My New Column

[ericadawn16]

This is what I'd been working on for two weeks and asking weird questions:

http://www.omegaunderground.com/2016/04/27/diversity-aboveground-asians-ignored/

Comments

[dancingdragon3.livejournal.com]

That looks awesome! I didn't get through the entire post yet, but I've bookmarked. Simply excellent.

And I didn't know the actress who plays May on AOS had martial arts training. Thanks! I couldn't find any info when I looked, about that.

This isn't Asian specific, but are you familiar with the controversy surrounding Syfy's adaptation of Earthsea and Le Guin's response to their casting choices? They also made characters of color white for the movie version.

[ericadawn16.livejournal.com]

Traditionally, Wushu, where she has studied most, doesn't have belts. She has studied other forms but not long enough to earn belts. The media seems to prefer belts as an easy way of knowing how proficient someone is like Clark Gregg's black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

I haven't heard about that controversy but I would love to hear more about it. Do you have links or should I find it myself?

[dancingdragon3.livejournal.com]

The media seems to prefer belts as an easy way of knowing how proficient someone is

That is such a short-hand thing to do, IMO, yet does not surprise me in the least. Why not the number of years someone studied, or how recently? Technically, I have a yellow belt in Jujitsu, which doesn't mean much since I got it forever ago, and I don't know how good my teacher was.

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2004/12/a_whitewashed_earthsea.html

Le Guin wrote a letter in response to the casting choices, etc. It's fabulous, yet awful.

Besides that, I know I've read other articles where publishers put white characters on the covers, even if the main character is of color. Then there's the website that has a lot of good posts about where minorities in the book versions are changed in the TV adaptation, book covers, etc. They also cover things like women looking sexier on the cover than in the book. It's a pretty cool sight.

http://www.fangsforthefantasy.com/

[ericadawn16.livejournal.com]

Yes, the media is often lazy and water is wet...

That's cool that you've studied yourself. I've never tried although everyone makes it look so awesome and fun. I got to see Ray Park at Disney once and it was just...
0_0

I noticed the date on the article and completely understand how I missed all of this. I graduated from college on December 18 that year. I'm sad that with different names, this could have easily been written yesterday.

Ooh, I loved the review of The Magicians on that second link. It was exactly my thoughts on it, too!

Thank you so much for these links!

[dancingdragon3.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked Fangs! I learned a lot reading those reviews and articles.

And OMG, losing a pic of me and Ray Park together was one of the reasons my hard drive crash hit me so hard. He is so very nice and friendly at cons. I loved writing his Heroes character, sigh. But I can't imagine how awesome it would be to see him perform/fight live.

Jujitsu is good for smaller people, because it involves getting your opponent on the ground, where height and weight make less of a difference. I've really always wanted to learn Kung Fu, but it's very hard to find classes in Chinese martial arts in the South. It's all Tae Kwon Do, and now Muay Thai here. But I'd like to take some Muay Thai classes for writing research, so that works out.

[ericadawn16.livejournal.com]

Oh man...

(hugs)

Yeah, that was one of the reasons I picspammed so hard with my Disney photos on here. It was an excuse to load all that stuff on Photobucket.

I never actually got to meet anyone at Disney though, other than the characters, so that's so awesome that you got to meet him. I forget if you're able to go to any of the conventions because he does do them every so often and he's usually nice about performing. He's going to be at the Tampa one in Auguat and even though I've already seen him...it's still really tempting.

Ooh, I'm a smaller people!

Yep. I remember growing up, I didn't realize there were other martial arts because everything was Tae Kwon Do which everyone referred to as Karate...a lot of people still do. However, Tampa is a bit more cultured than my area so I looked there and found this site:
http://www.tpamartialarts.com
Some of those names I'm not even familiar with...

[dancingdragon3.livejournal.com]

Oh boy, I didn't just meet him. Parks is the fan friendly kind of actor who doesn't mind handsy fans, lol! And he's my height, for easy molesting. I'm very bad, I know. But he was smiling in the pic...

I would go to cons, except I can never get anyone to go with me. Hotels are too expensive these days to go alone. All of my local geek friends are involved, and won't travel without their SO's.

I looked up that sight, and oh, it would be cool to learn sword-fighting. At least for writing research.

[ericadawn16.livejournal.com]

Oh wow...

Yeah, the only two conventions I've been to are close enough that you can drive back home that day...although I do have a friend where she and I have been discussing Dragon Con...we've never been.

Yes, I would love sword fighting lessons. I had a friend once...I think he was accidentally my boyfriend...he always insulted my lightsaber form.

[thespian15.livejournal.com]

WOW, congratulations. :)
Great article.
Hugs, Jon

[ericadawn16.livejournal.com]

thank you

[ragnarok-08.livejournal.com]

That looks awesome :DDD

[ericadawn16.livejournal.com]

thank you

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

You might be interested in an entry I wrote a few years ago that was triggered by tuning into the Hawaii 5-O reboot and being utterly disappointed: http://halfshellvenus.livejournal.com/452716.html

Geez, that was six years ago. And we still haven't really made much progress. :(

[ericadawn16.livejournal.com]

I LOVED Undercovers!
I watched from the premiere, not just because of that J.J. Abrams pedigree but having a Doctor Who alumnist as the STAR? Count me up!

Plus, diversity is always good. ABC premiered a series earlier this year starring Peter Krause with a similar plotline and I refused to watch even though I always watch his stuff because it starred two white people and this is 2016, that shouldn't be done anymore.

In my article, I tended to include all of Asia...although Russia is fairly Caucasian...and East Asian when I meant the countries you refer to because as you referred to even then, all sets of Asians get very little roles.

I think the only improvement since then has been Lucy Liu playing Watson, Priyanka Chopra on Quantico and a couple of ABC sitcoms. If you add in the Star Wars additions I mentioned, Disney's ABC and Lucasfilm is almost entirely responsible for what little progress has been gained?

That's pretty pathetic. Are you on Twitter?
Because Constance Wu is just...awesome. She needs her own production company immediately and tons of money.