He/Him
Support!
The trope has always bothered me, especially because of the title, though the last time I read it, a couple weeks ago, the description seemed like it had a subtly condescending tone towards white men who like asian women (though that may just be me reading too much into it).
edited 8th Sep '11 1:45:44 AM by Acebrock
My troper wall
So that's what this does
I support the title swap.
Hm, trope isn't what I thought it was. If it had been* the offensive name would be much less of an issue because it would be such on purpose. But this is a pretty neutral trope, so I support a switch.
edited 8th Sep '11 2:05:01 AM by Arha
I support the switch. Anyone who refers to actual relationships with this line comes off as racist. Same with fictional ones.
edited 8th Sep '11 3:56:57 AM by Routerie
Yikes, I also thought the trope was about stereotypes of Asian prostitutes based on the name. Supporting a rename.
edited 8th Sep '11 3:20:54 AM by AmyJade
Wait, that trope isn't about Asian women being depicted as skankbags just waiting to score some Caucasian meat?
edited 8th Sep '11 4:11:08 AM by peccantis
@peccantis: Nope, never been been about that. Actually, the definition used to be slightly more narrow, so that prostitution didn't count at all. Full Metal Jacket was listed as an aversion, not because the protagonist never had sex with the prostitute but because she was a prostitute in the first place.
Edit: Still listed as an aversion, although for the other reason now. So the Trope Namer is not, and has never been, an example. The current title is a left-over from someone's bad sense of humor, nothing more. Malicious humor, probably, in one way or another. I remember a time when the trope description openly stated that a woman objectively is a skank if she is Asian and enter a relationship with a man who is not. My guess is that this "information" was not in the original description, but added by some male Asian with a Entitled to Have You complex.
edited 8th Sep '11 4:28:20 AM by Xzenu
Ugh, yeah. If this were about an offensive stereotype I could understand the offensive name, but this is just ridiculous. Kill it with fire.
Mighty pirate!
The Trope Namer was listed as an aversion?!
Fire.
So that's what this does
The trope description doesn't actually say what this trope is. Also the sliding scale is not a sliding scale it's a disjointed series of numbered bulletpoints. Needs more than a rename now I look closer.
Adressing Acebrock's side issue about the description, I have now attempted to solve it by adding the following line right under the sliding scale:
"To sum it up: At the top of the sliding scale, the narrative treat both characters with respect. At the bottom, the narrative is condescending or openly hostile against the woman or the man or both. In the middle, both characters are treated with a respect that may feel objectifying and/or built on very outdated stereotypes."
This way, it will hopefully be easier to see that the condescending attitude against white males is restricted to certain works, not omnipresent within the trope. And that the stereotype is not one that TV Tropes is trying to encourage.
@Michael:
The trope is a relationship between an Asian gal and a Western guy.
If the trope was ever something else, then this was lost to trope decay many years ago.
edited 8th Sep '11 5:03:10 AM by Xzenu
I didn't know the title was a slur (I did know it was from Full Metal Jacket). Definitely support a switch.
So that's what this does
@Xzenu: So you say, but where does the description say this? I see it uses an asian-western couple as a framing device then goes on about stereotypes and what the truth may be and it seems to me like it's just as likely to be about bigoted responses to an asian-western couple as it is to be about the asian-western couple.
It needs clarity, which it does not have.
Cure Candy
Just an interracial couple isn't a trope really.... If this was restricted to say War era couples (WWII, Korea, Vietnam.) I could see it being a good trope.
Sparkling and glittering! Jan-Ken-Pon!
@Michael: In other words, it's time to move the cultural/historical context out of the first paragraph, instead focusing it on the actual trope. I'm sure this is doable. Attempt incoming.
So that's what this does
Do we need the cultural/historical context at all? This is TV Tropes, not History Today.
I'm reasonably certain we don't need the two paragraphs describing two alternate titles.
New first paragraph:
"She is of Asian origin, he is of Western origin. This is a very common combination for interracial relationships in fiction (as well as in Real Life). A combination that is not only common, but also archetypical, for better and worse. Authors making this combination have a whole history of stereotypes and prejudices to use or avert."
And yes, when we make the switch we can simply remove all the fluff about Full Metal Jacket and Madame Butterfly from the trope description.
I hope this isn't too impatient of me, but with the total consensus that the current title sucks for the trope I'll just go ahead and move it now so we can move on to clear up these other problems. If someone feel that the racist slur title has any use, I'm sure it's far better off at YKTTW. And if I'm making a misjudgement here, we can always switch back.
Done. And we still have the options of finding yet another title or simply nuke the whole thing. Moving on to the description problems you pointed out.
Chopped down the description quite a bit. We might want to move the six alternative portrayals to the analysis page, leaving my summary of the sliding scale on the main page. But I think it's preferable this way, keeping it all on the main page.
Edit: There, I think I nailed it. Made the summary the slinding scale, and demoted the six point to being individual option examples along this scale.
edited 8th Sep '11 5:31:22 AM by Xzenu
As far as I'm concerned, we are done here.
Thursday now. If we still have a consensus on Sunday (or when the thread gets locked, whatever comes first), lets all help out updating links.
As much as I agree that this needed fixing, and as unlikely as I think it is that anyone will disagree, I think four hours is a little soon to be going "Everyone agrees with me? Cool, I'll go ahead and change everything".
So that's what this does
It is a little quick. I also don't get why the sliding scale is numbered in that order, or indeed why the trope description needs to explore a couple's reasons for being a couple if the trope is simply that they are a couple.
Cure Candy
My post [1]
seemed to have gotten ignored... all the double posting...
Really this should be limited to War time era couples (or right after it.) or specific portrayals of it, just any interracial Asian girl / white guy couple really shouldn't be a trope. (hell look at the anime examples...)
Also renamed already without even discussion of a new title? WTF.
Sparkling and glittering! Jan-Ken-Pon!
A few hours ago, the trope got a quite serious complain from Altoona Man. He said that "It makes me feel like I'm on Stormfront or some other white supremacist site." This was posted in the trope discussion page, but I think this is a discussion that belongs here in TRS.
His preliminary analysis was that the problem was in the first paragraph, with it ending in a description of how the trope is sometimes part of a racist discourse.
I think his emotional reaction is very valid, but that the preliminary analysis miss the mark a bit. The problem is the title, not the first paragraph. The title "Me Love You Long Time" is a racist slur that implies that all Asian women are whores. And cheap uneducated whores at that. Also very important from a TV Tropes perspective, the title does NOT describe the trope at all. I have been reading TV Tropes for many years now, and as long as I can remember, this trope had a lot of examples, always with less then 10% of them having anything at all to do with prostitution.
Returning to the first paragraph, it reads as follows:
"She is of Asian origin, he is of Western origin. When they start a relationship with each other, a lot of people are going to have opinions about it. Sadly, interracial relationships in general is still a touchy subject for many. Sometimes with notions that the women of a certain ethnic group or whatever "belong" to the men of that group, or that any woman or man who make intimate alliances outside their group is a Race Traitor."
The description goes on to describe a sliding scale of how Asian Gal with White Guy relationships are portrayed.
The title is inaccurate AND a needlessly offensive racist slur. The solution is to let the main title and the redirect Asian Gal with White Guy switch place.
The only reason to keep the horrible current title is that it has been around for a long time. That's a good reason for why a good reason is needed to change it. But we do have that. We have two very good reasons. The inaccuracy should be enough, the needless racist slur against a lot of Real Life people should be enough. And combined? An inaccurate, racist slur, servi9ng no purpose beyond making TV Tropes coming across as one of those "Sieg Heil" places that hate interracial relationships? Meh, be gone with it already.