The Asian Factor
POSTED BY: Darwin
UPDATED: Sunday, June 6, 2004 21:45
VIEWED: 10954
PAGE 3 of 3
Are you kidding! Akira and Evangelion live action films with out Asians in the lead roles! OMG! I love those but sounds like they will end up no better than the live action Guyver! Please say it ain't so!
It's a nothing part til you don't got one, then you have to go to ebay.....aaaaagh!
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It does kind of stand out that there are no Asians in the crew considering the premise of the show. An Asian American friend of mine auditioned for the part of Kaylee and she loved the sides she was given to read. Even back then she could tell it would be a great show. So at some point Joss was open to a more multi-ethnic cast. I guess he just fell in love with the actors we have all come to know and love.
There are many MANY amazing Asian American actors out there. Some of them have authentic southern accents. I’m a big fan of Hong Kong movies and Hollywood has started importing some of their best directors and several of their action stars, but it would be great to see some of their great comedians and leading ladies get some work.
Hopefully the movie will help flesh out this part of the Firefly universe.
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Yeah, this has always bothered me as well. The argument that we're not seeing the whole picture on Firefly only holds so much water. After all, we do see Asians-- on the Eavesdown docks in "Serenity," on the train in "The Train Job," in the posse that captures Mal's buyers in "Safe..." But none of them are ever important enough to utter a line, in mandarin OR english.
I think it probably does come back to the fact that Asians are not marketable. I saw B.D. Wong speak last year, and he talked at length about the difficulties an Asian actor faces-- especially if he's unwilling to take extremely stereotyped roles. Firefly would be the perfect venue to twist that kind of crap around, but it's possible that TPTB at Fox wouldn't allow it... in which case, we can probably expect some Asian characters in the movie, I hope.
If it was a concsious choice on Joss's part, then... huh?
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"You're mean. Firefly's making me reconsider my lifelong devotion to Star Trek." --My mother
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I don't know if this means anything, since it was cut from the final version of Serenity, but there's one line in the shooting script that really stood out the first time I read it. Recall Book wandering about the Eavesdown Docks looking at the ships:
MAN: You going on a trip, grandpa? Need safe passage? We're cheap, we're cheap and clean, The BRUTUS is the best ship in the 'verse. What's your des, grandpa, we're hitting the outer rings --
BOOK: I never married.
MAN #2: What?
BOOK: I'm not a grandpa.
The guy just looks at him like he's crazy, let's him move on past the next barker, MAN #2. The guy is fancy, with people gathered around -- his ship is clearly high class.
MAN #2: -- three berths left, junior suites, we are not interested in Asian or Catholic passengers, thank you, we will be bidding for the last three berths --
Book moves on. Comes to the third dock in the row. It's Serenity's, Kaylee sits outside it in a lawn chair. He looks at it, never stopping, 'til Kaylee says, smiling:
KAYLEE: You're gonna come with us.
Why "Man #2"s line was cut... who knows... could have been to save time, or it could have been deemed a bit too inflammatory for the execs. Could be part of the history we weren't shown yet; don't see why humanity's failings wouldn't follow 'em out into the black. Anyway, I don't have much more to say about that. I just wanted to point it out and let y'all take a swing at it.
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At the very least, we should have seen many more Asians when Alliance vessels or facilities were involved. Everything indicated that the Chinese played a major part in setting up the Alliance. The Tams have a Chinese name, and it would have been perfect for them to be played by actors with at least some Asian ancestry.
I had hoped that the Operative in the film might be Asian, but he's being played by an Anglo-African.
For all the excuses that can be made, this is a huge problem for a show with Firefly's premise about China and the US emerging as the dominant powers on Earth that was.
Cardie
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