#british asians

[circular-time]

Waris Hussein unveils producer Verity Lambert's blue plaque.

While Anthony Coburn's son throws a hissy fit about a young Black man cast as Doctor Who, I'd like to celebrate director Waris Hussein, a young Black man (as British South Asians were then known) whose thankless task it was to turn Coburn's mediocre caveman script into a vehicle that would hold viewers' attention from the pilot, Unearthly Child, until The Daleks.

Above: Waris Hussein. Below: Sacha Dhawan and Jessica Raine as Waris Hussein and Verity Lambert in An Adventure in Space and Time.

Ten years ago, we got a historical docudrama paying homage to Doctor Who's difficult beginnings, when it was punted to a young minority producer and director expected to fail.

Last spring, the Radio Times published what I assume was one of its primary sources:

The 1963 Doctor Who diaries of Waris Hussein - part 2 - part 3

They're a fascinating read.

But while he's tactfully grateful to Doctor Who for helping launch his career, Waris Hussein has had a long, successful career since then, earning an Emmy, a BAFTA, and a slew of nominations, including one for the 1974 historical miniseries Shoulder to Shoulder (Youtube) on British suffragettes.

Here's a link to a good print interview with him. I also recommend listening to the beginning of this podcast interview, as his voice conveys the thoughtfulness he puts into everything:

(SNS Online is a podcast on all the usual platforms, if you want to look up pt 2.)

*Trivia note: Ian McKellan credits Waris Hussein with his first film role. The young director cut his teeth directing Cambridge peers McKellan, Derek Jacobi and Trevor Nunn (the token straight).

#waris hussein #british asian #lgbtq #(waris hussein is also gay although he had to be closeted for safety back in the day) #classic who

[life-imitates-art-far-more]

Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) "Portrait of Omai" (1776) Oil on canvas

#paintings #art #artwork #genre painting #male portrait #joshua reynolds #oil on canvas #fine art #english artist #british artist #portrait of a man #asian man #clothing #clothes #white clothing #1770s #late 1700s #late 18th century #a queue work of art

[picory]

this is who this motherfucker is to me

#quacks #not exactly the same genre of white person but close #it's just strange seeing everyone make human designs of him looking south asian just because he's into yoga 😭 he's licherally british

[not-your-asian-fantasy]

PLUS SIZE ASIANS EXIST

Michelle Elman

As you all know I’ve been talking about the absence of Asians in adverts, campaigns and fashion in general so @lindablacker and I decided to team up on a little passion project. Look at how incredible these women look!

Here’s to showing them what they are missing 💪🏽

Despite the absence in the media, asian is actually the largest ethnic minority in the U.K.

Asians deserve to be represented.

Asians deserve to be seen.

And all Asians aren’t the stereotype of being small and petite.

Being Asian is not one look.

Being Asian is not one culture.

Whilst even this shoot isn’t perfect representation, it shows just a small sample of the diversity within Asia. #AsianRepresentation

Thank you to all the wonderful women taking part and being my stunning models @nesslala @bishamberdas @saalene @kat_v_henry @minakumari.uk @simksandhu95

This was such a personal project and I couldn’t have done it without @lindablacker. She came up with the idea when I was talking about asian representation earlier in the year and I wouldn’t trust anyone else to do it. She has always placed diversity at the forefront of her shoots and her talent is remarkable. This entire concept was her doing and I’m so grateful for everything you did to make this a reality! Thank you also to @umberghauri and @hannah.shaikhup for the incredible makeup! It felt so complete to have the makeup artists also be Asian. We need just as much diversity behind the scenes on shoots as well! x

#asian women #plus size #body positive #fat Asian #Asian feminism #British asian #uk Asian #representation #curvy #fat positive #fatshion #photography #Michelle Elman #instagram

[bytebun]

anti social social club (weekly meetings on mt. coronet)

#pokemon legends arceus #ingo #melli #akari #submas #bytebun draws #pla #to me. ingo is like the manager at idk mcdonalds with his troubled teenage coworkers. except the mcdonalds is being a miko to pokemon god. #also if anything akari would be the manager. #despite being amnesiac & probably having fleas he's the most normal guy there simply cuz he's not a teenager #i don't actually think melli is a teen but he certainly acts like one #no offense to anybody actually bald these reactions r based off of my asian family's reaction the the british princes every single time #'there's no way he's in his 30s' i don't know what to tell you mom. sometimes it just be like that for white guys

[moonlightsapphic]

Uh guys, in case you aren't all caught up, the graphic novel that started as a little queer comic on Tumblr by ND Stevenson (creator of Shera: Princesses of Power) has been adapted by Netflix into an adorable movie about the contemporary genderqueer experience. Go watch Nimona. RIGHT NOW. (Also read the book!)

The movie also features an API gay couple. Ambrosius Goldenloin is an Asian American descendant of the revered knight, Gloreth, and he dyes his hair blonde to match hers and fit the white saviour image that the public expects from him. He is manipulated golden child of a conservative white woman trying to assert control over the kingdom. Ballister Boldheart is a darker-skinned (desi! muslim!) British Pakistani sweetheart who had to bootstrap his way to the top and still couldn't win model minority status with the head of the institute, and is framed for crimes he didn't commit and condemned by the state. The character designs are both modeled after their voice actors, Eugene Lee Yang and Riz Ahmed. Both actors have done extensive DEI work for the API LGBTQ+ community and visibility!

They are archenemies. They are lovers. They are husbands but also kind of divorced. They will find their way back to each other because they are simply victims of the same system, and they are just so soft for each other and what they want to protect. They are also Nimona's dads. They're slightly different from how they were in the book, but I'm so glad for the changes. And I'm so glad for what remained exactly the same as ND Stevenson envisioned years ago:

#nimona #nd stevenson #gay #bi #queer #bisexual #genderqueer #lgbtq+ #lgbtq pride #trans #genderfluid #api #aapi #asian american #british asian #korean american #british pakistani #queer muslim #achillean #mlm #she ra and the princesses of power #spop #netflix nimona #nimona (2023) #queer asian #desi queer #model #model minority #white supremism #white supremacy

[yourdailyqueer]

Jordan Sangha

Gender: Male

Sexuality: Bisexual

DOB: 11 October 1997 

Ethnicity: White, Indian

Nationality: British

Occupation: Reality star, lawyer

Note: Won Big Brother UK 2023

#Jordan Sangha #bisexuality #lgbt #lgbtq #mlm #male #bisexual #1997 #white #indian #biracial #asian #british #lawyer #reality star #big brother

[hussyknee]

Whenever Brits are like "tea is our national drink, our culture, our personality, our mental health" I think of our hill country blanketed in a patchwork quilt of human suffering and ongoing violent colonialism and want to smash all their tea cups. Your genocidal leaf juice is nothing to be proud of. The present day tea pluckers are the descendants of the Indians you enslaved and they still live in unthinkable poverty in the line houses you built to house them like cattle. The families whose farmlands you robbed have been starving for generations. Every sip of your leaf juice is soaked in blood and you drink it like vampires.

Tea will never belong to you. It's our legacy of grief, and your shame.

Drink your tea and shut the fuck up.

#sri lanka #'but my parents were immigrants!' 'and you're living in a genocidal country that's still sucking the marrow from the global south. so.' #'but my parents were indians!' 'ok? drink your chai and think about the stateless south indian tea pluckers? what is your point?' #if you live in britain you enjoy the fruits of its empire even if you're at the bottom of the food chain #that's why middle class Asians and Africans migrate to europe even if it means they have to earn a living on minimum wage #you can't share a race and country with sue braverman and tell me that your origins can make you any less complicit #british culture #tea #british empire #colonialism #british colonialism #colonization #extractive colonialism #tourism #capitalism #indigenous rights #indian ocean slavery #slavery #white supremacy #knee of huss #food culture #cash crops #monoagriculture #ecocide

[kaladinkholins]

Seeing fan discussions about Blue Eye Samurai and especially Mizu's identity is so annoying sometimes. So let me just talk about it real quick.

First off, I have to emphasise that different interpretations of the text are always important when discussing fiction. That's how the whole branch of literary studies came to be, and what literary criticism and analysis is all about: people would each have their own interpretation of what the text is saying, each person applying a different lens or theory through which to approach the text (ie. queer theory, feminist theory, reader response theory, postcolonial theory, etc) when analysing it. And while yes, you can just take everything the authors say as gospel, strictly doing so would leave little room for further analysis and subjective interpretation, and both of these are absolutely necessary when having any meaningful discussion about a piece of media.

With that being said, when discussing Blue Eye Samurai, and Mizu's character in particular, I always see people only ever interpret her through a queer lens. Because when discussing themes of identity, yes, a queer reading can definitely apply, and in Mizu's story, queer themes are definitely present. Mizu has to hide her body and do her best to pass in a cisheteronormative society; she presents as a man 99% of the time and is shown to be more comfortable in men's spaces (sword-fighting) than in female spaces (homemaking). Thus, there's nothing wrong with a queer reading at all. Hell, some queer theorists interpret Jo March from Little Women as transmasc and that's totally valid, because like all analyses, they are subjective and argumentative; you have the choice to agree with an interpretation or you can oppose it and form your own.

To that end, I know many are equally adamant that Mizu is strictly a woman, and that's also also a completely valid reading of the text, and aligns with the canon "Word of God", as the creators' intention was to make her a woman. And certainly, feminist themes in the show are undeniably present and greatly colour the narrative, and Episode 4 & 5 are the clearest demonstrations of this: Mizu's protectiveness of Madame Kaji and her girls, Mizu's trauma after killing Kinuyo, her line to Akemi about how little options women have in life, and the way her husband had scorned her for being more capable than him in battle.

I myself personally fall into the camp of Mizu leaning towards womanhood, so i tend to prefer to use she/her pronouns for her, though I don't think she's strictly a cis woman, so I do still interpret her under the non-binary umbrella. But that's besides my point.

My gripe here, and the thing that spurred me to write this post, is that rarely does this fandom even touch upon the more predominant themes of colonialism and postcolonial identities within the story. So it definitely irks me when people say that the show presenting Mizu being cishet is "boring." While it's completely fine to have your opinion and to want queer rep, a statement like that just feels dismissive of the rest of the representation that the show has to offer. And it's frustrating because I know why this is a prevalent sentiment; because fandom culture is usually very white, so of course a majority of the fandom places greater value on a queer narrative (that aligns only with Western ideas of queerness) over a postcolonial, non-Western narrative.

And that relates to how, I feel, people tend to forget, or perhaps just downplay, that the crux of Mizu's internal conflict and her struggle to survive is due to her being mixed-race.

Because while she can blend in rather seamlessly into male society by binding and dressing in men's clothing and lowering her voice and being the best goddamn swordsman there is, she cannot hide her blue eyes. Even with her glasses, you can still see the colour of her eyes from her side profile, and her glasses are constantly thrown off her face in battle. Her blue eyes are the central point to her marginalisation and Otherness within a hegemonic society. It's why everyone calls her ugly or a monster or a demon or deformed; just because she looks different. She is both white and Japanese but accepted in neither societies. Her deepest hatred of herself stems primarily from this hybridised and alienated identity. It's the whole reason why she's so intent on revenge and started learning the way of the sword in the first place; not to fit in better as a man, but to kill the white men who made her this way. These things are intrinsic to her character and to her arc.

Thus, to refuse to engage with these themes and dismiss the importance of how the representation of her racial Otherness speaks to themes of colonialism and racial oppression just feels tone-deaf to the show's message. Because even if Mizu is a cishet woman in canon, that doesn't make her story any less important, because while you as a white queer person living in the West may feel unrepresented, it is still giving a voice to the stories of people of colour, mixed-race folks, and the myriad of marginalised racial/ethnic/cultural groups in non-Western societies.

#blue eye samurai #mizu blue eye samurai #fandom critical #blue eye samurai meta #wank.mp3 #shut up haydar #fandom.rtf #this is a bit of rant but the prevalent whiteness of fandom in general just gets on my nerves i'm sorry #giving me flashbacks to a:tla fandom fr cuz it's the same shit! people love to devalue the stories of non-white non-western identities #also to be clear i am a southeast asian living in southeast asia and similar to mizu i am often alienated for having mixed ethnic ancestry #and even for speaking english (bcs my granddad served the fuckin. british colonials. so my fam speaks mostly in english) #cuz where im from it's still extremely hegemonic racist patriarchal misogynistic homophobic like the setting in the show #so like even though the story is set in historical japan and may seem far-removed from the experiences of a US or european audience #those of us outside the west and in the global south still face a lot of the struggles that mizu goes through till this very day #so please dont just dismiss that. it feels incredibly tone-deaf #okay rant over

[arthistoryanimalia]

Happy #LeapYear #LeapDay

Keisai Eisen 渓斉英泉 (1790-1848)

Woodblock prints, kakemono-e, Edo, 1830s-40s:

1.. Carp leaping up a waterfall.

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/A_1906-1220-0-311

2. Courtesan parading in kimono patterned with leaping carp.

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/A_1906-1220-0-312

British Museum collection

#animals in art #animal holiday #19th century art #carp #fish #leaping carp #leap year #leap day #Japanese art #East Asian art #Asian art #woodblock print #print #ukiyo-e #Keisai Eisen #kakemono-e #British Museum

[mistspinner]

canonically, Year of the Dragon occurs during Napoleon’s invasion of England, but let’s imagine a happier world where Temeraire and friends are in China and watching fireworks/eating dumplings/getting red envelopes full of shiny things like the royal guests they are

#temeraire #happy lunar new year if there’s anyone in the fandom celebrating #I am tempted to maybe do a micro-fic if I can find time #Laurence WILL be forced into the fancy robes for chun jie #historically there’s no real British Chinese diaspora until the 1850s or so but let’s pretend otherwise #all these immigrants are extremely excited about their local prince of China #Laurence can defeat napoleon but he cannot defeat a contingent of eager Asian grandmothers

[travellingdragon]

Genereux took a selfie during Tongues of Serpents and @nighttimepatrons can't tell me otherwise. With Kulingile hanging in there, and Temeraire and Iskierka having a discussion in the background.

#look at that snout! #temeraire #tem: dragon breed #tem: celestial #tem: parnassian #tem: chequered nettle #tem: kazilik #tem: asian dragon #tem: chinese dragon #tem: turkish dragon #tem: european dragon #tem: british dragon #tem: heavyweight #my art #my tem art #dragon

[agelessphotography]

Men at lunch, Madison Ave, NYC, Mavis CWW, 2019

#photography #black and white photography #mavis cww #2010s #2019 #new york #new york city #nyc #madison avenue #street photography #street scene #female artists #women artists #british #taiwanese #asian artists

[frazzledazzlin]

severe damage to my psyche from sheer excitement + a little observation on their sprites

#i dont think i wrote the right psyche #do you have any idea how long ive had their song in loop #god they make me insanely happy im gonna die #i was losing it ok. had to draw thwir asses #british people taking over my mind #in character cuz im south asian 63;8£63!7_63!!3 #thsc #the henry stickmin collection #impostor v4 #vs impostor v4 #right hand man reborn #reginald copperbottom #rhm #scriboozles

[starlightshadowsworld]

The concept of birthright is wild because that logic doesn't work when applied to other cultures.

Pakistani's from Pakistan would consider me a foreigner. Hell they'd see my parents as foreigners, and they were born there.

But somehow that logic doesn't apply to Israel?

They'll accept foreign settlers as their citizens but won't accept the indigenous population of Palestinians... Or see them as human?

It's crazy how in any other immigrant culture Netanyahu would be considered a foreigner in his home country.

Because yeah he was born in Tel Aviv but he was raised in America.

But no ones like oh he's turned American, he's not Israeli enough.

That is insane.

#free palestine #anti israel #anti zionisim #pakistani #Desi #asian american #british asian

[opheliabf]

autistic george. you agree. reblog

#george karim #george cubbins #lockwood and co #lockwood & co #oghh george my specialest little guy #he was always my favourite character in the books (he’s just like me fr) #and now he’s on my screen !! and he’s asian british like me !! oughhhh george i love you so so so much #sam.txt #100