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historyhermann · 2 years

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Behind the Screen: Asian and Latin American voices of fictional librarians

From left to right: Benedict Wong, Ashly Burch, Joey Haro, Elaine Del Valle, and Kenn Navarro

There are Asian and Latin American actors who have voiced many librarians in fiction over the years. Part of understanding fictional librarians is understanding those behind the screen and this article contributes to that. Part 1 of this series focused on Black women and men who voice fictional librarians.

This post is reprinted from Pop Culture Library Review and Wayback Machine.

In this part, I am profiling Asian and Latin American voice actors who voiced librarians.

About the voice actors

There are many talented voice actors who aren't White men or White woman, who comprise the majority of those who voice animated librarians, especially in Western animation. These talented voice actors include Benedict Wong as Wong in What If...? episode ("What If... Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?"), Ashly Burch who likely voices an unnamed librarian in a We Bare Bears episode ("The Library"), and Joseph "Joey" Haro as Mateo in Elena of Avalor. Specifically, Burch is of Thai descent, Wong is of Hong Kong descent, and Haro is of Cuban descent (and is gay).

There's also Elaine Del Valle as Val the Octopus in Dora the Explorer episode ("Backpack") who is Latine, and Kenn Navarro as Flippy in Happy Tree Friends episode ("Random Acts of Silence") who is a Filipino animator. Additionally, there is Emanuel Garijo as Kaeloo in French in Kaeloo episode ("Let's Play at Reading Books"). Doug Rand voices Kaeloo in the English dub, and Domenico Coscia in the Italian dub, to name another character. As it turns out, Navarro is one of the creators of Happy Tree Friends, while Valle is known as the actor and writer of an one-woman stage play she created: Brownsville Bred. Garijo has done French voice work for years, while Rand has done English voice work, while I couldn't find anything on Coscia.

Another person worth mentioning is Vivienne Medrano, a Latine animator of Salvadoran descent who created the animated shows Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss along with a video for her webcomic Zoophobia. She voices Sarah in Nico Colaleo's series, Too Loud, replacing Julia Vickerman, who was racked by controversy following allegations that she engaged in pedophilia, after beginning her series, Twelve Forever, which was sadly cancelled by Netflix after the end of its first season. The reason for its cancellation is not known.

It is also highly probable that Janice Kawaye, an actress of Japanese descent who has voiced characters since 1983, likely voices the librarian in Totally Spies episode ("Totally Switched"). Kawayke has voiced characters like Couchpo in Edens Zero, Shiori in Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon, Jenny / XJ-9 in My Life as a Teenage Robot, and Sara in Invader Zim, to name a few characters she has voiced.

An additional late entry to this list is Jenny Lorenzo, who presumably voices the skeleton librarian, Eztli, in an episode of Victor and Valentino. Lorenzo is known for her role as Lupe in the same show, but she has also voiced Choo Choo and Spooky in Jellystone. She is a Cuban-American actor known for her work on We Are Mitú and is a co-founder of BuzzFeed's Pero Like, becoming a viral sensation for her Abuela character, and what her IMDB page calls "relatable, Latino-based content seen through the comedic and nostalgic lens of a 1st generation Cuban-American."

Another additional entry is Danny Trejo. He voices Bobby Daniels, a bad-boy librarian in an episode of The Ghost and Molly McGee. Trejo, who is of Mexican descent, is best known for his role as Isador "Machete" Cortez in the Spy Kids franchise films. In terms of animation, he voiced Enrique, Victor Velasquez, and other characters in multiple King of the Hill episodes, along with assorted roles in El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera, The Cleveland Show, Young Justice (as Bane), Phineas and Ferb: Mission Marvel, and Tangled: The Series (as Wreck Marauder / Malice Marauder). He also voiced characters in Big City Greens, Elena of Avalor, 3Below: Tales of Arcadia (Tronos), Victor and Valentino, and The Casagrandes.

About the characters

From left to right: Wong, unnamed librarian, Val, Flippy, Kaeloo, Sarah, unnamed librarian, and Eztli

As I described Wong, he is the first librarian shown in the series What If...?, trying to guide Doctor Strange, warning him that tinkering with time will threaten the entire fabric of the universe, but he cares little. Even so, he later helps the good Strange train to fight the evil Strange. Unfortunately, he has less of a role in the episode as the other librarian, Cagliostro. Luckily, he has more of a role in the live-action films, as Jennifer Snoek-Brown has written about time and again.

The librarian in the We Bare Bears episode, on the other hand, is stern, has some characteristics of a spinster librarian, professional work attire, wanting to do her job and following the rules. I concluded that she is probably overworked and exhausted, something you don't always see when you see depictions of librarians in animation. She also is helpful to patrons, even letting them sleep in the library, which I found surprising. Mateo, on the other hand, is a wizard and royal advisor to the show's protagonist, Elena. He bucks stereotypes of Latine people, not shushing people at all, remaining as helpful as he can instead.

Val the Octopus is a minor character in Dora the Explorer, having a variety of odd jobs like running a cash register, driving a mail truck (or an ice cream truck), being a lifeguard, or a librarian. She is the latter in the episode ("Backpack") and is vary courteous to Dora.

Flippy in Happy Tree Friends episode ("Random Acts of Silence") is perhaps the most murderous librarian I have ever seen in animation to-date. This not unique to this episode, as he often causes other characters to die on purpose. Despite this, he seems to die very infrequently during the run of the series.

Kaeloo is the protagonist of Kaeloo. She is the guardian of the place known as Smileyland and has an ambiguous gender. And in the episode "Let's Play at Reading Books" she acts as a librarian, attempting to shush people and get them to listen, even though this is a failure.

Sarah in Colaleo's series, Too Loud, is a new librarian who joins Sara and Desiree (going by a different name for much of the series), brought in to help out with the library. While Sara nor Desiree are big fans of her at first, they come around to her, and she becomes more of their friend as the series moves forward, helping with librarian matters.

Librarian in Totally Spies episode ("Totally Switched") is one of the most interesting librarian characters in fiction that I have ever seen. Due to a personality switcher, which switched her personality with that of a wrestler, she becomes buff and even throws a patron across the room. She is later shown listing weights and doing jump rope. Hopefully she becomes a stronger librarian and better to her librarian.

Another entry is Eztli in the Victor and Valentino episode "An Evening with Mic and Hun". In the episode, Victor and Valentino, who are in the underworld, have to get past Eztli, a skeleton librarian, who shushes them. Victor won't stand for this, while his brother, Valentino comes up with a plan. This is disregarded as the librarian is smashed by a boulder and they get the extra skeleton arm she is holding. In the episode, she is also shown putting a book on a cart and stamping a book with a past due stamp, with the fee of one soul.

One final entry is Bobby Daniels in an episode of The Ghost and Molly McGee which is aptly named "Bad Boy Bobby Daniels". In the episode, Molly, her father, and Scratch go to the Mewline Public Library to find the Bad Boy of Brighton, Bobby Daniels, to help her elderly friend. They attempt to turn Daniels "back" into a bad boy but it doesn't work and they let him stay as the librarian. Later, Bobby and Patty get together after Molly put in a false book delivery notice. Their love ends up blossoming and it seems that he is taken away from his library job.

That's all for this post! Until the next one!

#asian actors #latine actors #latin america #ashly burch #joey haro #elaine del valle #kenn navarro #benedict wong #vivienne medrano #janice kawaye #jenny lorenzo #danny trejo #victor and valentino #the ghost and molly mcgee #totally spies #kaeloo #happy tree friends #we bare bears

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theresa-of-liechtenstein · 11 months

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affirmative action struck down. once again asians in the usa have been used by the oppressors to uphold systemic racism. congrats to those ungrateful asians who whine about not getting into some school with a Big Name because of a hypothetical latine or Black person. you just let yourself be played for fools and used as tools. hope you’re happy lmao

#like speaking as someone who goes to a school known for upward social mobility #where so many of my peers are first gen undocumented or international #there are a lot of good schools here. it’s your pride and classism #i have no shrimpathy for asians who whine about not getting into a ‘top school’#you can go to a ‘top school’ and be a fucking idjit just look at some of the politicians we got #and some of these asians are so willing to get used as pawns by actors seeking to uphold white supremacy likes #do you see how stupid this makes you look? lmao #know your history. asians in america have historically been used and upheld to oppress and put down indigenous black and latine people #east asians and south asians have even been used against southeast asians. white supremacists like you for how you can be weaponized #and this is a prime example of that. wake the fuck up #the solution is to stand together not push against. wake the fuck up

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hotvintagepoll · 11 days

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Propaganda

Anna May Wong (The Thief of Bagdad, Shanghai Express)—Wong was the first Chinese American movie star, arguably the first Asian woman to make it big in American films. Though the racism of the time often forced her into stereotypical roles, awarded Asian leading roles to white actors in yellowface, and prohibited on-screen romance between actors of different races, she delivered powerful and memorable performances. When Hollywood bigotry got to be too much, she made movies in Europe. Wong was intellectually curious, a fashion icon, and a strong advocate for authentic Asian representation in cinema. And, notably for the purposes of this tournament, absolutely gorgeous.

Josephine Baker (The Siren of the Tropics, ZouZou)— Josephine Baker was an American born actress, singer, and utter icon of the period, creating the 1920s banana skirt look. She was the first black woman to star in a major motion film. She fought in the French resistance in WWII, given a Legion of Honour, as well as refusing to perform in segregated theatres in the US. She was bisexual, a fighter, and overall an absolutely incredible woman as well as being extremely attractive.

This is round 6 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Anna May Wong propaganda:

"She so so gorgeous!! Due to Hollywood racism she was pretty limited in the roles she got to play but even despite that she’s so captivating and deserves to be known as a leading lady in her own right!! When she’s on screen in Shanghai Express I can’t look away, which is saying something because Marlene Dietrich is also in that film."

"SHE IS ON THE BACK OF QUARTERS also she was very smart and able to speak multiple languages and is a fashion icon on top of the acting/singing"

"Paved the way for Asian American actresses AND TOTAL HOTTIE!!! She broke boundaries and made it her mission to smash stereotypes of Asian women in western film (at the time, they were either protrayed them as delicate and demure or scheming and evil). In 1951, she made history with her television show The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong, the first-ever U.S. television show starring an Asian-American series lead (paraphrased from Wikipedia). Also, never married and rumor has it that she had an affair with Marlene Dietrich. We love a Controversial Queen!"

"She's got that Silent Era smoulder™ that I think transcends the very stereotypical roles in which she was typically cast. Also looks very hot smouldering opposite Marlene Dietrich in "Shanghai Express"; there's kiss energy there."

"Hot as hell and chronically overlooked in her time, she's truly phenomenal and absolutely stunning"

"A story of stardom unavoidably marred by Hollywood racism; Wong's early-career hype was significantly derailed by the higher-up's reluctance to have an Asian lead, and things only got worse when the Hayes code came down and she suddenly *couldn't* be shown kissing a white man--even if that white man was in yellowface. After being shoved into the Dragon Lady role one too many times, she took her career to other continents for many years. Still, she came back to America eventually, being more selective in her roles, speaking out against Asian stereotypes, and in the midst of all of this finding the time to be awarded both the title of "World's Best Dressed Woman" by Mayfair Mannequin Society of New York and an honorary doctorate by Peking University."

"Incredible beauty, incredible actress, incredible story."

"-flapper fashion ICON. look up her fits please <3 -rumors of lesbianism due to her Close Friendships with marlene dietrich & cecil cunningham, among others -leveraged her star power to criticize the racist depictions of Chinese and Asian characters in Hollywood, as well as raise money and popular support for China & Chinese refugees in the 1930s and 40s. -face card REFUSED to decline"

Josephine Baker:

Black, American-born, French dancer and singer. Phenomenal sensation, took music-halls by storm. Famous in the silent film era.

Let's talk La Revue Negre, Shuffle Along. The iconique banana outfit? But also getting a Croix de Guerre and full military honors at burial in Paris due to working with the Resistance.

She exuded sex, was a beautiful dancer, vivacious, and her silliness and humor added to her attractiveness. She looked just as good in drag too.

So I know she was more famous for other stuff than movies and her movies weren’t Hollywood but my first exposure to her was in her films so I’ve always thought of her as a film actress first and foremost. Also she was the first black woman to star in a major motion picture so I think that warrants an entry

Iconic! Just look up anything about her life. She was a fascinating woman.

#josephine baker #anna may wong #hotvintagepoll #fuck that old woman #ladies 6

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nunalastor · 1 month

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to the international peeps who might be like wtf are you guys talking about

- viv in the past has said alastor is mixed race creole. it hasn't been confirmed canon and might have changed because his voice actor is now iranian. however, in the pilot he mentions jambalaya and he has a bayou and other nods to louisiana that suggest a louisiana upbringing

- creole is one of those weird terms that can mean different things to different people. but generally it means you're some mix of french, spanish, african, and/or native american - so you can be white creole or black creole but most people associate it with darker people

- if he's creole, it means he's from louisiana (but doesn't necessarily mean new orleans)

- louisiana was a colony of spain and france before becoming part of the us

- france was an important ally of the united states against british rule and its military and economic help were crucial to american victory so the us could become independent

- the us bought louisiana from france as part of the louisiana purchase

- some people in the us were anti-french for white supremist reasons (omg you guys are fucking minorities??) - especially prior to the civil war

- during both world wars there was a lot of negative propaganda about the french in the us (german propaganda to destabilize, americans trying to drum up support for the war like france is weak and cowardly so you guyssss we gotta help them)

- post civil war there was a lot of racism that pushed towards segregation between races + anglicization (english white vs other races white) and people were like stop being french and speaking french this is AMERICA and made english the sole language in louisiana schools in 1921

- but now french people are just considered white with all the advantages that come with it

- there are still some stereotypes that exist about france in the us (mainly people from france vs being french) but it's nothing like the xenophobia of somewhere like the uk.

- now most people in the us view the french almost 99% positively - especially because of globalization - and the idea of hating the french is seen as so absurd it's funny (because the us cares more about hating asian/brown/black ppl and religious minorities)

#history #so we're making fun of anti-french sentiments that were over long before we were born

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peonycats · 6 months

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So I was recently informed that my latest post caused someone to accuse me of posting Chinese imperialism apologia, specifically for my tag comment that says: "If you accuse me of being hypocritical because I'm so anal about tying the nations to their states when it comes to the West but shy away when it comes to China, 1) you clearly don't know how Sinophobia works and 2) I ain't no coward."

Now, it may perplex you how people can accuse me of being a CCP apologist for a post where I called China a slut and specifically noted China's poor treatment of Uyghurs, but unfortunately, it's not the first time I've received accusations of being pro-CCP despite no supporting evidence.

I know I don't talk a lot about my personal life or internal goings-on on this blog, but I want to say this- I'm not completely unaffected by these frequent accusations. It hurts to see me being reduced to my Chineseness. My Chineseness being weaponized to discredit me as a wumao feels incredibly dehumanizing, and it hurts even more to see people believe those accusations.

To give you my background, I was raised in a fairly nationalist household; my grandfather was born as an illiterate peasant and consequently came to hold very pro-Mao beliefs. From an early age, I often came to verbal blows with my parents (and my extended family) over these beliefs and argued frequently with them over Taiwan, Tibet's annexation, and China's policies towards minorities. I remember representing Kazakhstan for Model United Nations and was assigned to write a paper on the Kazakh reaction towards China’s unlawful detention of Uyghurs. Just mentioning this simple fact to my parents sparked a heated “debate” where they accused me of being brainwashed by Western propaganda, and that I was incapable of understanding China’s actions because I was born in the US.

I haven’t brought up any of this because I’m a private person by nature, and I felt that my posts should speak for themselves about my political beliefs. And yet, I find myself in the position of where I need to bring this up in order to defend myself from accusations of supporting Chinese imperialism, for disagreeing with another person, or calling something sinophobic/promoting sinophobia.

Sinophobia overlaps with other forms of racism, especially anti-Asian racism when other Asians are mistaken to be Chinese. However, we have to recognize that the specificity of China itself in "mistaken to be Chinese" is also what distinguishes Sinophobia from the more general anti-Asian racism. It indicates a designation of China as a prominent actor on the world stage, and most importantly- an inherently antagonistic one. The symbolism of China being inherently antagonistic is what justifies the conflation of Chinese people with the Chinese state; if China is by nature antagonistic then Chinese people must subsequently be extensions of the Chinese government, and every action they do must be politicized.

What are the implications when the fandom gives the okay to depictions of America hanging out with countries that the actual USA has fraught history with, but as soon as China does the same, questions and concerns arise about “making light” of China’s irl actions? That China can’t be disassociated with his state the same way other imperialist powers are in the fandom?

Bear in mind, I am saying this as someone who personally interprets all the nations as inherently political entities. China is no exception to this- my most recent post was parodying an Onion article about Biden and Xi, where Alfred and Yao literally take on the roles of their heads of state. I am the last person who shies away from politicizing all the nations.

Rather, I am pointing out how China is being exceptionalized from wider fandom trends of depoliticizing the characters; I find this pattern troubling, as over-politicizing a Western nation (like America) does not have the same implications as over-politicizing China.

The latter reflects dangerous trends on how Chinese people, especially Chinese communities abroad, are perceived, how we’re expected to answer for and answer to the Chinese government and its actions, and how, at best, we’re dismissed as being simply brainwashed, and how at worst, we’re seen as enemies of the populace, threats to national integrity. When we are seen to be “acting out of line,” we are viewed as perpetual outsiders, agents of a foreign regime. The same judgment is not levied towards white Americans, even those who live in America, vote in America, and benefit from American imperialism.

I witnessed the dramatic rise in anti-Asian hate crimes and Sinophobic rhetoric during the COVID-19 pandemic: I was living in Atlanta during the 2020 spa shootings and I didn’t leave my dorm room for a week afterward. I worried over my mother, who every week, went to shop at local Chinese grocery stores in the area. I heard people spread conspiracy theories about how the virus was engineered by the Chinese government and spread by Chinese in the West as part of some grand conspiracy to ensure Chinese global dominance. All of this, led me to become conscious (in a way I hadn’t been before) of how conflating Chinese people with the Chinese government was frequently employed by bigots to mask their violent prejudice under the guise of “being anti-CCP.”

As a result, being Chinese diaspora is an emotionally fraught experience. Not only are we under constant scrutiny by others, but Chinese Mainlander diaspora specifically like myself face rejection when we choose to go against our families’ beliefs. But despite that, despite me being born and raised in the United States and living with this sort of bigotry all my life, it still cuts me deeply to see someone so quickly accuse me of supporting Chinese imperialist actions, despite me never posting in favor of the CCP in the past, simply because I pointed out how sinophobia manifests. It cuts even deeper to see people, people I know, agree with that assessment, and how I have to go out and publicly reveal details of my personal life to try and exonerate myself.

It really does hurt.

#not hetalia #// long post #i think im gonna take a break from posting for a while #I just need some time away

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bird-inacage · 9 months

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CALL ME BY FIRE (SEASON 3): Participation of Jeff Satur

Now this has been the most uncanny crossover I never saw coming. A show I've been watching for years, and my introduction to thai BL which initially put Jeff's name on my radar. Here's some context for any fans who have heard of his participation and want to know more.

Call Me by Fire is a mainland Chinese TV competition show. They invite 33 established male celebrities with the goal to form an ultimate "boy band" by the show's conclusion. What tends to be the incredible pulling factor is they'll invite a combination of singers, musicians, actors, dancers, idols, presenters - incredibly well known faces in the industry - many of them hugely respected OGs in their field. (The demographic is usually late 20s+) so there's an intentional sense of maturity, experience and wisdom amongst the ensemble. The emphasis isn't really on forming this 'fictional' boy band, it acts as a mechanism for us to get more up close and personal with these artists. Allowing viewers to appreciate their creative genius, as well as who they are as people.

This show came as a spin off of another series 'Sisters Who Make Waves' which has the exact same premise but for female celebrities. Because it became such an instant hit, they made a male version shortly after.

As a Chinese speaker, I've been watching both shows since they started in 2020. Both are in their third season (with Call Me by Fire broadcasting right now). This year they've decided to include more participants (of mainly Chinese/Asian descent) from America, Korea, Japan, Vietnam and Thailand - along with the majority from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Why I find this show both incredibly entertaining and compelling is because you get to watch spectacular collaborations between some of the most talented artists of this generation, and witness them embark on a journey of brotherhood through a shared love for performance (they live, work and perform together for the duration of the show). For me, theres also a massive nostalgia factor, because a large portion of these artists will be people I grew up watching.

There will be a lot of new attention on this show due to the Jeff's involvement (whose dubbed ‘Luo Jie Fu’ in Chinese). We’re only on Episode 2, and he's already making a huge impression, earning one of two MVPs spots after their first live performance - his group ranking 2nd out of 8, and his personal ranking being 7th overall (based on the live audience popularity vote).

The show is uploaded onto Youtube in full (post-broadcast on a Saturday). Just to warn you, the episodes are usually very, very long (sometimes between 2-3 hours in total), but I personally really enjoy that. There are English subtitles but the translations don’t always capture the nuances.

Jeff is doing a superb job so far and he's very brave for taking this on. He brings something distinctly unique in his showmanship and personal sense of style. It's a daunting prospect for someone who can't speak or understand Chinese, but the other brothers are doing their best to help him feel as welcome and settled in as possible.

If anyone has any questions about the show or clips featuring Jeff they'd like to know more about, I'm more than happy to translate.

#call me by fire #call me by fire s3 #jeff satur #chinese tv #how much charisma does jeff have?#YES #yes to everything basically #the boy was born to perform

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sleepymccoy · 4 months

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The Star Trek character Hikaru Sulu is named after the Sulu Sea. According to Sulu actor George Takei, "[Gene] Roddenberry's vision for Sulu was to represent all of Asia, being named for the Sulu Sea instead of using a specific country-specific name."

Now, I wonder if this feels like representation to people or not? So I'm making a poll!

If you're not sure what continent grouping you're in by how I've written them, pick whatever vibes. I know I missed some and grouping them like that feels off but also there's a limit to questions so ah well.

Feel free to chime off in the comments for what does count as sufficient rep for you, I'm curious

#star trek #sulu #representation

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bellamer · 8 months

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Might be a controversial take but if they ever do another Xiaolin Showdown reboot, can we get actual Asian voice actors instead of Tara Strong doing a stereotypical Asian accent and also not have Tom Kenny do a stereotypical “Brazilian” (I put it in quotes because it doesn’t even sound Brazilian because Rai sounds like a Cholo from America doing a bad surfer impression) accent ? And even though Kimiko’s and Chase’s voice actors had at least a little dignity not to do stereotypical accents, I’d still rather have them have new VA’s who are Asian.

And who’s idea was it to color a lot of the Asian characters yellow ? I’ve seen people argue that Omi’s skin color isn’t supposed to be “offensive” but it’s literally not just Omi, Grand Master Dashi is also colored yellow and even Chase has a yellow tint in his skin from before he became evil, he only became pale when he turned evil so it wasn’t just “Trying to make kids appeal to Omi by being colorful” like I have seen some people argue on here, like they were deadass coloring Chinese characters yellow, I’m surprised that they didn’t color Master Fung yellow.

The show was great and all but is obviously dated and from its time so they didn’t even take into account what they were doing but then again they had a second chance to correct their mistakes in Xiaolin Chronicles but Xiaolin Chronicles was just… a dumpster.

But if we ever get another reboot, which I doubt they’ll ever do because Chronicles was such a chronic failure, they need to have some POC in the room and just reevaluate. The original show is great and is still near and dear to my heart, I would just, idk, not like to cringe every five minutes during a rewatch and think about how poorly something aged because the show has so many flaws. On surface level people always praise the show for its diversity when it really didn’t handle that diversity as well as they remember, like most 2000s cartoons.

#xiaolin showdown #xiaolin chronicles

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avatar-news · 2 years

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Exclusive: Danny Pudi (Community’s Abed) has been cast as the mechanist in the live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender series!

Absolutely amazing, he’s going to knock it out of the park. 😂

The 43-year-old actor is best known for his iconic role as Abed in Community, and has also appeared in Marvel Studios’ Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Star Trek Beyond, and Mythic Quest.

Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 1 has already wrapped, so Danny has already finished filming his role.

Late last year, a casting call for the mechanist’s wheelchair-using son Teo went out searching for South Asian actors around 14 years old, with performers with mobility disabilities sought out.

#news #live action atla #season 1 #casting #cast and crew #danny pudi #the mechanist #teo #avatar news exclusive

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bao3bei4 · 2 years

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my very special odyssey through thirty years of gay asian porn

aka me talking about the asian american studies context for white people who are into gay asian porn and the bind that gay asian people who are also into it experience for 5500 words.

i thought i was done writing on/participating in wider fandom after my you know. but actually i have more to say. so here’s something chatty and casual, in which i’d like to bring some theoretical context to what we see today, and make some of my own interventions and commentary. because i don’t think there’s a great sense of how we are situated in this time of… shall we say… extreme interest in america in how and why imagined gay asians have sex with each other.

let’s start with richard fung’s seminal work, “looking for my penis” (1991). it's available online, on his website, so i definitely recommend checking it out if you’re curious. but it’s his analysis of how asian male sexuality is popularly understood, through examination of the few asian men working in gay video porn at the time.

brief background: he begins by recounting how race and sexuality have been constructed in a mutually informing way, contemporaneously with the development of colonialism and slavery. he argues that “asian” emerged as an undersexed category, juxtaposed against “black” as hypersexualized, with of course “white” in the center with its pretensions of racial neutrality. he offers the obvious caveats: this tends to apply to the “oriental” stereotype of asians; nationality affects the sexual stereotypes applied to an individual; and the fetishization of asian women results in different stereotypes than those applied to asian men.

but at any rate, the central assumption remains. and as he puts it, “if asian men have no sexuality, how can we have homosexuality?”

fung recalls his experiences of needing to prove his gayness as an asian man in the 80s, because it was assumed so unthinkable. and he describes his desire to find and build gay asian narratives and community. this is where we arrive at the titular quest for the asian penis. fung mentions one in particular that he’s seen: that of the vietnamese american porn star, sum yung mahn.

now, i should note here that it seems self-evident that thirty years later we exist in a different media landscape. people can name gay asians. like… real ones. celebrities. ones they personally know. and in fact, there’s even a notable amount of thought devoted to the possibility of gay asian life, even from outside the community. lol.

and certainly, this is a different milieu. fandom demographics are different in gender than that of the locations fung describes. and the form this sexual content takes is a different medium from that which he analyzed. [contemporaneous asian american erotica, what little of it existed—i’m thinking here of the 1995 anthology on a bed of rice—tended to be heterosexual.]

but i do think there are important insights we can derive from his work. so let’s jump back into it.

fung is clear that these works weren’t necessarily intended for asian consumption. the distribution company of these tapes reported that “90 percent of the asian tapes are bought by white men, and the remaining 10 percent are purchased by asians. but the number of asian buyers is growing.” so, like… what does that audience want to see?

he starts with the 1985 “below the belt.” it takes place in a karate dojo. two white men are talking, and one recounts his fantasies of being fucked by their white teacher. we see this acted out in dream sequence, as his narration continues. but there’s a reveal onscreen: once his dream self is being fucked, he finally turns and you can see his face. and the man bottoming is actually an asian actor in a matching costume, not the original white narrator. after the scene concludes, the original two men have sex— this time, with the narrator topping.

this work was fascinating to me. first, because it seems that the martial arts context has long been a rich source of erotic pleasure for white audiences. fung speculates it’s because “the hierarchical dojo setting is milked for its evocation of dominance and submission.” this means to me, that in a transnational context, xianxia and wuxia’s erotic appeal feels almost inextricable from everything i’m about to talk about. because i think a lot about how power functions in fandom sexual fantasies. there’s a lot of id-y stuff that, to me, begins to carry a different resonance in a racialized context.

i’m not saying this in a “white people shouldn’t write about different races!!!” way. rather, look at this essay about how juggernaut slash fandom ships are overwhelmingly white. and when they’re not, in stitch’s words, “one of three things happen: white prioritization… racist stereotypes… [or] whitewashing.” (it’s a good read.) these tendencies can and do creep in. that’s all.

in danmei fanfiction, it’s mainly the latter two phenomena. and they intertwine in a really interesting way. things that might be unremarkable in the unrelenting whiteness of mainstream slash fandom begin to be inflected differently, in ways that trouble me because of their omnipresence.

like, take “below the belt” again. it performs a transformation that for me, is echoed enormously by danmei fandom, taken in aggregate. in my view, the tendency to use an asian avatar for white fantasies of passivity is very much alive. this is something i think about a lot in context of the typical fandom refrain that many people explore their gender and sexuality through m/m content. again, like. it’s true, it’s not objectionable, it just is. but it is something that, in this context, is implicitly thoroughly white.

this is something fung actually writes about, incidentally. he critiques the idea “that in gay as opposed to straight porn ‘the spectator's positions in relation to the representations are open and in flux,’” with an amendment that this is only true “when all the participants are white.” while greater identification is possible for gay asian men in gay porn (than in straight for instance), it’s hard to escape the marked position that you occupy.

now, it’s at this point that you might (rightfully) point out that danmei fandom is about two asian men having sex with each other, and i’ve only alluded to interracial relationships thus far.

so let’s move on to the second videotape fung talks about, which is the 1985 “asian knights.” i’m focusing on the first sequence of it, in which two asian men see a white psychiatrist because they can’t manage to have sex with each other. as fung describes, in typical porn fashion, this problem is quickly overcome. what’s interesting is what comes next: the film begins to be edited from the white psychiatrist’s point of view. he eventually joins in, as the new center of the sexual encounter.

fung is clear that the psychiatrist is a stand-in for the viewer at home. and it’s that white observer’s perspective which dominates the video. as he writes, the initial premise was just a “ruse.”

brad and rick’s [the asian couple] temporary mutual absorption really occurs to establish the superior sexual draw of the white psychiatrist, a stand-in for the white male viewer; who is the real sexual subject of the tape. and the question of asian-asian desire, though presented as the main narrative force of the sequence, is deflected, or rather reframed from a white perspective.

i think there are clear parallels in the figure of the often white author, who writes for a presumed white audience. now. i want to be clear—and thank goodness for this—that ummmm. i personally haven’t seen anything quite as literal as asian knights in fandom. you may take this to mean that therefore there isn’t a problem. and to some people who are easily satisfied, this may be the case.

——————–

unfortunately for everyone, i’m a bit pilled by david eng’s 2001 racial castration. wonderful book. changed my brain chemistry when i read it years ago and now i talk about sigmund freud all the time. eng’s simple thesis builds upon what richard fung had written of a decade previous, that “asian and anus are conflated.” he is deeply concerned with how asian american male subjectivity is circumscribed on the psychic and material levels, and how investment in those limits maintains the dominant social order.

like, here’s a silly joke for you. i’ve edited the infamous powerup comics panel on gay marriage to be about critical race theory.

funny stuff, no? that’s racial castration for you.

anyway, the chapter in this book that stuck with me most profoundly is “heterosexuality in the face of whiteness: divided belief in m. butterfly.” (quick note here: if you get into asian american studies, you’re going to hear a lot about that play. for your reference, it’s the 1988 play by david henry hwang, a rewrite of puccini’s opera madama butterfly. it’s actually pretty good. the 2017 update is worse, though.)

anyway, the play takes the real life case of bernard boursicot and shi pei pu, and mashes it up with madama butterfly to make a point about this one white guy’s investment in fantasies about beautiful oriental women. he imagines the relationship between east and west in such strongly heterosexual terms that his colonial fantasy must be maintained, whatever the cost to him. in the end, he dies trying to become the geisha he wanted so badly.

now, eng’s approach to the play is rooted in his background in psychoanalysis. and i try not to psychoanalyze people in fandom because i think that’s a bit rude. but—because there’s always a but—i think that transformation that eng details is useful here. because let’s be real, the ubiquity of the asian bottom in porn isn’t borne out in real life. it’s not as if irl white queer people as a demographic are super invested in exclusively topping queer asian people as a demographic. well, okay, your experience may vary. lol.

my point here is just 1) that no sexual position is a racist/anti-racist one and 2) obviously sexual fantasy (as detailed in fung’s videotapes) and sexual reality (as detailed by umm. going outside?) don’t necessarily have a straightforward relationship.

that is, the pornographic fantasy i see is being the asian hole, not having the asian hole (this, freudpilled readers will note, is a tacky play on lacan’s formulation of the phallus). (of course, since the latter is a bit more true in white men’s heterosexual fantasies about asia, to be unfairly rude, it reads as fetishization of being the abject sexual subject that one’s forefathers invented. )

“below the belt” and the racial transformation it performs on its asian bottom, combined with the use of asian-asian couplings to enhance the white viewer’s primacy as sexual subject in “asian knights” can easily be synthesized into my facetiously named “anus envy” theory. that is, there is a clear pornographic tendency for white fantasies of inhabitation of an imagined abject asian bottom. in this tendency, the orient is just a receptacle for white meaning.

this is something i’ve been on about for literal years. to save myself some time, i’ll refer to my early attempt at theorizing this, although i’m now trying to make a different point here about a different demographic:

it’s really interesting to me how so much of this dynamic of projection is enabled by the fact that they’re asian men. they’re infantilized, feminized vessels; they’re seductive, but childlike, oblivious to their own charms, so nonthreatening; they have uncontrollable desires for sex, they’re scared of sex. and above all else, white women submit themselves to them, insert themselves into them. basically kpop fans tend to rework old school yellow peril and emasculation fantasies to reenact their own desires…

the thing is, in fandom, there’s a lot of projection at play. this isn’t bad and it’s not true for everyone. but like. think of the language and practices that get thrown around—comfort characters, and kinning, and literal self-inserts! but also things as simple as writing your own kinks and drawing from your own experience. again, not bad. it just, again, oftentimes can take on a troubling valence in this transnational context.

in case you can’t tell, right now, i’m running into the same problem as my last essay, where i’m trying to avoid specific examples because i don’t want to get mired in discourse or direct unfair scrutiny to any one individual. it’s tricky to do this publicly. this is why i stopped writing fandom essays!! either you’re beginning to recognize the patterns i’m describing or not.

here, let me try to make it more clear—let’s quote m butterfly instead. gallimard, the french diplomat, concludes the play with his fantasies:

there is a vision of the orient that I have. of slender women in chong sams and kimonos who die for the love of unworthy foreign devils. who are born and raised to be the perfect women. who take whatever punishment we give them, and bounce back, strengthened by love, unconditionally. it is a vision that has become my life.

he then does his level best to project himself into that vision of the orient.

in an unrelated note, did you know people draw shang qinghua blond?

——————–

brief sidebar: i always have a thousand billion caveats when i write things like this. normally i try to edit my hedges and apologies out because i think they look insecure lol. but i’ve already established this piece is kind of silly and chatty. so i’ll clarify here.

for the record, i don’t want to have pessimism about white people writing asians, particularly asians having sex, particularly gay asians having sex. like i legitimately don’t think these dynamics are inevitable. but i think there’s so much defensiveness around these topics that it’s hard to get a conversation about it started in the first place.

that’s why i’m taking this format. i want to make it apparent that this conversation has already been happening for decades, and to make some small parts of it more accessible to people who may be interested in what’s already been said. we, in fact, do have the language and the canon to address this in a gay asian pornographic context. which is incredibly and wonderfully specific!

i think about these problems particularly because i'm a bitter person, and i'm often preoccupied how for white people, harming people of color gets to be a phase. like, remember those quirky years of quarantine when you were briefly super obsessed with fantasies of asian sexual passivity?— people aren’t going to think about it in that light, if they think about it at all.

but being harmed by this is not a phase. and there are like... no consequences. because people of color don't get to humiliate white people as a harmless phase. so the asymmetry of investment in these representations is something i think about.

by the way, this is also why i’m not touching on “having anti asian slurs in your danmei fic is bad!” or “deliberately evoking historical war crimes committed against asians is bad!” or any of the other… more obviously harmful things i’ve seen in fandom. i’m just trying to make visible how “normal” fandom attitudes appear even more white against a background of color, and how they have a connection to these obvious pornographic predecessors. this is the stuff that benefits from theory the most, in my opinion.

——————–

anyway. that’s enough of imagining white people to be mad at.

let’s talk about something a little more productive. if we have these implicitly raced [white] frameworks for fandom, it raises several interconnected questions. what does it mean when a person of color inhabits that white viewpoint? how could a person of color find their own? is it even possible? how do these fanon referenda on desirability and asians as vessels for white meaning seep outside these texts?

because the pervasiveness of the white gaze is something asian american writers have been attentive to. as well as—let’s be real—how sexless and heavy-handed attempts to avoid it can be. take, like, greg pak’s 1999 short film spoof asian pride porn.

so here we arrive at our latest text, nguyen tan hoang’s 2014 a view from the bottom. nguyen takes a different view of things. he’s writing a defense of male effeminacy, of bottomhood as challenge to sexual, gender, and racial norms.

this isn’t necessarily visible because i’ve been working so heavily with queer sources here, but mainstream asian american activists have often been concerned with a “remasculinization” project. think frank chin’s insistence in the 1975 anthology aiiieeeee! (as well as the rest of his career) that asian men can be men. this, of course, combined with his belligerent attitude, led to often bitter debates with asian american feminists over the decades to come regarding what is the asian american place in redblooded american heteromasculinity. this is the context from which queer asian americans began their own theoretical movement in the 90s.

the other intellectual line that nguyen is indebted to is the defense of bottomhood and anality that (white) luminaries in queer theory in the last quarter of the 20th century took part in. nguyen lists off guy hocquenghem, leo bersani, da miller, and lee edelman here. i won’t get into the specifics of their work here, but suffice it to say— there’s a lot of cultural baggage attached to getting fucked in the ass.

nguyen has the sharp insight that there’s an important connection between the attempted remasculinization of asian men and the attempted remasculinization of bottoming in their respective mainstream discourses. both want to fit into an assimilatory schema. nguyen instead argues that there’s got to be a way to talk about how asian men [especially queer asian men] and bottoming function and exist within these matrices of power, without scapegoating femininity.

anyway, back to the original question: so the white gaze is pervasive, especially in porn. what next? darrell hamamoto called for a “joy fuck club,” in a 2000 article. that is, a counterpornography, created by asian americans for asian americans. but nguyen’s objection to this is that “while this point appears self-evident at first glance, a closer reading uncovers the problematic assumption that there exists an authentic, unalienated sexuality prior to racist regulation and discrimination.” or: who’s to say how asian americans necessarily fuck?

but the appeal of hamamoto’s assumption is something i personally struggle with. i think there once was a utopian sentiment among a lot of diaspora asians in fandom (myself included, at various points over the past few years). the idea that look: we can write about asians! like us! we can write about asians who are queer! like us! and the stories we’re inspired by, are like… good to read. and the joy that this can bring is something that, pure and simple, is hard to ignore, even to the most irony-poisoned “i’m over representation as a goal” asian (myself included, at various points over the past few years. lol).

the sentiment is seductive, right? we can write stories about us, for people like us, grounded in the culture we grew up hearing about and/or living in. this is an idea that gets bandied around in fandom at large too—but imagine feeling at times as alienated by white queer fandom as you do from cishet programming.

but there’s two criticisms of this that have long complicated my desire for representation of that “authentic” sexuality. the first one is something that’s become obvious as danmei and c-entertainment fandom has grown. a lot of people are attracted to it because of a toxic idea of who “us” constitutes.

that is, let’s be real—part of the fantasy of it all for some is that these casts consist of pale, skinny, nonblack east asians. like i don’t think it’s an accident that the rush of love for asian media exports rose alongside greater pushes for diversity in american media. this is something that’s much more explicit in anime fandom; but let’s not pretend that the relentless colorism in danmei fandom is an accident, or wholly attributable to the source material. for both a segment of white as well as asian people in fandom—it’s part of the point.

the second criticism is an extension of nguyen’s—namely, that we can’t really pretend that there’s some untouched version of our self and sexuality that exists outside of observers, outside of our experiences with racism, outside of the history and the structures that built our present.

so, let’s take one of his examples: brandon lee. umm not the brandon lee you’re thinking of. the gay porn star with the same name. if we read his oeuvre as a successor to sum yung mahn’s (the porn actor whom fung covered), we can learn some interesting things.

first: back to his name. brandon lee’s name is a reference to that brandon lee, bruce lee’s son. nguyen points out, again, the significance of the martial arts genre. as fung did, nguyen unpacks how martial arts is the one venue in which asian men have ever been portrayed as desirable to american audiences.

now, for the record, i am aware that martial arts-related genres are also popular in asia. mxtx’s novels were runaway successes even before her international popularity became notable. what i’m trying to point out here is the predictability of these fantasies. the eventual international success ought to be tinged with a little “oh of course these would be the type to take off.”

the gay asian porn white people enjoy and make has looked the same for forty years. this is something that all those xianxia explainers in 2020 missed: those arcane oriental rituals of dominance and submission and hierarchy and punishment and violence aren’t a barrier to entry for white audiences—they’re oftentimes the big erotic point.

anyway, nguyen is just pointing out that brandon lee’s porn name is a remasculinization strategy attempting to evoke asian virility rather than any of the other traditional stereotypes.

second, onto his videos themselves. unlike his pornographic predecessors, brandon lee had managed to eke out (or realistically, someone corporate determined it marketable) a distinct asian american masculinity. and it’s like someone tried to sexualize the oft-heard refrain, “too asian for americans, too american for asians.” in his “asian” genre videos, he and he alone gets to be american. nguyen explains this by way of listing some of his professions in these videos:

he is an american real estate agent to the japanese house buyer; he is the new owner of the boy brothel, where other asians are sex workers; he is a porn star, a role model for another asian character’s porn ambition.

a big part of brandon lee’s marketing was this “he’s not like the other asians” appeal. oh, he’s a top, oh his dick is bigger than you’d expect, oh he’s got this babyface but look how he fucks. (note that the actor as a biracial [white] filipino man also enjoyed a level of ethnic ambiguity that many of his costars lacked.) the way we know it worked is he eventually started getting cast as just another white twink top. so he could be the masc asian among classic fobby bottoms, or he became the one guy of color in a video, his difference unremarked upon, even as his body was marked by contrast.

third: you may be going “i thought this book was about BOTTOMS. brandon lee is a top.” yeah hold on. so brandon lee took a break from porn for a couple years. and when he came back in 2004, he was even more masc looking. but by 2005 he was also a bottom. nguyen recounts the whole plot (“plot”) of that comeback, the 2005 wicked.

the whole concept of it was that brandon lee was playing himself… that is, his fictionalized porn persona, diva-fied. the fictional brandon lee has an intense ego, and a refusal to bottom that meant he wasn’t getting the jobs he wanted. he’s visited by the ghosts of porn past and present, who help brandon lee realize that teamwork is magic, or something. with their encouragement, brandon lee finally bottoms… and loves it.

now, as nguyen acknowledges, challenging tops to bottom is like. a common trope in gay porn. this in itself is not notable. what is fascinating is how dramatically his porn persona changes from pre-wicked to post-. wicked retroactively casts his top persona as hysteric and bitchy, with a decidedly affected masculinity—it feminizes it. and the roles brandon lee took afterward aren’t the “all-assimilated, all-american twink” anymore.

he began to inhabit the more “stereotypical” roles that were once reserved for his asian bottom counterparts: think accented english and racialized professions. all of a sudden, he wasn’t the protagonist anymore, but an extremely campy villain.

nguyen is invested in this being not all there is to it—like, forget what white people get out of it for a minute. what would an asian person watching it get? because, as nguyen points out, lee is clearly having fun. and the fakeness of lee’s accent aside for a moment, let’s be real here: even ”inconvenient” or “embarrassing” asians (with regard to the futile assimilatory fantasy) do have sex and feel good doing it.

and there is something to be said for pleasure and sexual agency as goals in themself. stepping aside from the narrative aspect of porn as well, we should be clear that performing bottomhood in porn even logistically doesn’t really resemble bottoming in real life. nguyen recounts lee’s interview about his first time bottoming on camera:

lee replies that unlike in real life, you can always say “cut!” when bottoming in front of the camera. he goes on to say, in real life, “i just take it,” whereas on a video shoot, “i had time to get used to my partner.”

this discrepancy means we can’t just limit our analysis to just “brandon lee got more stereotypical roles, which means he had less agency.” the man does exist outside of the narrative roles he played.

but i do want to be clear here that affecting an asian accent and roleplaying a laundromat owner to have sex, is not like. a liberatory project. let’s not get carried away here. self-orientalization is not going to save us lol.

——————–

to unify these two points, nguyen has a quick reference to yiman wang’s 2005 work on “yellow yellowface” that i think is worth following up on. wang is writing about anna may wong’s legacy. she argues that it’s important to reevaluate it, because a lot of scholarship—and popular opinion of anna may wong—had to do with how she did or didn’t fit into stereotypes like “the dragon lady.” as wang phrases it, “simply fitting them into an a priori asian american cognitive map.”

which for the record, has kind of been my project here with my study of porn. which i won’t apologize for. if we don’t even have the map, it’s easy to get turned around into “everything i like is good, and everything i dislike is bad.”

anyway, wang argues that contemporaraneous reception of wong’s acting, while positive, tended to assume that it was “mimetic instead of performative.” and hollywood at least saw her as unproblematically and authentically chinese—despite being third generation chinese american. i’m cutting out all the orientalist prose but you can imagine what they said about her. and while contemporaneous chinese press also saw her as nonproblematically chinese, they also um. often completely fucking hated her for the roles she took. in response to a photo of her in a feathered headdress:

“the so-called chinese film star wong liu tsong who is traveling in america—how can she represent china in this way?”

this, wang points out, is a two step process on both china and euro-america’s part: 1) “wong was consistently identified and conflated with her roles” and 2) “these roles were seen as directly reflecting the orient.”

it’s fascinating to look at how white actresses could affect her iconic hairstyle and on-screen mannerisms and be praised as performers—the assumption was always, this must be natural for wong, but talent for anyone else. but again, not to shit on third generation chinese americans (am sort of one lol).... but anna may wong was one in a time when information about china in america was mediated by like. fucking. pearl buck. she was making shit up too!!!

and not necessarily in a wholly regressive way—wang offers a really sharp reading of the 1930 piccadilly, the flame of love to make the point that wong deliberately and subversively was able to smuggle her own commentary about her onscreen performance compared to the character she played. so her reenactments take on an ironizing tone to any observer willing to credit her with the ability to do so.

but wang notes that there’s a danger here: what happens if no one realizes? have you just been doing all that for nothing? now, as you may be expecting at this point, wang uses m. butterfly to make a point. look, i’m trying to capture asian american studies to you right now!! it’s not complete unless you get the grasp that this play/movie has on people. anyway, wang’s whole point is that m. butterfly is about how you die if you can’t recognize the counterstrategies deployed by people affected by orientalism lmao.

and wang has a quote from ien ang that i want to close my discussion of her piece with:

in short, if i am inescapably chinese by descent, i am only sometimes chinese by consent. when and how is a matter of politics.

anyway to be clear, wang’s piece isn’t about “therefore you should do this.” her argument is “well i think wong did this.” so i don’t think—as i think she would agree lol—that this yellow yellowface is the answer to our questions, which if you’ll recall thousands of words back basically boil down to “so what asian people supposed to do with all this?”

but analyses like these, and like nguyen’s do kind of coalesce into one thesis. and it’s that there’s a point, they seem to argue, at which you simply just have to take the gay asian subject as he is.

as celine shimizu writes in her iconic 2005 “the bind of representation: performing and consuming hypersexuality in miss saigon,” “it would be futile to speak for the ‘asian american woman spectator’ as there is no single desire, projection, identification, or coping mechanism that can be declared for any ‘us.’” we instead have to talk about the set of relations that form against the backdrop of the pervasive perceptions affecting asian american women. her analysis of the production and the reception of miss saigon is so so so so good. you really should read this one.

she ultimately makes the point that in her framework, any representation “is understood as misrecognition, especially for marginal subjects.” if we understand each and every production as a “site of power relations… as a map of historically situated relations made evident” we’re better able to understand the contested desires and identifications we feel in response to the panoply of imperfect images we receive—and how still others can mis/interpret them.

so yeah. i know that’s not helpful by the way. maybe all this is helpful if you want to know how to write better criticism. but that’s… about it. like, what is anyone supposed to do now?

it’s frustrating because nguyen’s book (while excellent!) sometimes feels too broadly reclamatory. this is something i often struggle with.

we don’t want to relegate the parts of us that are easy to stereotype or denigrate to the uh. proverbial closet. like, we don’t want to live our lives worried about our every desire being good representation.

but we also feel an obligation to ourselves and our communities. at some point we can’t throw up our hands and say “well it’s fine as long as i personally feel good or profit from doing it!” [or to take the bit even farther, “well what if i LIKE being affected by racism? then what?”]

and a lot of times in my essays i end up arriving at the inevitable problem of “well how do we solve racism. how do we feel alright in a racist system.” and it’s like. whoa there. um.

the solution obviously isn’t just capitulating to the white scripts for asian porn i’ve rehashed again and again. it’s not taking refuge in assimilation. it’s certainly not yellow yellowface lol. we’re left with this wiggly handed, we do the things we like and we try not to harm others in the process. i don’t know.

and in this particular instance, we… try to reaffirm the attempts at independent sexual subjectivity of people of color while also acknowledging the white appetites that constrain our imaginations. maybe.

——————–

final note:

i use “asian american” a lot here because i am one and also because it rolls off the tongue a lot faster than “diaspora asian living in a euro-american country,” which is more technically what i mean. i hope everyone can either forgive me or let me know what a catchier phrase is lol. sorry to the canadian (richard fung) and australian (ien ang) i grouped as american in the meantime.

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hotvintagepoll · 3 days

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Propaganda

Hedy Lamarr (Samson and Delilah, Ziegfeld Girl)—Look. I'm sure someone has already submitted Hedy Lamarr because she was spectacularly beautiful, and a very strong lady too: she fled both an abusive marriage AND nazi persecution at a very young age and rebuilt a life for herself pursuing her love for acting all on her own!! Her career as an actress was stellar; while she began acting outside of Hollywood (her very first movie, Ecstasy, won a prize at the Venice Film Festival), she conquered American hearts very quickly with her first movie in the US, Algiers, and then just kept getting better and better. If all this isn't enough, she was also an inventor: her invention of the frequency-hopping spread spectrum radio transmission technique forms the base of bluetooth and has a lot of applications in all kinds of communication technologies. I think that deserves a prize, don't you?

We are in the quarterfinals of the Hot & Vintage Movie Women Tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Propaganda is not my own and is on a submission basis. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Hedy Lamarr:

The only person you can find both on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and in the Inventor's Hall of Fame--her radio-frequency-hopping technology forms the basis for cordless phones, wi-fi, and a dozen other aspects of modern life. She was also passionate in her efforts to aid the Allies in WWII (unsurprising for a Jewish-Austrian Emigree to America), and her name served as the backbone for one of the best running jokes in what is possibly Mel Brooks' best movie. Look, Louis B. Mayer apparently believed he could plausibly promote her as "The world's most beautiful woman". Is an entire website full of people going to be less audacious than one Louis B. Mayer? I didn't think so!

Described as "Hedy has the most incredible personal sophistication. She knows the peculiarly European art of being womanly; she knows what men want in a beautiful woman, what attracts them, and she forces herself to be these things. She has magnetism with warmth, something that neither Dietrich nor Garbo has managed to achieve" by Howard Sharpe, she managed to escape her controlling husband (and Nazi Germany) by a) Disguising as her maid and fleeing to Paris or b) Convincing the husband to let her wear all of her jewelry to a dinner, only to disappear afterwards. Also she was particularly clever and helped develop Frequency-Hopping Spread Spectrum (I can't really explain it but anyway...)

Her depiction of Delilah and Samson and Delilah just lives rent free in my head. The woman was gorgeous.

One of the most beautiful women ever in film, spoken by many critics and fans. Beautiful shapely figure, deeper seductive voice, and often played femme fatale roles. She was also brilliant and an inventor. Mainly self-taught, she invested her spare time, including on set between takes, in designing and drafting inventions, which included an improved traffic stoplight and a tablet that would dissolve in water to create a flavored carbonated drink, and much more.

Gorgeous and brilliant pioneer of modern technology and the middle part.

Anna May Wong propaganda:

"SHE IS ON THE BACK OF QUARTERS also she was very smart and able to speak multiple languages and is a fashion icon on top of the acting/singing"

"Hot as hell and chronically overlooked in her time, she's truly phenomenal and absolutely stunning"

"Incredible beauty, incredible actress, incredible story."

#anna may wong #hedy lamarr #hotvintagepoll #fuck that old woman #ladies quarterfinals

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namor-shuri · 1 year

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Our poll results are in! 🗳✨

*cracks knuckles* Let’s dive in and talk about it (: [Grab a snack and something to drink because this is about to be long. Yes, a bitch made graphs lmao Sue me] Alrighty, let’s do this:

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I can't remember where bpwf was first released and the order of its premiere in each country but it's interesting to see that the majority of fandom [who participated at least] are from North America. Also Asia being the third highest group was fascinating because at least when it comes to Twitter, I’ve noticed a lot of the Namor/Shuri fan art has come from Thai and Korean artists. They are seriously carrying this fandom and I'm here for all of it.

ALSO: Random, but where are my Antarctica Nashuri fans?? 😭 I’m also curious to know how Africa has received the Black Panther franchise all together over the years. Do they resonate with it? Do they find it offensive/ overly dramatized? I’m curious. If you are a fan who lives in Africa, can you comment on your experience with this? I'd be happy to know.

To be honest, I’ve always assumed that the Marvel fandom [along with superhero spaces as a whole like DC and what not] were male dominated but this poll gave me some hope. I am curious what parts of fandom men frequent more vs women. For example, do Comic Cons ring in more women, more men, half and half? With fan art, do majority of artists identify as women, men, other? It’s interesting to think about. I also love seeing women/fem identifying individuals show up in these spaces because countless times we are made to feel like an inposter and harassed for our interests in comics, games, movies, shows, music, the list goes on. Questioned down with trivia, fact checking and all sorts of BS ultimately trying to prove that “you aren't a real fan". Don't ever let anyone make you feel like you have to prove your knowledge of anything to be interested in something you like. ESPECIALLY if it is coming from a man child guy.

ALSO: Hi all trans, non-conforming and alternative gender expressing baddies! Know you are welcome here and pls enjoy your stay at my humble blog abode. 👋🏾💜

It’s amazing to see how diverse this fandom is! I didn’t expect that we would have such high numbers of black/brown fans/shippers. As a black mcu fan myself, it’s exciting to see us show up in fandom. Fandom has unfortunately been heavily white/Eurocentric for a very long time, which has slowly changed but we still have a long ways to go in it’s inclusivity. With the increase of bipoc characters and the actors who play them, I look forward to this continual progression.

ALSO: It’s been heartwarming to witness Mexican, Indigenous, Lantix fans feel seen with bpwf and Tenoch, Mabel and Alex's performances! I remember how enamored the black community was with Chadwick and the first BP. We were hyped to have this treasure of a movie, which I assume is similar to how the Asian community felt with Shang-Chi and so on. It's been said countless times before but representation truly makes the world of a difference and the power of the bipoc dollar should never be taken lightly. We cause real change when we support something.

There will always be a spectrum of ages in any fandom but I figured the majority of people were probably within this age range. It may be due to the timeline of when the mcu was born and how it has progressed alongside millennials? This also explains why I keep seeing fans make posts about their age gaps with Tenoch and wanting to be his questionably young gf 😩 [get in line]

ALSO: Shoutout to the 55+ folks in the fandom! I have a sneaking suspicion yall are some of the coolest people 🤘🏾

Okay *inhales exhales* I know I'm going to get flak for this but let's hop into it lol I saw the scale sway back and forth for a minute but it mostly stayed between White Wolf [Bucky Barnes] and Iron Heart [Riri Williams]. I myself personally love both answers! My annoyance is not with shuriri, but with its fandom. They have been some of the biggest instigators/bullies since bpwf has dropped. I've seen all kinds of mental gymnastics from saying the nashuri fandom would rather see shuri with a killer than support gay love [like what??] to Letitia is clearly lesbian because of her attire [pls be fr] and everything in between. It’s so unwarranted and I never see Nashuri fans doing the same thing back. Enjoy what you like, and leave the rest behind. It's such an easy 1+1=2 concept and yet, it goes over people's head still. It’s honestly disappointing when a fandom turns you off to a ship/character, especially when the ship is lowkey dope. Something that reminds me of this was the stucky fandom when the Captain America movies came out. Y’all.......when I tell you this fandom had me STRESSED 🥴. I saw racism/ deliberate exclusion of Sam, hate towards Sharon Carter just because she was a woman, you name it. They annoyed me so bad that I began to dislike Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers as characters [trust me, it made no sense lol] I couldn’t stand seeing either one of their names pop up. It took some of the Avenger movies [and honestly the sambucky fandom + Sebastian Stan/ Anthony Mackie's friendship] coming out years later for me to even be remotely cool with the idea of Bucky Barnes again. Anyways *drinks water* I'm getting stressed all over again just thinking about it lmao Long story short, don’t be an asshole. Enjoy YOUR flavor of ice cream and try not to shit on others and their differing flavor of choice in the process. Trust me, it's easier than you think.

ALSO: If you are a shuriri fan that hasn't been hateful/ problematic, this isn't about you boo [yall are good in my books! 😘]

Crying that the #1 answer was “Bitch me!” because honestly mood. Jokes aside, I can’t really imagine Namor with another partner. It's probably largely due to the fact that Shuri was the main character we see him interact + bring his guard down with [outside of Namora?] This is also coming from someone who has not read the Namor comics and am very new to him as a character. If you have any knowledge you want to share in the comments, pls do ✨

ALSO: I threw in the Sue Storm comment to be annoying *teehee* but it was interesting to see how many people actually agreed with this statement. Maybe I'm just a horse with blinders about this fandom but I’m not really pressed? I’ve seen people argue that Ryan's current iteration of the Namor character wouldn't be in this type of relationship [along with people saying Tenoch wouldn’t go for it either] but I guess we'll just have to wait and see what unfolds *tries not to stress while we wait for future iterations of Namor and the fate of his character's arc/ Talokan*

The question on everyone’s mind! Although the delusional side of me was bummed that yall weren't more chaotic and went full "yes!", my logical side agrees with the final poll 🥲. Again, I'm not pressed about mcu and what they put out, whether it favors this ship or not. At the end of the day, I’m still going to vibe like I’ve been doing. If nothing else, I just hope we get to see these two characters and their rich dynamic again because Marvel can't ignore how the world reacted to Shuri and Namor. And hey, sometimes Marvel listens! Sebastian Stan and Anthony Mackie were on a mission after fans brought up a potential team up and after that, those two found every excuse to bring up a potential movie in interviews for YEARS until finally *boom* 🇺🇸🦅 The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Show 🦅🇺🇸 was born. Miracles do happen everyday rofl [I know these two examples have nothing to do with one another but let me have this lol]

ALSO: I only trust these characters in Ryan's hands so I'm hoping he's the first in line to direct whatever this future dynamic ends up being.

It was cool seeing what other protagonists this fandom is drawn to outside of Shuri/Black Panther. I’m curious to know what other ships y’all also enjoy [feel free to drop them in the comments if you care to share]. I feel like a lot of the top picks in this poll I also resonated with, like Iron man for example. I don’t know what it is but there is just something about a genius character with a mix of charisma/ big softy + sarcastic energy that will do it for me every 👏🏾single👏🏾 time 👏🏾

ALSO: Not everyone sleeping on Thor and Hulk?! 😭 I feel bad that I left out Ant-man [especially with Quantumania just coming out] but you can only do 10 options on Tumblr polls and it was between him and Captain Marvel so….a choice was made…..

This one cracks me up [and yes I had too much fun making these summaries which I find highly accurate] Also, I have no beef with any of these characters btw 😅 I truly believe that a hero is only as interesting as their counterpart. If your villain isn't captivating, it takes away from the hero + their storytelling potential and vice versa. The poll was split between Killmonger and Namor at one point [which if these two ever met/ were on screen together like ??? They have free reign to completely destroy my life. I welcome all calamity that ensues.] I'm not going to survive Namor and Kang in the same film this coming Avengers: Kang Dynasty movie.

ALSO: I didn't choose him but Thanos has been one of the most impactful/ compelling villains we’ve seen in the mcu thus far. I mean, he’s literally responsible for like 3 major films in the mcu + Josh Brolin is just amazing at what he does in general. This is brave to say but it was lowkey bittersweet to see his character's arc come to an end [obviously it was a huge relief but yeah]. Don't come for me.

This one was just for fun since I recently made that tenitia rant post but it was cool seeing some of you come back with your own film ideas of what Letitia and Tenoch could act in together. I'm so down bad for them that I'm game for absolutely anything. Romcom? Let's do it. A Podcast of them reviewing their favorite foods from their cultures? I'll eat with yall. Music video? Where's the link? I don't care what it is. Someone brought this up but I really wish we got more game interviews with them like them reading thirst tweets, answering the web's most searched questions, a joint hot ones interview, something! They would have killed those! Bring them back!🗣️ Bring them back! 🗣️ Bring them back! 🗣️

ALSO: Letitia has already voiced a character [Nooshy in "Sing 2"] so now I need Tenoch to do the same. I would love to hear his voice in something. It would realistically be in Spanish since I know the majority of his projects have been thus far but idgaf, I’m still showing up *turns on closed captions* [shout out to everyone who also started to learn spanish after this beautiful man came into our lives]

And last but not least, your blog feedback <3 Thanks again for giving your input on this. My blog is slowly starting to grow and I'm having a lot of new people interact with my page so I wanted to do a quick temperature check of what people are feeling. At the end of the day, I'm aways going to stick to what feels authentic to me and what I want to post because if you're not liking what you're doing, what are you doing it all for? But I will definitely keep this feedback in mind. For the people who are new or just coming across my blog, here are some examples of what I'm referencing in this poll: fan edits [1, 2, 3] rants [1, 2, 3] song recs [1, 2, 3] Tenitia [1, 2, 3].

ALSO: I thought I was doing the most with the amount of Tenoch posts I was blogging already but maybe not. Don’t worry, I'll find more ways to post our baby girl (:

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WOW, YOU'RE STILL HERE!? Nice 🥰 Seriously, thanks again to everyone who participated in this completely unserious poll. I've never done one of these before but now that I know what to do and not do, I may make another one in the future. We'll see. Continue to stay tuned for future Namor/Shuri + Tenoch/Letitia shenanigans 💫

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