Diversity and Representation in Media

I don't really read much if any hard/near future science fiction, but my impression is that it's quite common to have a fair amount of racial/cultural diversity including from those regions.

One that I have read (the first book of) is this Keiko series by Mike Brooks. It has a pretty clear inspiration from Firefly, although I get the sense that the author was consciously wanting it to be more diverse (as a Take That! to the original work) and also trying to prevent whitewashing by the hypothetical film or tv adaptor.

Like the Mal equivalent has Mexican ancestry, and the description of him early on is to the effect that even though he hasn't had much exposure to direct sunlight, he has dark skin because of his ancestry. And there's a Chinese brother and sister who are obviously standing in for the Tans (but not otherwise much like them in characterization), and Brooks has them use a fair amount of Chinese language and has the planet they are from having a lot of Chinese cultural influence.

Edited by Hodor2 on Oct 17th 2018 at 1:48:36 PM

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Going back to the Avatar live action adaption, I just want to point out that there's a common misconception that the Fire Nation is based on Japan while it's actually mostly based on China/Thailand/other South East Asian aesthetics. There's actually very little Japanese influence in the cartoon other than the Kyoshi warriors

Sozin's entire attitude in "The Avatar and the Firelord" pretty much screams "Co-Prosperity Sphere", and the Fire Nation is a set of islands opposite a major continent, so I think that's part of where the Japan comparisons are coming from. Plus the Fire Nation industrializing before its neighbours.

And seeing itself as inherently "superior" to everyone else and using that as a justification to start and massive war of conquest/expansion (including into the Earth Kingdom, the China-inspired place).

Nah. That's everyone

Regarding the Fire Nation, why not all of them? All the cultural and historical influences are not mutual exclusive, after all.

I have no idea about Space Operas, but Asian people and aesthetics, Japanese in particular, are by now a well established and known cliche in Cyberpunk stories.

Here is personal pet peeve of mine, which maybe something I read too much into, so take it with a grain of salt.

I do not like the tendency in western Cyber Punk to depict Asian societies as some kind of dystopian trailblazer for the future. It feels like a twisted, inverted version of the Mighty Whitey for society. By that I mean that such an Asian Dystopia implies that the fruits of enlightenment and the scientific method like the various futuristic technologies are not in good hands, that the Asian people, who learned from the West, are abusing their newfound power.

I am well aware that some part of such imagery have a grain of truth in it (Korean Chaebol make the Zaibatsu of old look like a joke and China is sadly a case that may be real), but it still feels weird in my eyes to single out this particular cultural sphere as the go to aesthetic norm past the 80s.

I'd say a problem I have with the use of China Takes Over the World and Japan Takes Over the World in cyberpunk is that the idea as a whole isn't too bad (i.e American/European societies being more infused with Asian culture in the future), but there is a correlation problem where the heavy presence of Asian culture in Western society tends to happen in dystopic settings, which raises a few eyebrows.

The fact these stories almost never feature a Asian protagonist is a problem as well.

I like cyberpunk settings and stories conceptually, but you pretty much nailed one of the issues surrounding them.

I think one of the roots of the problem is that a lot of cyberpunk writers just don't seem to want to do more than imitate Blade Runner, causing the genre to turn into a series of easily summarized clichés: dark rainy future cities, cynical protagonists, big corporations, robots or cyborgs standing in as ethic minorities, and of course East Asia as more powerful and developed than a collapsing West.

The thing about the last point is that Blade Runner was made during a time when Japan had the fastest growing economy in the world, so it at least made some sense. But when cyberpunk writers still kept this vestige of the 80s long after Japan's economic bubble burst, all while still focusing only on white characters, it's no wonder it feels iffy.

And of course nowadays it's easy to do the same with China. Now, there would actually be legitimate reasons to be wary of a more powerful China considering how authoritarian it is, but less knowledgeable writers can still easily end up depicting Chinese people in general as shady "others" that will dominate the West instead of going after things like Beijing putting developing countries into debt, kidnapping dissidents, censorship, surveillance etc. And of course, they'll still mostly only have a white perspective.

And this is kind of a lamentable thing for a Chinese-descended person like me, since I know for a fact that virtually no media creator in the Chinese-speaking world are willing to try their hand at a major sci-fi or cyberpunk work for many reasons (lack of experience, lack of sci-fi background, possible cultural aversion, etc), so it's still up to Hollywood and western media to depict a Chinese protagonist in such a setting eventually. It's something I want to see.

Let me tell you, the first person to make a cyberpunk or spy thriller version of Crazy Rich Asians or something gets all my money.

Edited by Alycus on Oct 18th 2018 at 6:53:08 AM

That's what Ghost in the Shell should have been, but, well.

My board gaming group from uni actually talked about making this kind of campaign the other day! Though we're still trying to finish our pirate story.

The Chinese government under Xi has literally banned live-action depictions of sci-fi, time travel, and futuristic fantasy as "dangerous speculation". Which aligns with the Xi Administration's media campaign of glorifying China's past and appealing to "Chinese traditional virtues".

If it weren't for the fact that whoever did it would almost certainly be locked up for life, I almost wish someone in China would produce a cyberpunk movie with a lot of references to Winnie the Pooh in it.

Xi's government is general has shown an intense fear of its citizens "needlessly speculating the future" in ways that not limited to fictional media works. For all the talk it does of combating climate, actual Chinese environmental activists and intellectuals regularly complain how they're repeatedly shut down and censored since discussing the impacts of climate change is considered by the government to be "stoking paranoia among the populace". It's been to the point where the government literally censored itself when the state broadcaster CCTV canceled a documentary it had produced discussing pollution in the country.

Xi Jinping and his ilk would gladly make all of China into peasants and laborers tilling fields, working in sweatshops, and dragging the CCP and other elites around in rickshaws (or at least the modern equivalent of ride-sharing services).

Edited by M84 on Oct 19th 2018 at 12:33:37 AM

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I know Beijing's censorship is a major obstacle when it comes to developing Chinese media, but I'm speaking in a more general cultural sense. Hong Kong and Taiwan aren't subject to the mainland's restrictions, but they're not exactly pumping out sci-fi either. The cultural and technical background for it is simply not present in Chinese culture.

Relevant to this topic, this is why greater representation in Hollywood and Western media benefits not just Western audiences but viewers worldwide as well. Many countries are either too poor, too authoritarian, or too devastated by civil wars to have an active media industry, and even if they do (anime, Bollywood, Korean dramas, etc) they don't necessarily have the same cultural background to cover the same subjects Western media does (e.g. sci-fi, political satire, political dramas, alternate history, superheroes etc). People from around the world who want this sort of fiction either have to stick to written literature or go to Hollywood or western studios, and that's where there'll be interest in improving diversity even from international fans and nerds.

I am not filled with a lot of confidence.

For Hollywood movies like Star Wars or Guardians of the Galaxy that are allowed to be played there, are they eased on for being Western or for technically not being set in the future?

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Oct 18th 2018 at 10:47:30 AM

Me neither.

Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem is a really nice book, but any adaptation would probably have to dumb it down significantly to achieve mainstream success.

Western sci-fi and space works are allowed provided that they're not considered to be attacking the Chinese government. Those rules specifically ban locals from creating such works. Chinese audiences do consume lots of foreign speculative fiction (Marvel movies, and Black Mirror for example are very popular), they just don't expect the same from domestic producers.

It's a great book indeed. Liu is essentially the Chinese Arthur C. Clarke.

Edited by Alycus on Oct 18th 2018 at 11:10:15 AM

(x5) To be fair, there are Korean and Japanese live action sci fi films. Okja and Snowpiercer come to mind for instance. (I don't have Japanese titles in mind, but I am pretty sure I have seen Japanese sci-fi films).

Edited by gropcbf on Oct 19th 2018 at 10:16:38 AM

Going to call this one early. The trailer for La Llorona dropped and I expect at least four articles about whether having a white lead is problematic or not.

Edited by TheDeadMansLife on Oct 19th 2018 at 2:03:44 AM

Well I see no harm,ghosts are supposed to be white as a sheet

Well, since you asked...