The Asian Factor

POSTED BY: Darwin
UPDATED: Sunday, June 6, 2004 21:45
VIEWED: 10954
PAGE 1 of 3

1 2 3 NEXT PAGE

DARWIN

Monday, January 12, 2004 1:24 PM

First off, let me just say that I f'n love firefly and the DVD set has made me appreciate how a groundbreakingly fine show was truly lost. Ain't no justice in a capital unjustified.

by capital I mean, money....cause that somehow...seems....correct.....I don't know.

I love the uniqueness of the mixing cultures and music and languages....but....

Where the heck were the chinese characters??

Sure there were chinese people "in the background"
But there were no speaking roles. No allies, no villains. I thought, wow this is so cool, a show giving props to asian culture, but there were no asian characters. I sure hope Simon and River (as wicked-awesome as they were) weren't suppose to be the "asians" what with the Tams thing.
There were british, africans, russians, europeans, but no chinese people.

Now maybe it was all part of the plan, and that Blue Sun would be a play on the Japanese's Red sun but since nothing became of that it was to say the least disapointing It would've soooo cool to see a special ops group of ninja assasins or old friend of Book's that was a warrior monk.

With all of that spewed, maybe the show would've explored that, but since it never got to go there, I'm a little disapointed.

And that' pretty much the end of my rant.
Thanks for listening.

'til Howard Dean learns how to smile...

I'm still unknown.

BROWNCOAT1

Monday, January 12, 2004 1:29 PM

I think the series was cut down to early to say that there would not have been Asian characters of substance somewhere down the road. Given time I think we would have seen Asian characters. We would have had to w/ the Chinese influences.

"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."

CAITLYN

Thursday, January 15, 2004 6:59 PM

I think the show ended way too early. I expect we may have seen a segregated society: some Chinese-dominated planets and some American-dominated ones from pre-Alliance days. Just a theory, of course.

Anyway, I would love to have seen more done with the Chinese influence. All kinds of things could have been done.

Jos "jen duh sh tyen tsai"

PHLEBOTININ

Thursday, January 15, 2004 7:33 PM

Darwin,

I was thinking the same things you were. But I do think that this would have been dealt with if the series had been allowed to continue.

Speaking of ethnicities, does anyone know what Morena Baccarin's ethnicity is? I know her family is from Brazil, but is she Indian? When she's wearing her sari-type outfits she looks so much like a beautiful Indian woman. Could just be me. Also, anyone correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't she say in "Serenity" that she grew up in Sihnon? Joss said in an interview that's on the official Fox site for the series that Sihnon is meant to represent China (and Londinium is meant to represent the U.S.) Is Inara meant to be "Chinese?"

SHINY

Thursday, January 15, 2004 8:00 PM

I was kind of hoping someone would ask this at the LA convention...not as a criticism, but just to understand if Joss ever considered casting an Asian as one of the major characters or recurring guest stars. It's entirely possible that they felt the level of talent among english-speaking asian actors is not yet high enough (or at least among those that showed up to try out) or that they thought asians speaking with a southern drawl would be distracting (although I don't think it would be much weirder that hearing the cast struggle with Mandarin).

RIVER
Purple elephants are flying.
MAL
Good. Thanks for the update.

CAITLYN

Friday, January 16, 2004 2:15 PM

If Inara is Chinese then I must be one of the purple elephants River sees flying

Seriously, I hope not.

"Yes, sir, Captain Tightpants."

OKKAY

Friday, January 16, 2004 5:26 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Shiny:
I was kind of hoping someone would ask this at the LA convention...not as a criticism, but just to understand if Joss ever considered casting an Asian as one of the major characters or recurring guest stars. It's entirely possible that they felt the level of talent among english-speaking asian actors is not yet high enough (or at least among those that showed up to try out) or that they thought asians speaking with a southern drawl would be distracting (although I don't think it would be much weirder that hearing the cast struggle with Mandarin).

Maybe the problem with having one major asian character would be the weirdness of hearing one person speak the chinese phrases very well, and the rest not so well (to put it mildly). With all non-asian characters, at least we can pretend they're all speaking the same kind of future-chinese that the language eventually evolved to.

Of course, having an asian actor doesn't necessarily guarantee a good chinese accent; the asian potential slayer in the last season of Buffy butchered her cantonese. I wouldn't have understood her if not for the subtitles.

DARWIN

Saturday, January 17, 2004 2:06 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Shiny:
I was kind of hoping someone would ask this at the LA convention...not as a criticism, but just to understand if Joss ever considered casting an Asian as one of the major characters or recurring guest stars. It's entirely possible that they felt the level of talent among english-speaking asian actors is not yet high enough (or at least among those that showed up to try out) or that they thought asians speaking with a southern drawl would be distracting (although I don't think it would be much weirder that hearing the cast struggle with Mandarin).

Yeah Shiny I agree with you about the whole asian talent not as developed thing.

Brace yourselves this rant may offend types...
To go off firefly topic:

I watched "Better Luck Tommorow" which is an allasian cast feature, and, though it was definetly groundbreaking in terms of breaking stereotypes, I couldn't help but think, the parts coulda been done better by caucasians (given a rewrite) Though the performances given were still above the regular par. It is unique though.

I saw yesturday some production designs for the anime EVANGELION and it seems that all the characters are being changed from japanese to caucasian (even the name REI is now RAY), apparently the same is being done to AKIRA for the live action version. So I came to conclude that execs pretty much think...

"asians are not marketable"

Which is unfortunately true. I got to thinking though, how come corporations can turn lack rappers into maketing machines, but can't have asians doing the kung-fu (at least not anymore)Why...

"asians are not marketable"

In most mainstream movies we're viewed as fighters with no sex drive or cold-blooded gangsters that are surrounded by women, but never f'kem. evil villains who prance around their brides, but don't touch them. And no man doesn't want women...unless they're gay. And a hetero-man doesnt wanna feel like that. So it ultimately makes...

"asians are not marketable"

Women don't want men who don't yearn for them. Most of the times asians are portrayed as old men, balding with a funny accent. That's not sexy. So it makes...

"asians are not marketable"

I don't blame the creators for not being able to go anywhere, and I'm sure firefly and joss and tim had great ideas to go places with it. But I think ultimately they would've been shot down because...

"asians are not marketable"

who knows, I'm probably wrong
or maybe I've always been.

'til the cats in the cradle with a silver spoon

I'm still unknown.
(yeah I'm chinese)

FLAMETREE

Tuesday, February 3, 2004 9:35 AM

Having seen the DVD's I came to the same impression that others did in that the characters are meant to be the equivalent of unsophisticated country local.

Much of the "high culture" when it appeared, was asian. Take a look at the kind of clothes Inara wears. Also when Kaylee is looking for a present for simon it is a plate with a chinese design she considers.I think there would have been more character development and asian characters if the show had got established. What about other inflences as well?

Having said all that I was surprised at the degree of homogonisations in the cast and all the other speaking parts.

ZEKE023

Tuesday, February 3, 2004 2:59 PM

Remember that Joss is all about equality. He has interacial relationships, gay relationships (portrayed well - unlike in other shows), and all sorts of "off the mainstream" things in his shows.

I think Joss is more of a groundbreaker pushing for liberal ethics than we're giving him credit for.

-Z

1 2 3 NEXT PAGE