Writing Inclusion, Writing Positive Asian Characters

 

The gold standard of cultural representation over exploitation

In 1966 Star Trek debuted on NBC. Gene Roddenberry’s optimistic view of the future captured imaginations around the world and would spawn ten movies as well as going-on-a-dozen spinoff television series. Part of the reason for the show’s enduring popularity is inclusion. 

And, he would've made a hell of a Musketeer. 

George Takei originated the character of helmsman, Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu in the original, series, (TOS). It was one of the first positive depictions of an Asian man in television—or western entertainment in general, for that matter. Lt. Sulu was no houseboy, (Kato) no sidekick, (also Kato) or caricature/comic relief, (Hop Sing). Nor was he the diabolical villain, (three Fu Manchu movies were made with white men in yellow face between 1965 and 1969). 

No, Sulu was a capable, consummate professional. 

Sparking decades of fetishes...

Previous to TOS, the best depiction of Asians in American cinema was The World of Suzie Wong. Nancy Kwan played a sympathetic prostitute. Seriously, that was the high-water mark for Asians in DECADES of film. 

But it's artful racism...

Servants, prostitutes, and villains meant to stoke race fears was the only avenue for Asian people in Hollywood. It was not terribly different in print where James M. Cain depicts a Filipino houseboy as the helpless dupe of his much-smarter boss in Double Indemnity (deep end of the pool). Chop-Chop had bright yellow skin, buck-teeth, and a queue in Will Eisner’s Blackhawk comic books, (shallow end of the pool).

Guess who isn't the hero...

But how far have we come since the bad-old days? 

In the 2017 television series Iron Fist, a Netflix collaboration with Marvel, blond-haired, blue-eyed Danny Rand is the eponymous master of martial arts—over a KINGDOM of Asian people. In Quentin Tarrantino’s 2019 film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Mike Moh plays an arrogant, (uppity?) Bruce Lee who has to be put in his place by Brad Pitt’s Cliff Booth. Also in 2019,  comic book fanboys railed that Simu Liu was not “good looking” enough to be cast as Shang Chi, the master of Kung Fu in the Marvel production of the same name. 

SO much racial insecurity on display.

But, but, but print fiction…

In his Mars trilogy, Kim Stanley Robinson identifies the challenges his scientist and biosphere designer, Hiroko Ai faces, and I paraphrase, “It must be so difficult for her to be the perpetual Dragon Lady or fetish…”

ONLY TO THEN WRITE HER AS THE PERPETUALLY (manipulating) DRAGON LADY AND FETISH PIECE.

But, more often than not, Asian men and women are simply ignored in print fiction. At best, there may be a mentor type, a teacher, or a flirt.

If not causation, then certainly correlation

For the last three years the media (print, anyway) has reporting the instances in which Asians have been targeted for violence. We have to do better. We have a responsibility to the cultures that many of us love and cherish and to which all of us owe so much.  

A great director AND great X-Wing pilot!

Not sure how? Larry Hama is a Japanese-American comic book artist and writer. He also served two tours of duty in Vietnam. Mai Nguyen is a farmer and environmental activist from California and leads the study of atmosphere and soil in California. Deborah Chow is an award winning film and television director from Canada but most importantly, (to me) she directed The Sin and The Reckoning episodes of The Mandalorian. Sunita Mani is an Indian American actress, choreographer and comedian—who grew up in Tennessee and SLAYS in everything from G.L.O.W. to Progressive Insurance commercials. 

Healing racial divides...over snacks.

Then there is Shang Chi. From household manners to cultural baggage to pioneering action sequences, director Dustin Creston crafted a love-letter to Asian culture in cellulose.

The son of a warlord-turned-crime lord, Shang Chi struggles with Chinese family dynamics against a backdrop of mystical powers, family secrets, and a struggle to protect what is best and beautiful in his past. Every one involved from the legendary Michelle Yeoh to new-kid-on-the-block Awkwafina, is having a blast showcasing culture and subverting expectations.

Ben Kingsly is Asian, too. And having the most fun.

Fanboy antics, aside, why do I cite these folks?

None are stereotypes or caricatures. None are two-dimensional representations. They are real people. If you try, even minimally, I bet you can write someone just like these folks in your work, just like you see folks like this in your world. Who doesn’t want more fun kids on the playground?

It's way past time to #StopAsianHate.

I own none of the photos here. All are used here for instructional/educational purposes as covered by The Fair Use Doctrine. 

STAR WARS SCORES: Hollywood Crime Myths

In 2010 Doug MacRay and a team of five took $3.5 million in cash during a Fenway Park robbery—on game day. Neil McCauley and a crew of three took down a Los Angeles bank and $12.2 million in cash in 1995. Hans Gruber and a team of 12, (nearly a platoon) lifted $620 million in bearer bonds from the Nakatomi Corp in 1988. 

All of this pales against the ultimate raid. In a 1977 raid, Luke Skywalker and three squadrons of stub fighters flew through a hail of enemy spacecraft and surface cannons to destroy the Death Star. They netted $3.5 billion, (adjusted for inflation).

Talk about robbing a bank

What do these four things have in common? They are all works of particularly well-written fiction. Which of the four is different from the others? Well, lets just say it is FAR more likely for a farm boy with no formal combat-flight training to destroy the ultimate power in the galaxy than for the accumulation of cash in any one place depicted in the other three. 

For context, we’ll examine history

In 1863 a Malden Massachusetts night-auditor was shot and the heister took $5000, ($155,000, 2021 dollars) in the first recorded bank robbery in North America. Fast-forward 140-odd years and a 2006 report by U.S. News article pegs the typical take from a bank robbery at around $4000. The available cash on hand has continued to trend down. 

That trend is backed by events. Jimmy Burke and Lucchese crime family soldiers took $5.8mm ($23mm today) in the 1978 Lufthansa Heist. Allan Pace and a team of five took $18mm, ($31mm today) in the 1997 Dunbar Armored Robbery. Both were the largest robberies of their time. Both were outliers, resulting in global changes to industry security. 

Armed robberies reached their zenith in the 1970s and 80s after thousands of men, (trained in high-risk-small-team tactics) transitioned from the war in Vietnam to the high-unemployment and cyclical recessions of civilian life. Cash-on-hand policies became an important part of security and loss prevention. By the time William Guess, (a.k.a. the Polo Shirt Bandit) robbed his first bank in 1985, the take was only $1000. Carl Gugasian, the most prolific bank robber in U.S. history, only netted $2mm in his 30-year career.

Back at the fiction section, there are folks who get it right. The late-greats Donald Westlake and George Higgins populated their worlds with bad men who pulled scores for brown-paper bags (opposed to duffle bags) of cash. Elmore Leonard also ducked the retire-to-the-islands-score trope. Most of his baddies fought tooth-and-nail for what would be an annual middle-class salary in the straight world. In Michael Mann’s masterwork Thief, Frank is promised "boxcar paydays," but his take is delivered in manila envelope.

Ironically enough, fact often follows fiction. Westlake and Leonard’s baddies have no other options. Reprobates of one stripe or another, they cannot function in the straight world. Their employment options are robbery or pushing a broom, if anyone will trust them with a broom. 

Back in the “real” world, William Guess was a degenerate gambler with an alcoholic’s self-destructive tendencies. Carl Gugasian was an engineer with advanced degrees and served with honor in the U.S. Army Special Forces but his addiction to adrenaline ruled him like DNA predisposition. Edward Green, who committed the first bank robbery in 1863 was the Malden Massachusetts Post Master. He was also heavily in debt.

The “reasons why” are the “but for the grace of God (along with allergies to group showers) go the best of us,”. The reason why is the story. The money is just a prop.  

Does Your Story Have an Adult?

 

Acclaimed film director Garry Marshall once said he tried to cast at least one adult in every movie he made. Most commonly, that adult was Héctor Elizondo. In fact, Mr. Elizondo was in every feature film that Garry Marshall directed.

Charismatic, good looking, with presence far exceeding his stature, Mr. Elizondo has something else that few actors have, self-possessed maturity. No matter the role—hotel manager, garbage man, doctor—he embodies his characters with a knowledge of their place in the world, especially in relation to the other characters. His voice of reason is never whiny or stilted from a stick up the anatomy. 

Part of that, of course, is direction. Part is the script. But the biggest part is Mr. Elizondo and his approach to inhabiting a role. He’s never the bellowing police lieutenant in the buddy picture. Purportedly he won’t take roles depicting stereotypes demeaning to latinos. That self-respect, along with a healthy dose of “no small roles, only small actors” lends great gravity to his work. 

More than lending a hand

Often dismissed as the bumbling sidekick, Watson is the rent-come-due-practical adult in the room who keeps Sherlock Holmes from flying off the rails of brilliance and into the wall societal rules. By contrast, in Caleb Carr’s The Alienist, Dr. Kreizler is the adult to a disparate squad of sleuths. More than simple hierarchy or narrative choice, Kreizler is just as traumatized and scarred as the victims he seeks justice for and just as determined as his colleagues but he has mastered his emotions, his desires, and his psyche. 

Sometimes the adult is the mentor 

Richard Gere and Julia Roberts shine in Pretty Woman but it is the afore-mentioned Mr. Elizondo who is the bedrock of Mr. Marshall’s best-known film. More professional than paternal, Barney Thompson, (Elizondo) the  hotel manager is primarily interested in providing his customer (Gere) with a pleasant hotel-stay, while establishing that he will not tolerate a prostitute (Roberts) frequenting his establishment. When he instructs Vivian in decorum it is as a professional caretaker, working within the bounds of his responsibility, not from the deep well of ego. 

Sometimes the adult is the protagonist 

Michael Mann’s Thief is one of my favorites. The story of a master-theif, we follow Frank through a world where you are either a predator or you are prey. Frank is a highly specialized predator and he works deep to avoid much larger predators, (the Chicago mob) as well as predators of attrition, (the police). He knows his niche and sticks to it—until he sees a chance to catch up on decades of life lost to prison. Unwilling to be a piece in someone else’ game, Frank pays a heavy price to live as a grown up.

Sometimes the adult is the baddie

Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohaim does not cast herself as Jessica’s tormentor no more than she considers herself Paul Atriades’ nemesis. Much like Barney Thompson, she’s simply the sheriff who keeps the peace and enforces the law. The Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, (more a political genetics program than a religious order) has determined that the survival of mankind depends on a strict breeding program. Mohaim's role is to prevent deviations from the program. Failing that, she will prevent deviations from compounding into disasters. It’s thankless work and hilarity does not ensue. 

Multiple adults in the room does not ensure a productive environment

In Ridley Scott’s genre-crossing masterpiece Alien we have three grown ups—surprisingly enough they don’t get along. Captain Dallas, (Tom Skerrit) is a journeyman ship's master. He doesn’t own the ship that he skippers. He didn’t pick his crew, and when he is ordered to investigate a distress call, he certainly doesn’t have the authority to decline. What he has is the power of personality to compel his band of skeptical, irreverent civilians to follow orders.

Chief Engineer Parker, (Yaphet Kotto, RIP) is the career technician. He knows his job, like the ship, inside-out and won’t budge on his principles—until countered by an overwhelming, or-you’re-fired force.

Warrant Officer Ripley, (Sigourney Weaver) is the new blood. Young and professional, she is by-the-book even, (especially?) when it draws her into conflict with everyone. Hers is the voice of reason that is ignored to everyone’s detriment. It’s not a coincidence that she is the only surviving Nostromo crew member.

Ultimately, your story needs an adult to address the elephant in the room. Warning: the following examples are wildly paraphrased and any likeness to actual dialogue (living or dead) is purely coincidental. 

We must make our stand here, on this little moon, against the ultimate power in the galaxy, or more planets will suffer the fate of Alderaan. —General Leia Organa, Princess of Alderaan

No, we’re not trained investigators, we’re not the killer’s target, and we certainly have no actual authority but if we don’t stop this Jack-the-Ripper in New York, more children will be viciously slaughtered. —Dr. Laszlo Kreizler

This hotel caters to specific clientele. Our guests expect the best service possible and we make allowances to ensure that they enjoy their stay. Mr. Lewis is just such a guest. I am willing to accept you here to make Mr. Lewis happy just as long as you and I understand that once Mr. Lewis is gone, you will be too. —Barney Thompson

Ultimately, the adult in the room is not for the good girl/guy, the bad guy/girl, or even in service to them. The adult in the room is there in service to the reader.

The photo above: 2010 Voice Awards: Lou Gossett, Jr. and Hector Elizondo, is in the public domain and covered by fair use. Details, here.