Where are the Asians?

POSTED BY: mojoeca
UPDATED: Tuesday, December 8, 2009 12:36
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REXRAYGUN

Wednesday, October 9, 2002 7:00 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Shuggie:
Quote:
Originally posted by TinyTimm:
But after 400 years of Linguistic drift what would it mean? If I take my 1602 English dictionary and my 2002 English dictionary..humm one hand's a bit empty here....

Yes and no. I suspect that they'll be using 20th/21st century English as well.

They're using the Chinese as a way of representing a particular type of cultural melding. Unless the idea is that Mal speaks bad Chinese then they need to get it right.

Shug

But it would also be fair to say that the cultures don't mesh exactly, either. How many European countries, not to mention Japan, teach English in their schools, yet we'd be hard-pressed not to notice an accent. What makes you guys think that the future will be different?

Chinese (Mandarin) and English are both very complicated languages with many tricky rules. I'd imagine that the Asian characters, for consistancy's sake, should speak their English parts somewhat better than Jackie Chan, right?

In addition, the "Western" (really Southern) American slant to some of the characters' dialogue is perfectly attributable to growing up on different worlds, populated by colonies from a specific area. America has been a country for more than two hundred years, yet there are an incredible amount of dialects. Put a Bostonian and a fellow from Georgia in the same room and see what happens.

Case in point is that the accents used for Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump was taken from the boy who played the younger Forrest. Not to mention Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday in Tombstone. Kilmer researched the dialect of the place where Holliday was from, and learned to do it extremely well. Then he had to speed it up, because the movie would have beenn seven hours long if he had done it at the correct speed for modern usage!

Just my dos pesos,

Rex!

NEOOLONG

Wednesday, October 9, 2002 7:37 PM

What I would like to see is some sort of Chinese Tong like organization. It sort of fits in with the Western motif(though I think they came about a little after the Western time period), and would allow a lot of Chinese actors to get parts. It is kind of cliche, but could be good depending on how it was done.

The casting of the regulars not including Chinese or East Asians may be due to the fact that there aren't that many East Asian tv actors. I don't know that the casting is due to this, but it is a possibility. The only ones I can think of are Daniel Dae Kim, B.D. Wong, the guy on VIP, and the guy on Witchblade.

Honestly though casting a Chinese actor in about half of the regular cast spots make cliches. You have the engineer, the doctor, the pilot, and the prostitute. All can become cliches if you make them Chinese.

JASONZZZ

Thursday, October 10, 2002 3:53 AM

Why, they don't need real Chinese Actors.

If they run out of Chinese, they can start casting, Koreans, Japanese, Filipinos, Laotians, Cambodians, Vietnamese, or whatever. When they run out of all of them other Asians.

They can just cast people like David Carradine.

Quote:
Originally posted by neoolong:
What I would like to see is some sort of Chinese Tong like organization. It sort of fits in with the Western motif(though I think they came about a little after the Western time period), and would allow a lot of Chinese actors to get parts. It is kind of cliche, but could be good depending on how it was done.

The casting of the regulars not including Chinese or East Asians may be due to the fact that there aren't that many East Asian tv actors. I don't know that the casting is due to this, but it is a possibility. The only ones I can think of are Daniel Dae Kim, B.D. Wong, the guy on VIP, and the guy on Witchblade.

Honestly though casting a Chinese actor in about half of the regular cast spots make cliches. You have the engineer, the doctor, the pilot, and the prostitute. All can become cliches if you make them Chinese.

HAKEN

Thursday, October 10, 2002 4:11 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by neoolong:
The casting of the regulars not including Chinese or East Asians may be due to the fact that there aren't that many East Asian tv actors. I don't know that the casting is due to this, but it is a possibility. The only ones I can think of are Daniel Dae Kim, B.D. Wong, the guy on VIP, and the guy on Witchblade.

I know that isn't true. Asians, like most minorities in Hollywood is just not wanted. And Firefly, being filmed in California--a state with a large Asian population--I think if they put the call out for Asian actors, I'm sure many will show up.

Asians, like African Americans and Hispanics, are under-represented on television. Why that is remains a mystery to me. Perhaps some intelligent person out there can enlighten us.

NEOOLONG

Thursday, October 10, 2002 2:35 PM

But if you look at the statistics for tv actors I think you'll see that Asians are on the low end of the population. Besides, it was just a possibility. Unless I see some evidence either way I couldn't say which one it was. Though I bet you're right that a call wasn't made to get Asian regulars.

ZICSOFT

Thursday, October 10, 2002 3:30 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Haken:

Asians, like African Americans and Hispanics, are under-represented on television. Why that is remains a mystery to me. Perhaps some intelligent person out there can enlighten us.

Pure cowardice. Just as Hollywood is afraid people will reject original or intelligent storytelling, it's afraid people will reject stars that "aren't like us".

It's an appalling waste. Black people in particular have more than their share of first-rate actors. Yet this ethnic group appears mainly in off-the-wall comedies aimed mainly at other black people. There are a lot of good Asian and Hispanic actors I'd like to see more of also.

I have to say that Joss Whedon has not distinguished himself in this area. Non-whites on Buffy are always peripheral characters. There's Gunn on Angel, but he's typecast as "inner city", which is kind of pathetic. Well, at least they had the guts to give him a white girlfriend.

JOSS, WHERE'S MY CHECK???!!!

NEOOLONG

Thursday, October 10, 2002 4:53 PM

Yeah. There is also the lawyer on Angel, but since it's L.A. shouldn't there be more of an Asian and hispanic presence?

LOONYTOON

Thursday, October 10, 2002 6:00 PM

Mal and Kaylee don`t look hispanic at all,IMHO.
It seems to me like many of the colony worlds would have the same type of borders. Each culture tends to be the most comfortable in there own culture. Certain cultures are more comfortable around others. Hispanics are comfortable with whites(though the line is blurring daily) I`m comfortable with natives(indians) cuz I live in Alaska with a high concentration. Europeans are most likely more comfortable with muslims, as the live quite close to each other. Those boundrys will most likely still exist in space.

ZICSOFT

Friday, October 11, 2002 7:26 PM

Well, Mal and Kaylee are both played by Canadians. But not all hispanic people "look" hispanic. Did you know Martin Sheen's real name is Estevez?

JOSS, WHERE'S MY CHECK???!!!

ZICSOFT

Friday, October 11, 2002 7:29 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by neoolong:
Yeah. There is also the lawyer on Angel, but since it's L.A. shouldn't there be more of an Asian and hispanic presence?

There is: secondary characters, extras, bad guys, etc. I call it the side-kick cop out. You hire lots of minorities for non-staring roles so you can claim you're racially balanced. It's almost a cliche that half the characters on TV and the movies have black sidekicks, bosses, best friends, etc.

JOSS, WHERE'S MY CHECK???!!!

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