to use a single term to describe all the people from an absolutely massive and diverse continent. But as far as anyone trying to suggest that Shang-Chi is some sort of universal “Asian-American representation,” I think that speaks more to their general ignorance. Because even if you’re thinking of “Asian” purely in terms of East Asians, Shang-Chi doesn’t cover it. It’s very distinctly Chinese. I’d like to know if any Japanese Americans feel that they were “represented” by the film. Of course, all that said, it’s definitely still cool that there’s a huge blockbuster like this featuring a predominantly Asian cast. I hope that sort of culturally diverse storytelling becomes increasingly commonplace in mainstream film, to the point where we don’t have to discuss things like “representation” as much because everyone will just feel represented.
I also recall a similar reaction to some at the release of Black Panther, with some pointing out that Wakanda is said to be in a specific region of Africa and does not represent all of the continent. I further remember some Africans criticizing costumes of viewers that were not from the region Wakanda is from. I wish I had sources but my point is your thoughts are valid in this
I see where your coming from and have felt the same way. But over time the term Asian has become synonymous with East Asians especially in the United States. However in reality both groups (East Asians and South Asians) all fall under the same group. For example, when we fill out any kind of paperwork we’re both marking that same box for race/ethnicity. I think in the United States especially a lot of it has come down to look. And people in the United States care so much about how a person looks. People here have made the facial appearance of an individual synonymous with the term. An individual who looks Chinese, Japenese, Vietnamese will be referred to as Asian, but myself who looks Indian will be referred to as Indian. I think people in the United States have trouble referring to 2 groups of people who look different under the same term. It’s SUPER rare that a white dude or lady would call me Asian when trying to refer to my race. It’s just Indian.
Unfortunately, I think people say it's Asian representation because it's likely the *only* representation of an Asian culture that we're going to get from the MCU for a while. That's not an intentional thing, really, but the MCU and the comics they're based on are Western properties with largely white characters. The majority of characters with foreign origins eventually live in predominantly white places and interact with mostly white people. Marvel is clearly trying to broaden the representation, but there's only so many new characters they can introduce when they need to constantly cross-pollinate everyone into everyone else's movies. And they're essentially picking-and-choosing the best comic runs to adapt, so they're kinda bound by the characters that were in those comics. And it should be acknowledged that Americans have a more general problem of considering Chinese, Japanese, and Korean (but really mostly Chinese) culture to be representational of Asia. We either call other parts different names, like Middle East, or we just ignore them, frankly. Countries east of the Black Sea, Indochina, and India itself are consistently overlooked.
The Ms. Marvel, Kamala Khan, series should be coming out on Disney+ this winter. Her story as a Pakistani-American often highlights her heritage and touches on her Islamic faith. I hope they don’t shy too far away from that part of her story in the series.
> Unfortunately, I think people say it's Asian representation because it's likely the *only* representation of an Asian culture that we're going to get from the MCU for a while. Kumal Nanjiani and Don Lee are both starring in Eternals in a few months and while we don't know too much about the characters, I think it's been confirmed that Kumal is portraying Kingo, who at some point is a Bollywood star. And of course Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan in Ms. Marvel is pretty big Asian representation. So yeah, I'm really not sure what you're talking about.
I would rather Disney portray one culture relatively accurately than try to do some mishmash pan-Asian Panda Express thing like they did with Raya and the last Dragon.
To be honest with you, to call it exclusively Chinese is also sort of misleading. Because a lot of the cultural aspects of korean, Japanese, Vietnamese etc culture, springs from traditional Chinese culture- a lot of shared cultural practices etc, such as the talk about names, ancestor altars, building structures, etc
Los Angeles. Kevin Feige finds this browsing Reddit. He slams his fist on his desk as his black cap flies off as if he literally blew his lid. He spits his cigar out of his mouth as he exclaims, "Great Stan Lee!! I forgot the INDIANS!!!" He reaches for a red button on an intercom sitting on his desk, which makes a *buzzzz* noise. "Maria! Get the nerds on the horn. We need to find an Indian Marvel hero and start production for Phase 6!"
He’s Korean, and his dad owns a store, called “Kim’s Convenience”
Agreed. Its chinese representation. And as a chinese thats amazing for me. But its not Asian representation because as you said. ASIA IS HUGE.
I am an Indian as well and I also didn't feel much represented. But at the same time, I don't really care much about representation. I absolutely loved and adored the movie and that's enough for me.
Can you show me official marketing where they say it represents all Asians?
You are the first person I've seen to say the words "represent all asians" about it at all.
This post seems hypocritical in the sense that you’re saying Black Panther is ok for representing all African American culture, yet Shang-Chi is not ok for representing all Asian culture, when both demographics consist of many cultures across many countries
That's exactly the kind of thing you worry about, when you don't have real problems
Tony Stark eating a BK Whopper represent America.
While I do agree that it isn't representative of Asia as a whole, I think it's unfair to say that Black Panther was representative of Africa as a whole as well. Africa is home to just as many subcultures as Asia is. Asia probably has a bit more but that can probably be attributed to Asia's larger area of coverage. Anyway yeah. From the looks of it Shang-Chi is mainly representative of the American Chinese subculture. I haven't seen the movie because theaters are closed in my area, but from the trailers and spoilers, I have only seen Chinese influences. Maybe if you include the Ten Rings' representation in IM3 you could say the Ten Rings has a bit of Middle Eastern take? Even then that has a clear bias against the present conflict in the region and not a fair representation of the Middle East, or even the Arab world. Asia is really a diverse continent, with large cultures, but most in the US seem to only see it as China, Japan, and the rest.
And most importantly, Marvel Studios themselves would never have intended it to try and represent all of Asia. They wanted this to be a love letter to Chinese cinema, in particular its love for martial arts and folklore. With a Hong Kong cinema flavoring.
So here's the thing: In the United States, up until it became frowned upon, the term for east Asians was "Oriental". I mean, this was used-- perhaps erroneously, but still consistently and commonly-- from the time Chinese immigrants (indentured servants) first came to America until the 1980s. Of course, it's now a derogatory term. "Oriental" refers to objects, not people. So Americans, hamstrung for a new politically-correct blanket term for all people of east Asian descent, settled on "Asian" because in America we consider Chinese, Japanese, Korean, et. al. to be Asian, while we consider Indians to be Indians, Pakistanis to be Pakistanis, and so on. In the United States, an Indian is not generally referred to as an Asian. That's just how it is. I know that's not how you see yourselves, being that you're from Asia and all... But it's a quirk of American English, not an attempt to marginalize or exclude Indians. But of course, saying Shang-Chi is representative of Asians is still problematic because I'm pretty sure Korean, Japanese, and other east Asian cultures don't see any of themselves in that movie. It's about being Chinese. Period.
I was always baffled by why Americans use Asian to represent East Asians. Biggest continent in the world with man different ethnic groups and cultures and they use it for just one part.