more asians in serenity

POSTED BY: jebusyoon
UPDATED: Wednesday, October 26, 2005 06:32
VIEWED: 15723
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DREAMTROVE

Wednesday, October 19, 2005 10:59 PM

Good question, maybe there's a lack of talented chinese actors in Joss' audition pool. If that's the case, there's a good in for someone.

JASONZZZ

Wednesday, October 19, 2005 11:55 PM

Yeah, I'm just busting an artery over absolutely nothing here. I mean, seriously, how many starving Chinese actors there are altogether? Do they deserve support as artists go? Yeah... well, at least the talented ones go anyways...

The real problem that I continue to see is that people keep thinking that all of these "Asian" folks all look alike. I think not, each distinct ethnic group have their very own features and physical characteristics to being with - that's just looks and outward behavior. There are very deep cultural differences that just make them completely different and distinct people.

There's enough of a learned and cultural difference that they literally see different things when looking at the same scenery, pictures, imageries - MRI and PETscan confirmed!

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ALBATROSS

Thursday, October 20, 2005 12:06 AM

Thanks for bring this up! Although I love the fact that Joss took the idea that Chinese culture will be one of the two primary influences in this Universe, I do have a couple of small pet peeves. I take more issue with whomever is the cultural consultant on this show though since that person should know better. There's a scene with Inara doing calligraphy and she's holding the brush all wrong. Any child would know how to hold a callgraphy brush if they were taugh calligraphy. Second peeve is the vast amount of cheep looking Chinatown tourist quality clothing in garish colors that they put on the extras.

Okay, end of rant...

ICEHQS

Thursday, October 20, 2005 5:57 PM

Hey there, i'm new to the FF verse, however i come from an RPG background pnp as well as electronically. As to the subject of hiring chinese actors that has an inkling of chinese, i'd say why not hire Russell Wong or his brother Michael Wong (search these names on any search engines and you'll find useful info on the actors).

JEBUSYOON

Tuesday, October 25, 2005 1:38 AM

only if there was a way to mass email joss himself to higher some chinese people...

TWEEK128

Tuesday, October 25, 2005 3:24 AM

Y'mean "hire?" Who cares, really?

Do I wish there were more Asians, specifically Chinese, about? Sure. But, hell, they speak some Mandarin, don't they?

And tell me Kaylee doesn't look part-Asian. And you can't ignore the surname Tam, the other surnames / family names about, the Chinese language everywhere, and the fact that their culture isn't homogenously "Western."

For the love a' Mike, Saffron made "bao" for Mal, and Mal uses chopsticks. They've done a lot as it is, but accept the world for what it is. Besides, out on the fringe, there's probably gonna be more "others" since Alliance is Anglo-Sino.

YORG

Tuesday, October 25, 2005 4:49 AM

Some people are really clueless.

You don't "hire" actors in a traditional sense. I guess you could if you had enough money, but as we all know Firefly isn't exactly the biggest cash cow. You get a show like 24 for example and you have much more pull in getting certain actors to come work for you. But firefly doesn't have that ability.

But this is somewhat how it would go.

You put out a casting call asking for people who are interested in doing the show.

THEN those people check out what the show is about and deceide IF they feel like doing it.

THEN they have to audition and be better for certain parts than other people.

You can can't say, "Hey you have slanty eyes, you get the part." That would be ridiculous. You pick the actors that suit the role the best, and if no Chinese actors were interested in the show (or no good ones at least), then what can you do?

If you don't have the financial means to attract the actors that you want, then you take what you can get. You guys are acting like they made a choice to avoid Chinese actors. Like they sat around plotting about how they weren't going to hire a couple main Chinese actors to play main characters.

That being said. I wouldn't mind seeing a Chinese person added to the crew (if the series starts up again). It could open new doors for the crew in terms of connections. And it would be funny if the Chinese person would correct the crew when they misused Chinese.

JAYNEZTOWN

Tuesday, October 25, 2005 9:47 AM

I saw a question like this before
http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=2&t=6342#191793
and here's what my thoughts were :

Asian actors are rare in sci-fi, there are mnay in horror, crime, kung-fu and drama movies but few in science fiction. George Takei is famous for his Star Trek work (Lt. Sulu ) but I'm not sure if he's done much lately

Zhang Ziyi did scifi with 2046 but she's a massive and expensive China/Hollywood star. Daniel Dae Kim has done the Babylon5 scifi Crusade but he's busy with Untitled Onion Movie and the tv
show Lost

its a fact that there are very few Asian actors in sci-fi

NICOLACLARKE

Tuesday, October 25, 2005 1:37 PM

FWIW, I too find it disappointing - and inconsistent with the 'verse as apparently conceptualised - that we saw so few East Asian characters on the show and in the film (and, for that matter, South Asian - where are the Indians?). Present-day India and China do, after all, account for a rather large proportion of the world's population, a trend that seems only likely to continue. If they aren't out on the border planets, why aren't they at least on Ariel? Perhaps if we'd seen Sihnon?

While I absolutely take the point about casting the best actor for the role, regardless of race, casting calls frequently can and do specify race if such is integral to a character. Perhaps as the show went on Joss would have made more determined moves in that direction?

Song wrote:

Quote:
Here's a blog-review that makes your point, emphatically. A good read.

http://www.hyphenmagazine.com/blog/archives/2005/10/inscrutability.htm
l

Interesting article, and some even more interesting comments in response to it. In particular this one, from "mario":

Quote:
Just so you know, Simon Tam, who looks white, is written with a definite asianness to him. Meek, polite, respectful to parents. Very confucian. He's acting asian to me--more asian than most of my americanized friends but then again, what do I know?

This is something that had never occurred to me before, but it lends a whole new dimension to my impressions of Simon.

STEVE580

Tuesday, October 25, 2005 2:12 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by yorg:
You can can't say, "Hey you have slanty eyes, you get the part." That would be ridiculous. You pick the actors that suit the role the best, and if no Chinese actors were interested in the show (or no good ones at least), then what can you do?

If you don't have the financial means to attract the actors that you want, then you take what you can get. You guys are acting like they made a choice to avoid Chinese actors. Like they sat around plotting about how they weren't going to hire a couple main Chinese actors to play main characters.

Exactly. I mean, denying a role to a better-qualified person solely because they're not Chinese...certainly, that’s not a sound policy, and one I think few people would advocate.

Let's remember, if Joss had limited himself to picking actors from the right reigonal location, we wouldn't have a Canadian with a fake accent as captain. But I don't hear any complaints about that....
-Steve

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