I've thought long and hard about whether I wanted to write this or not. I loved Shang Chi. I've seen it twice already and if a friend asked me to go with them I'd go see it a third time without hesitation. It's an excellent film. I don't want to rag on it. I would rather talk about all the things that I loved about it like how they used different martial arts sales as an expression of each character's personality or how Michelle Yeoh stole every scene (as she should). I was about to forget all about my one big criticism when I saw this Gizmodo article. After reading that article I can't let it slide.
The article didn't make me angry. What it did was reinforce what disappointed me about Shang Chi. I went to the theater hoping that I would have a "Black Panther moment". I wanted to be as inspired and moved as African Americans were after that film premiered. I wanted to feel seen.
I wasn't.
It also wasn't entirely the film's fault.
A large part of it was mine.
I bought into the idea that this film would be a bastion of Asian American representation. I thought I'd see myself and my odd dual-culture experience reflected in these characters. Unfortunately in doing that I did the one thing that I've privately criticized others (and Hollywood in general) for doing. I forgot that Asia and the Asian diaspora is really big and really diverse. I saw the word Asian and glomped onto it without stopping to find out what kind of Asian they really meant.
Shang Chi was clearly focused on Chinese and Chinese-American culture -- which is where the focus needed to be. Was Shang Chi a good representation of Chinese and Chinese-American culture? I don't know. You'll have to ask someone who is Chinese or Chinese-American. I can tell you that when Jon Jon says that he speaks ABC it completely went over my head. I had no idea that he was switching to a diaspora dialect. That phrase isn't a part of my lexicon and that's okay because the reference wasn't intended for me.
I'm Japanese-American but I'm also from a very...secluded part of the Japanese-American community. I'm the child of a half-blood who was adopted. I've never met my Japanese relatives, I've never been to Japan, and I speak very little Japanese. 95% of my family is white as was the community I grew up in. I'm one of the few Japanese people who identify as a Weeb because literally everything I know about Japanese culture came from anime or manga. I was an idiot to think for a moment that anything resembling me or my culture would be in a Chinese superhero movie. I can't even find it in Japanese films. No one is going to be making films any time soon about my tiny little corner of the diaspora.
I do lay a little blame on Marvel and the director. As he said in the Gizmodo article, he was trying to make this authentic to "Asian American culture". It's a phrase that pops up every now and then and it triggers me every time. Why? Because there isn't a universal Asian-American culture or community. We have some similar shared experiences such as being called a slur for a nationality that we don't belong to. But the things that a Chinese-American household does is going to be different from those in a Desi household or of any other Asian diaspora household. It's impossible to represent every Asian culture in one film and it's inappropriate to assume that one culture is the official representative of 1/3 of the globe. The vast differences in the diaspora makes it even more complicated. Yet despite all that the term Asian American representation keeps appearing in a strange code switch type of context.
I don't know whether to call this a Hollywood assumption or an overgeneralized code so they can say they're being inclusive. Whatever it is it's something that is a part of the default mindset of a lot of Americans -- and sadly it's a mindset that Asian-Americans sometimes default to without meaning to. It's a pervasive American thing and it's going to take a lot of time and work to reset that default. Even being aware of it isn't going to reset it. I defaulted to it without realizing it. That's why I was so disappointed. I forgot myself. I was more disappointed with myself than I was with the film and I've had to come to terms with the fact that seeing a movie highlighted that fault in myself.
In spite of all of this I do really like the film. When a friend asked my thoughts on it after we saw it, specifically what did they get right about Asian culture, I didn't know how to answer. I left the theater feeling the same way I did when I saw Hero and House of Flying Daggers. I saw a great martial arts film and had fun. But can I call Shang Chi my hero? Sadly, no. There are more characters I can say that about in My Hero Academia than I can in any Marvel or Disney property. But I couldn't in the moment find the words to express that without putting down what was a great film, one of the few with an almost entirely Asian cast. I ended up telling my friend about some of the things I liked in general, which satisfied him. I kept my disappointment to myself (which is a very Japanese thing to do) only to voice it later on the internet (which is a very American thing to do).
I'm glad the director and the studio made an effort to make this a faithful representation of Chinese and Chinese-American culture. I'm glad that they hired Asian actors to play Asian characters and that they weren't afraid to have Chinese dialogue with English subtitles. Hopefully this film will continue to be successful. I can still hope that it will encourage more studios to make more films with diverse casts and themes. Maybe someday before I die I can have that "Black Panther moment".
