#(like did they run out of ideas or just cheap out hahaaaaa)

[headfullofdolls]

So, now with the series 4 bios out, Lila Yamamoto is confirmed to be mixed Japanese and Chinese.

And this is good, of course, because the least they can do to explain her outfits is to have her be mixed heritage. Because there was a lot of reasonable concern over the cultural mishmashing going on with her fashions, as others have explained. And I’ve seen some people express relief because now we can put those concerns to rest!

...But as much as I, someone also Asian and mixed, would like to believe MGA planned for Lila to be mixed Japanese and Chinese from the start...

“Her dad is Japanese, and her mom is Chinese.”

That is the easiest sentence to insert into a paragraph as an afterthought. Just change “rich cultural roots” to “rich multicultural roots” and bada boom, she’s mixed now.

“Loves incorporating her family’s diverse culture with street style fashion” should really say “cultures” though, plural, so they forgot to fix that 🤔 But hey, that could easily be a simple typo, right?

Except the bio only mentioning Lila being a “streetstyle icon in Tokyo” also seems odd. She has a Japanese last name, lives in Tokyo, and reads rare manga, all referencing her Japanese heritage, but the bio makes no references to her Chinese heritage aside from her mom. If she “loves incorporating her family’s diverse culture(s)” with her fashion so much, why not a brief mention about what inspired her to incorporate Chinese elements? Like visiting her mom’s family in China (naming another specific city like Tokyo), or her mom introducing her to Chinese arts or fashions as she grew, in contrast to the Japanese culture surrounding them. Or being inspired by her parents’ respect for each others’ traditions and the way they incorporated them together while raising her. Lily Cheng’s bio talks about her growing up with “the best of both worlds,” so there’s already precedent for that similar experience. And there’s other students with longer bios that talk more about their families or backgrounds (see Krystal’s and Stella’s for instance), so it’s not like there wasn’t enough space or it’d be out of place for Lila’s bio to have a short reference to her Chinese cultural influences. Saying only, “Her dad is Japanese, and her mom is Chinese,” sounds bland and impersonal. And to me, seems like a hasty inclusion to hand-wave away the inconsistencies in Lila’s outfits. Because even with her mixed heritage, there are better, more respectful ways to incorporate Chinese and Japanese culture “with street style fashion” than the muddled hodgepodge they designed for her doll, if they only did more research.

You could say I’m being cynical and nitpicking, and you’d be right! But I also love Rainbow High and want better from it. Good representation is important (especially in properties directed at younger demographics), and it’s important to critique big corporations when they drop the ball, or at least question their actions. Because this issue isn’t new, isn’t even surprising, even just looking at Rainbow High’s history of diversity and representation. On the plus side, as fans have pushed for them to do better, they have started doing better! On the other hand, it’s frustrating to have to keep pushing for it, instead of the paid professional teams at MGA putting in the work and awareness to be better before anyone has to point it out to them.

I’m glad, relieved even, to have written confirmation of Lila as mixed race (I was worried they wouldn’t have any justification for her outfits at all). But planned or not, it doesn’t absolve the cultural carelessness issues going on with her clothes. As our first canonical multicultural representation in Rainbow High, I sorely wish she was better. Lila deserved better. We deserved better. But now, keeping that in mind, all we can do is speak out, and push for MGA to do better in the future.

#rainbow high #lila yamamoto #saw someone say now people could ''finally sleep at night instead of hating MGA'' and it activated my fight or flight reaction #and y'know what? #¿por que no los dos? (: #lila i want to love you but you're also causing me immense emotional turmoil :\ #like i almost never see darker-skin asian rep #i've literally seen more ads for ''skin-lightening'' products on trips to my mom's country #and then! woe! dark tan asian doll be upon ye! #eeeexcept her fashion is an insincere mix of east asian cultures as if they're all the same! yaaaaay #(and also her second skirt is just a straight up recolor of karma's) #(which is a smaller unrelated issue but still. annoying :\) #(like did they run out of ideas or just cheap out hahaaaaa) #anyway. i'm just out here writing long posts about dolls instead of going to bed. i am very normal #but hey! guess that also means i'm ''hating MGA'' instead of ''finally sleeping at night'' lmaoooo gottem #we've come full circle. the salt prevails #doll thoughts #tag specifically for rainbow high thoughts