Asian Representation in Animation

The first time someone told me they hated Disney’s adaptation of Mulan, I had to do a double-take. This was a Chinese American friend of mine, whom I share similar ideals with in regards to media representation. Disney’s Mulan was a staple of my childhood—I played “Reflection” on my CD player on repeat, I dressed up as her for Halloween in second grade, and I loved the message of female empowerment. We were both Sino Americans thirsty for representation in American media, so why was my friend so against the only Chinese character in Disney’s lineup who promoted such strong messages?

This friend, however, had a more in-depth knowledge of Chinese culture, history, and politics than I ever did. (More than most Chinese Americans, in fact.) She was raised on wuxia (martial arts genre) and xianxia media (Buddhist and Taoist inspired fantasy genre), was highly fluent in Mandarin, and took an active interest in learning about her culture, history, and its mythologies as a child. She listed off ways the film had insultingly misrepresented our culture and I felt shame welling in me for not realizing that.

Well, okay, I wanted to argue, but it’s an adaptation, isn’t it? Don’t all fairy tale adaptations fudge around with their original stories and culture quite a bit? How is this different from when Chinese productions take creative license with costuming and customs when telling fictional narratives? Why can’t Disney do the same?

I had no comeback for her following question.

“Who do you think is telling that story? Who do you think they’re telling that story for?”

I reflected on my relationship with the film. On the surface, I loved seeing a Chinese face onscreen. I felt that could have been me. But why didn't Mulan encourage me to appreciate my own culture? When I was little, I made the decision to only speak English with my parents because I was tired of the teasing from my classmates and embarrassed that my parents spoke another language. If this film made me feel so represented, why was I still too ashamed to learn the dialects my parents spoke?

And unfortunately for me, Mulan was the film our teachers presented during a Chinese history unit. I had to brace myself for the same comments and questions— “You know, you kind of look like Mulan. Can you teach me my name in Chinese? Is it true Chinese people kill girls for breaking the rules? Don’t you get tired of Chinese food?” Despite years of sharing classes and interacting with me regularly, my classmates were influenced by stereotypes that Western media perpetuated about Chinese people, and they ascribed those traits to me.

The film, and Western animation featuring Asian characters in general, still managed to other me while giving me the false illusion of representation. And sadly, this is a pill most of my Asian American peers refuse to swallow because Mulan was one of the few films they had to lean on for representation as children.

The Problem With Mulan: Orientalism and Anti-Blackness

I realized early on in childhood the impact of animated representation on our youth. It only became clearer years later with the announcement of the live-action The Last Airbender movie in 2009. Although some of my classmates at the time raised concerns about the whitewashing, most of them, Asian and non-Asian alike, dismissed the notion.

“Well, if the characters were meant to be Asian, why do they look white? If they’re Asian, shouldn’t the characters in the TV show be drawn with slanted eyes?”

“They’re probably casting whoever’s the most talented for the role. Why does it have to be restricted to Asians? Are you racist?”

Today, people of color discuss representation in media more than ever before, but mostly in regards to live-action filmmaking. Rarely do we discuss representation in animation, whose primary target is children—the most vulnerable viewers.

American animation has long since distanced itself from blackface and buck-toothed Asian caricatures. But as audiences raise the issue of representation and diversity in live-action Hollywood films, so too do we expand that issue to animation. I was an avid animation fan like most children and latched my attention onto the few East or Southeast Asian characters on screen.

Mulan was one of them. When the live-action trailer dropped, white people lauded the film for attempting to be more “authentic” to the original legend and Chinese culture, contradicting Chinese viewers who raised an eyebrow at a Northern Wei Dynasty girl living in a Hakka home and wearing Tang Dynasty clothing. When Disney tweeted footage of interviews at the premiere, people of color on social media took to criticizing Disney for hiring a predominantly white film crew to produce a film about Chinese culture.

When I saw the backlash on Twitter, I wondered why such criticism arose this time, thinking back to the points my friend made that now seemed so obvious. After all, the original animated film featured a very exoticized idea of what China was, made by a predominantly white crew. The art did not age well either because of the stereotyped designs and homogenization of Chinese dialects. And yet Asian Americans sang its praises for influencing our childhoods so positively. Mulan is still widely popular among children today.

A style guide of two Disney female characters that notes ,"Both ethnics have slightly slanted eyes.”

Disney is guilty of perpetuating racist caricatures, which are prominently featured in their World War II propaganda shorts. But if audiences are claiming their films from the 1990s onward aren’t racist simply because Asians are no longer portrayed with Simpsons-like yellow skin and slanted eyes, then that’s an incredibly low bar.

The original Ballad of Hua Mulan’s main theme is that of filial piety; Hua Mulan is a weaver girl who goes out of her way to disguise herself as a man to spare her elderly father and younger brother from the draft. She loves her family so much she is willing to forsake her sheltered life to rescue her father.

In Disney’s version, Fa Mulan (weirdly placing Cantonese surnames with Mandarin given names) is a fish out of water who doesn’t feel she fits in with Chinese expectations of womanhood and joins the war to prove her worth. The fact that her father takes second priority is illustrated when she says, “Maybe I didn’t go for my father. Maybe what I really wanted was to prove I could do things right, so when I looked in the mirror, I’d see someone worthwhile.”

The filmmakers’ disregard for Asian and Black viewers comes fully into play in a 2008 interview by Jeremie Noyer, a writer for the animation review site Animated Views, with Mulan director Tony Bancroft regarding the decision to cast Eddie Murphy for Mushu:

Animated Views: How did you come to the idea of an Afro-American actor to play the role of a Chinese dragon – which proved to be a great idea?
Tony Bancroft: … We wanted a character that was totally the opposite of Mulan. She represented Chinese values, she was more dramatic, she was close to her father, very respectful. So, she had to be cast so that she had that voice, that very Chinese character. So, Ming-Na Wen was perfect for that. And we wanted the character of Mushu to be the opposite of Mulan. He’s kind of her guide to this whole new world she’s getting into. So, we thought: what would be more in contrast with an Asian character than an African-American character. It just seemed to work well that way... So, let’s try African-American and we started casting a lot of different African-American personalities and we came across Eddie Murphy.
AV: Hence this amazing sequence when Mushu is introducing himself just like an Afro-American preacher!
TB: ... He really makes up who he is because when Mushu talks, he talks as he’s a lot bigger than he is! But when you see what he is, it’s just this little guy with a big mouth! That was a fun sequence. We enjoyed doing that!

While themes of individualism and feminism are appreciated in any other movie, for white American filmmakers to appropriate this story and interject it with criticisms of Chinese society is presumptuous, especially when they draw their character concepts from archaic stereotypes juxtaposing Black and Asian people.

Why aren't—and why weren't—our media literate and culturally-diverse communities discussing this proposed racist dichotomy between Asian and Black people? Aren't we ready to take off our rose-tinted glasses and properly voice concerns with the film despite our nostalgia? If I could accept the flawed representation in Mulan and confront them, couldn't others? My initial instinct was to suggest alternative films and TV shows about Asian American characters by Asian Americans. But I then realized there were few options.

Funny enough, Mulan was not my favorite Disney Princess as a child. My favorite was Ariel, but she was white. White girls made abundantly clear when we played princesses during recess that I had an obligation to favor Mulan instead, simply because I was Chinese and therefore I had to like the Chinese princess.

Perpetual Foreigner: Diaspora Asians Through A White Lens

I keep thinking back to the conversation with my friend, dredging up questions asking why, despite the existence of this powerful feminist Chinese warrior, did I still feel ashamed of my heritage. I thought back to other cartoons I enjoyed as a kid featuring East Asian characters. Somehow, the characters’ stories always had to revolve around their cultures. Maybe the setting was in “Ancient China” like Sagwa, or maybe it dealt with mystical Asian magic like Jackie Chan Adventures or American Dragon: Jake Long. Or maybe Asian characters were guests in a “very special episode” to learn about the Lunar New Year. There was always some sort of justification for the characters being Asian; they weren’t allowed to just be. No slice of life cartoons featuring kids who happened to be Asian, no cartoons where our foreignness isn’t exaggerated for humor (such as Omi from Xiaolin Showdown or Baljeet from Phineas and Ferb). No matter the positive qualities the characters possessed, their culture wasn’t simply an integral part of their identity—it was their only justification for existing.

I think I realized early in my life that I didn’t want that kind of existence for myself, yet I still yearned for characters who looked like me. I wanted to see myself reflected on screen, even if I hated the slanted black eyes scrawled onto those faces. Regardless, I internalized the message this depiction sent: I wasn’t “normal” in America. I didn’t belong. And white people wonder why asking, "Where are you from?" to people of color is such a problem.

We can spend forever arguing about the target audience for animation, how we need to destigmatize it as “just for kids,” and how films and shows targeted for adults exist. However, animation is generally accepted as family-friendly or a children’s medium. In our most formative years, representation is crucial to how we perceive the world and ourselves. Children are not stupid, but most do not have the life experience or knowledge to properly analyze Orientalism and racial coding in media. Many are just desperate to see themselves onscreen for the first time.

However, with so few animated TV shows and films properly depicting Asian people, do we bar kids from seeing such films so they won’t internalize such stereotypes? Or are we simply depriving them? After all, despite the shame I felt for my heritage, I kept watching Mulan. It wasn’t until I was older that I realized how much baggage that movie carried; I was relatively ignorant of that as a child. So should we let children watch things with racist elements? How do we explain why something is racist when not every individual in our community agrees on what constitutes as such? And is it right to encourage white creators to write about our stories when so few Asian American creators have a chance in the industry?

Disney’s issues with Orientalism didn’t end and didn't even start with Mulan. Aladdin is no stranger to criticism when it comes to homogenized and backward depictions of Arab people. Countless Arab Americans for decades have expressed discomfort with the exoticism and homogenization of Arab countries in the 1992 animated classic. Upon initial release, the film received backlash from Arab people, particularly the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, for describing the region as a land “where they cut off your ear if they don’t like your face… it’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home.” It’s also noteworthy that, like Arab American scholars and writers (such as Evelyn Alsultany, Samir Abady, and Fatima Zehra) have pointed out, the film’s villains embodied more exaggerated Arab features and accents while the heroes had much more Eurocentric designs and American accents.

Sexism is one of the most prominent issues in both Mulan and Aladdin—both films criticize these societies’ sexist laws, such as barring women from joining armies or dictating princesses must choose a husband. Yet in other films, Disney does not address sexism or any other bigoted institutions in their features with European settings and an all-white cast. (“Part of Your World” has a throwaway line in The Little Mermaid, but it doesn’t become the focus of the movie.) What message does this send to children of color? That their people and cultures are inherently flawed, while white people get to be judged on an individual basis?

The idea that Disney has since improved is questionable given the release of Big Hero 6, based on the comic series of the same name, in 2014. The comics originally featured an all-Japanese cast set in Tokyo; yet Disney inexplicably changed the ethnicities of the entire cast and relocated the setting to a strange Tokyo-San Francisco hybrid with liberal use of pagodas, cherry blossoms, and paper lanterns. Why racially diversify an all-Asian cast in the source material when Disney has countless other white-only films? Why limit the number of films where East Asian children can see an entire cast of people that look like them? And why do we need a strange hybrid city dripping with Orientalism to justify the existence of an East Asian American character instead of just setting the story in San Francisco or Tokyo?

Disney fans may argue that no film can please everyone and that opinions on whether or not the films do Asian Americans justice will vary. However, these creative decisions aren’t made independently of racial biases, and they don’t solely affect fictional characters. Too many questions stack up, and audiences must not treat them so flippantly, as these depictions ultimately affect how children of color view themselves and their respective cultures.

When I was eighteen, I made my first trek through Chinatown in downtown San Francisco. Growing up I typically visited the one in Oakland, so I was unaccustomed to the gaudy decor in this well-known tourist trap that shaped street lamps like pagodas and slapped every building with red and green paint. But what bothered me most were the tourists, taking pictures of vendors and workers as if they were zoo animals.

Years later in my junior year of college, when I took a Chinese American History class, my professor discussed Chinatown’s history and how, despite mainland China now having predominantly Western-style buildings, Chinatown structured everything to resemble ancient Chinese architecture to attract business. Tourists wanted a more “exotic” atmosphere. Although I absorbed the information in class, it slowly sunk in how alienating San Francisco's Chinatown was as I remembered watching tourists taking pictures of Asian passersby just trying to get their groceries.

Watching the strange onscreen mashup of Big Hero 6, and watching a non-Asian audience ogle in awe at it, made me think about how alien they really saw Asians. And I had to reconsider that despite the Asian faces on screen, these were white directors and writers who didn’t consider us as audience members when conceptualizing these settings.

Proper Representation: Authenticity vs. Creative Control

The animation world stretches beyond Disney, as do the problems. In America, people generally use the term “Asian” to refer to East Asians and excludes Southeast, South, West, or Indigenous Asians. This is noteworthy in that Asian representation in Western animation is predominantly East Asian. The few Western cartoons that do acknowledge non-East Asians are still written with an Orientalist lens, most notably Avatar: the Last Airbender.

I won’t deny that the show is hailed for its writing and considered one of the greatest American animated shows of all time. With its return to Netflix, fans once again indulge in their nostalgia and reminisce about what a wonderful series this was. That does not negate that the showrunners are white. Most of the directors and writers are white. Even the cast is predominantly white, with Dante Basco and the late Mako as the only Asian lead voice actors (the latter of whom was replaced by a white voice actor impersonating an Asian accent after Mako’s tragic death). One might argue having Asian cultural consultants on set counts as cultural appreciation but leads to the conclusion that it’s acceptable for white people to cherry-pick what they like enough about our cultures to put in their show and fabricate the rest of our customs and beliefs.

Furthermore, the white perspective of colonialism unfortunately seeps its way into the show. The premise of the series is that there are four nations representing the (Greek) elements—water, fire, earth, and air. The Fire Nation, in their conquest for world domination, commits genocide on the Air Nomads, colonizes the Earth Kingdom, and massacres Water Tribe members. Although Japan and China are the Asian countries with histories of imperialism, the Fire Nation is aesthetically modeled after Chinese and Thai culture. If this story serves as an allegory for Japanese imperialism as so many fans claim, then it's puzzling that the Japanese influences are subtextual. Although Thailand has retained its independence throughout history, it is an odd choice to base an imperialist nation off a Southeast Asian country, particularly when Southeast Asia is often exploited by both East Asia and Europe.

Furthermore, while the Fire Lord is rightly villainized, the show also criticizes the Fire Nation’s victims who respond to their trauma with violence. Several characters seek personal revenge on Fire Nation civilians and are accused of being equally as wrong as their colonizers. Not once does the show address the social inequity and power imbalance between the colonizers and the colonized, even going so far as to claim “every side in a war believes it is correct,” despite Air Nomads being the victims of genocide. In the sequel series, The Legend of Korra, Air Nomads are considered “repopulated” because random civilians from different nations attain the power to airbend pushing (knowingly or not) the idea that reversing the massacre of an ethnic group is as simple as teaching outsiders the culture. In spite of all this, Avatar: The Last Airbender is lauded for its effort into researching and showcasing “Asian cultures” while the show's concerning Western lens skewing these Asian cultures is overlooked.

I once expressed this opinion to a very dedicated fan of the show, who shot me down immediately.

“They did their research and hired cultural consultants,” she argued, “so it’s authentic! That makes it cultural appreciation!”

Her defensiveness matched mine when my Chinese friend first explained why she hated Mulan. I felt a pang of sympathy for her and posed the same question. “Who do you think is telling these stories? Who are they telling it for?” After all, I understood how difficult it was to admit your childhood comfort show wasn’t as perfect as you previously thought.

She huffed and “agreed to disagree.” I wonder how that conversation would have gone if she watched it as an adult, and not as a child.

A few months ago I read a story about a white woman raising a Chinese daughter, attempting to teach her the culture of her ethnicity by cooking Chinese food and speaking Mandarin at home. She wondered if she was raising her “authentically” enough and I remembered rolling my eyes at the question. I’m no stranger to questions on whether a Chinese restaurant’s food is authentic, or whether Western fiction featuring Asian mythology depicts it “accurately,” as if accuracy dictates the degree of offense. I see claims of authenticity reflected in justification for Avatar’s frankly Orientalist conception.

When my friend listed the historical and cultural inaccuracies Mulan perpetuated, I remembered thinking it was my fault for not being Chinese enough like she was. After all, the culture and language were practically her areas of expertise. I could understand my parents’ dialects, but not respond. Maybe I should have accepted that I was just a "banana": Asian in appearance but exhibiting knowledge, behaviors, and choices of a Westerner or white person.

But my father is an immigrant from Taiwan who speaks better Mandarin than English. No one will doubt his Asian-ness. Yet he does not limit his diet to Chinese food—on occasion, he will take his children out to American steakhouses. When I was in middle school, we watched American sitcoms together like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and George Lopez. Did watching that instead of wuxia and xianxia dramas make him less authentic? Did enjoying steak and salads make him white?

Bryke’s (the collective fan-given name of the two showrunners of Avatar) insistence that they hired cultural consultants to add to the “authenticity” of their shows perpetuates the popular belief that culture is inflexible and that our rigid adherence to set customs, traditions, and beliefs determine our authenticity. If that were the case, however, qipao shouldn’t even be considered Han Chinese culture, as it was introduced by the Manchurians in the Qing Dynasty. What’s unsurprising in these culturally appropriative mindsets is that the people are never considered. Culture is vast, flexible, and ever-changing because the people of those cultures determine what it is—which is why I’m no longer scrutinizing a textbook to judge if my upbringing was “authentic” enough. History and values are considered isolated things that have no effect on what determines your ties to the culture when in truth it is integral. It is irritating that showrunners and fans believe the show’s degree of non-racism is contingent on its “accuracy” to the cultures it portrays, ignoring the power dynamics and lens of exoticism through an outsider’s depiction of the culture.

White people can wear saris and eat lumpia and be as fluent in Mandarin as they want, but at the end of the day, they do not carry the baggage and experience the racism Asian people face daily. I want to tell a younger version of myself it’s okay that she didn’t realize the problem with the media she likes. But I wouldn’t know if I could have told her to just stop watching them and stop giving these Orientalists her money forever.

Other animated shows are more blatant with their exoticism and othering of Asian people. Omi of Xiaolin Showdown has bright yellow skin and has a heavily exaggerated accent, performed by Tara Strong. Voice actor Phil LaMarr is not Asian either, yet performs in Samurai Jack with an accent (though not nearly as exaggerated and mocking as Strong’s).

As difficult as it is to criticize the media I wholeheartedly love and have strong nostalgia for, I must question if these elements really pay homage to our people and cultures or exist as stories for white audiences with Asian dressing.

Asian Animation: An Alternative to Western Animation

It might be better, then, to suggest children watch Asian animation instead. After all, whereas American media tended to have footnotes for white viewers explaining our customs and cultures (further exoticizing us), nobody in Asian films had to explain why we took our shoes off in the house or how to use chopsticks. I didn’t strictly grow up on American animation. One of my favorite films was Nezha Conquers the Dragon King, a retelling of the story of the Chinese deity Nezha who slays the Dragon Prince Ao Bing. Although it featured Chinese customs, the film didn’t feel the need to emphasize it took place in China. There, Asian qualities and lifestyles were normal. We were normal. But if I was to consider American media alienating me, I had to confront the films I grew up with and how they alienate other children.

I write this piece from a Han Chinese American perspective and therefore have little authority over commentating on depictions of other ethnicities, particularly non-East Asians. However, we must address the preference for East Asians in Western media and the dearth of representation for other Asian ethnic groups, both onscreen and in production crews. Moreover, China and Japan in particular are infamous for their histories of imperialism across East and Southeast Asia and their denial or glorification of that legacy. If we are to criticize how East Asians are poorly depicted in Western media, we must apply the same criticisms to East Asian racism towards non-East Asians as well.

The 2019 film Abominable is set in China starring Asian American voice actors and co-produced by DreamWorks Animation and Chinese animation company Pearl Studio. However, the film received backlash for its inclusion of the nine-dash line, supporting China’s claim of the South China Sea and sovereignty over other Southeast Asian countries.

Japanese animation does not fare much better. Within East and Southeast Asia, Japan is notorious for the Japanese Occupation, which included cultural assimilation, massacres, and sexual slavery. Flagrant depictions of the Rising Sun Flag, a war flag symbolizing their empire and occupation, frequently appear and prompt censorship in China and Korea. Even Studio Ghibli is not exempt from criticism that it supports Japanese nationalism, as Chinese and Korean viewers claim The Wind Rises romanticizes the life of Jiro Horikoshi, the man who invented warplanes used to attack the aforementioned countries and Southeast Asian countries. Even in mediums wherein Asians have control over how we are depicted, it seems that Asians may do so at the expense of Asians of other ethnicities. While Chinese and Japanese children get to enjoy these films, other Asian children internalize the glorification of China and Japan while condemning their native countries.

There’s also the issue of cultural and lingual barriers. Most Asian Americans and Americans aren’t Japanese and can’t speak the language, so mainstream cartoon channels air English-dubbed versions of anime, which are often “localized”—rice balls become doughnuts (Pokemon) and characters like Ichigo Momomiya becomes Zoe Hanson (Tokyo Mew Mew/Mew Mew Power). In other words, it’s another form of whitewashing. This only fuels the racist argument that anime characters are modeled after white people, overlooking that anime targets Japanese audiences and has no need for exaggerated racial coding to indicate Japanese ethnicity. While most anime features an all-Japanese cast in a setting where Japanese culture is normalized, localization of dubbed anime gives preferential treatment to white American voice actors and audiences, thus providing less opportunity for Asian Americans in the industry.

One of the most glaring problems in the animation industry is colorism, particularly in cartoons depicting East Asian characters. There’s no question that for the lack of East Asian representation in Western media, Southeast and South Asian representation fare worse. Moreover, both Western cartoons and anime at large only portray light-skinned East Asian heroes, not only excluding dark-skinned characters but at times portraying them as the villains. This not only inaccurately gives the false image of all East Asians being light-skinned but fails to address the demonization of anyone with dark skin, evident in how whitening creams and skin bleaching are heavily marketed in many Asian countries.

It seems no matter where we look across the animation genre, issues arise. Realistically, not everything we watch is exempt from problems and it is our nature as audience members to judge and criticize. I have since come to accept that I enjoy shows and movies that perpetuate racist or sexist stereotypes; the utmost importance is to watch with a critical eye and not internalize the messages they send. But children are young, impressionable, and the most vulnerable to internalize harmful messages.

Where do we draw the line? What do we consider “too racist?" If we continue to let our children watch exoticized depictions of themselves on screen for temporary satisfaction and representation, are we encouraging white creators to continue capitalizing on our cultures and receive credit for telling our stories? I internalized stereotypes about my own culture and people, despite having been raised in it, because of things TV and movies said about Asian people.

Animation by Asian Americans

Asian American writers and directors for animation do exist. Pixar in particular has released shorts by such directors, featuring Asian American characters—Bao, Float, Sanjay’s Super Team, and Wind. Each short tackles familial relationships, a theme that deeply resonates with Asian American audiences.

Daniel Chong, a Chinese American artist, gained worldwide fame for creating the wildly popular show We Bare Bears. Although the show’s main protagonists are bears, one of the recurring characters is Korean American child prodigy, Chloe Park. Although it could be argued her academic prowess contributes to the “smart Asian” myth, the show does address her anxieties and loneliness to humanize her. The show also depicts her parents’ deep concern for her emotional wellbeing, contrasting the infamous Asian tiger parent stereotype. The Park family and Ice Bear speak other languages quite liberally, namely Korean, to illustrate growing up in a bilingual household.

I cannot dictate which stories creators have a right to tell. However, I also cannot deny there is a clear distinction between the stories white people write about Asian fantasylands and the stories Asian Americans write about Asian Americans. With the former, Asian cultures are depicted in a way that exoticizes the setting, and white people view Asian people as decoration, not characters, as evidenced in media like Avatar: The Last Airbender and Big Hero 6. There is a much more personal touch to Asian American stories and a higher degree of resonance with its viewers which, to reiterate, are primarily children.

At the same time, I must remind myself that Asian American-directed animations are few and far between and there’s a slew of media we’re barring our children from indulging in if we only stick to what we deem acceptable. How far does our acceptance for problematic media extend? What don’t we want our children to internalize and how will we discuss this internalization with them? Do we have to watch everything with a disclaimer now?

Recently Disney has announced its first Southeast Asian-inspired film, Raya and the Last Dragon, with Malaysian-born Crazy Rich Asians writer Adele Lim credited on the screenplay. While this is a step forward in Southeast Asian representation, especially with a big-budget animated film, we should also boost the voices of Southeast Asian critics and creators. Rather than upholding Raya as the pinnacle of Southeast Asian representation, we must remind ourselves that its creation and release means Southeast Asian stories matter and work towards promoting Southeast Asian artists, as well as prioritizing Southeast Asian critical reception.

We won’t stop having Orientalist media for years to come now. I can only expect more problems to come and I will just have to hope audiences can consume such media with a critical eye. My friend’s voice still echoes in my mind whenever I watch new media claiming representation.