oh I see, this is the part where we gaslight women about not focusing on what really matters.
let me hit the space on the bingo card
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Jezebel: "I'm [racist against mixed relationships when it doesn't suit my agenda]"
- Thread starter WrenchNinja
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oh I see, this is the part where we gaslight women about not focusing on what really matters.
let me hit the space on the bingo card
They're implicitly criticizing people for dating outside their race, no matter which side of things they're coming from.
That's fucking gross.
It comes off as her not only criticizing his writing choices, but his real life ones as well and the latter is gross.
Jest Chillin
Member
The underlying point is valid but the example is in poor taste.
I think a good middle ground, however, is if you were to take the Same Asian Man/White Woman relationship and simply switch the focal point. A White Woman who pursues an Asian Man still bucks the Asian Man = undesirable/sexless stereotype while not featuring the Woman as the prize.
But there should also be more interracial relationships depicted in all directions. There's way more interracial relationship options than just Minority + White regardless of the specific minority or the gender of either.
I think a good middle ground, however, is if you were to take the Same Asian Man/White Woman relationship and simply switch the focal point. A White Woman who pursues an Asian Man still bucks the Asian Man = undesirable/sexless stereotype while not featuring the Woman as the prize.
But there should also be more interracial relationships depicted in all directions. There's way more interracial relationship options than just Minority + White regardless of the specific minority or the gender of either.
jimmypython
Member
this sure is something of a title....
Quite often, yes. Even in the trailer for this film. (I've not seen the entire film yet, but there is a scene with a potential arrangement/date in there that is exactly this).
Dash_Riprock
Member
Funny how both the right and left despise interracial relationships.
Maybe i'm not watching the right movies, but I can't think of many examples of this.
Poor GRIMES
Banned
Wow!
"You finally have yours, now shut up and stop complaining" is not a valid form of criticism. Speaking down to a majority female blog is also not a good look. How dare these WoC have criticisms for the media they enjoy!
I read the article 4 times and I did not see this.
Trojita
Rapid Response Threadmaker
I don't even know many movies specifically cast with main characters that are South Asian that I could even broach this subject about. Is this some pattern in Bollywood movies, because based on what I've seen there is hardly that many interracial relationships in Bollywood movies.
She criticized the movie based on their real relationship for using a mixed race couple. It's not a long walk to make at all.
Gordon Shumway
Banned
Fucking seriously lol..
This is an independent movie. This wasn't financed by some big cigar smoking Hollywood executive. I doubt it's going to rake in much money either. If the the producer was interested in maximum profit margins he would have backed something else.
Any?
"I also found myself exhausted, yet again, by the onscreen depiction of a brown man wanting to date a white woman"
Her sentence is directly related to the on screen depiction of two real people and their love.i would take that as a criticism of my love and relationship. Maybe i'm just sensitive to the issue being in an interracial marriage. It is a sensitive topic and all the more reason not to use real people to make your point if fictional examples will do.
I feel like this trope exists in order to explore complexities in race relations, not to shut the door on brown women.
Also, brown women have had far far better luck in Hollywood than brown men, and brown women are often paired up with white men.
As a brown man, I just don't understand this criticism.
Also, brown women have had far far better luck in Hollywood than brown men, and brown women are often paired up with white men.
As a brown man, I just don't understand this criticism.
Poor GRIMES
Banned
All forms of media are influenced by real life to a degree, that doesn't make the complaint any less true considering she's speaking in terms of how the movie frames the interracial relationship rather than insulting the actual people.
Dash_Riprock
Member
Its mostly restricted to Asian woman who are desired, which the stereotype of the "submissive Asian wife who does anything her husbands tells her to."
I've never seen any other ethnicity treated as desirable.
shes allowed to criticized the film she watched however what you seem to be arguing is that she criticizing the real life relationship that inspired the movie which does not even seem to be the case. She not criticizing interracial relationships.
lightskintwin
Banned
But if in all those examples are interracial couplings between a South Asian man and White woman. Is it a troubling trend somebody South Asian should acknowledge?
Man get the fuck outta here with this bullshit
Due to white supremacy, white women are generally considered by straight men to be more desireable and of higher status than brown/black women. This also means that *some* brown/black women are made to feel inferior or of less worth. This is reflected in media as well. That is what's being addressed and not whether or not someone is "allowed to" date outside their race.
Read this as an example if you don't know why the primacy of white women can be problematic
http://www.theroot.com/why-successful-black-men-in-brazil-won-t-marry-black-wo-1790854485
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5973030
The point isn't that the fault is with someone dating outside their race, but with white supremacy.
UnemployedVillain
Member
It frames it how it actually developed. Her point is valid, but it's still a completely terrible and ignorant example to use
Fulminator
Member
I feel like i get where the author is coming from, bit I feel like the big sick is a bad example because it was a true story
Idk
Idk
The female love interest is not allowed to be a person. She is reduced to her skin color. Even though, y'know, a white woman co-wrote the film and it's based off her life and history, along w/ her husband/co-author's.
I mean, the new Spider-Man movie has Peter Parker crushing over a black girl. But nah, not that many springs to mind other than that.
Poor GRIMES
Banned
People projecting their own personal preferences for wanting to date outside of their race in this thread does not invalidate her claims, just as much as you said.
She says it right there that the film plays into this, it's not a condemnation of their actual relationship.
I'm not sure what the film being based on a true story has to do with anything.
Black people have complained for awhile that a lot of their most exalted film representation is based on slavery, Jim Crow, and the civil rights movement (or the rap game), when we'd rather get recognition for being protrayed in other ways and in other contexts.
I don't see this as an attack on the historical figures and real people involved in these genres so much as it is an attack on the narrow storytelling in Hollywood that black actors are allowed to engage in.
Black people have complained for awhile that a lot of their most exalted film representation is based on slavery, Jim Crow, and the civil rights movement (or the rap game), when we'd rather get recognition for being protrayed in other ways and in other contexts.
I don't see this as an attack on the historical figures and real people involved in these genres so much as it is an attack on the narrow storytelling in Hollywood that black actors are allowed to engage in.
Have fun playing your bingo. Come back when you to discuss things and actually address my post instead of being lazy, snarky douche.
Is it really a trend? It's hardly anything. I can watch the movies in a week and the tv shows could last three or four weeks if I watch only the parts with the South Asian guy. If there were more examples and this article didn't launch on a movie based on someone's life, she would have an argument.
lightskintwin
Banned
A certain type of Black woman, which is whole 'nother issue unto itself. LOL
The Last Wizard
Member
You left out Asian + Other Minority
But isn't that framing based on the actual people?
That's telling the stories of other people that existed decades ago that have already been retold over and over. This is attacking a couple currently alive and together writing the story of their own lives.
Poor GRIMES
Banned
What exactly was your point?
"I rebuke this argument because there's only now a little bit of PoC representation in media?"
Let's take this further:
Is Hidden Figures somehow exempt from being included in "empowering media for Black women" because it's inspired by a real life story? All media plays, no matter if it's inspired by real stories or not, is valid to be criticized just like how any other "fictionalized" stories and characters are.
does Bollywood count here because that's like a billion examples
It is worth noting the movie's screenplay was written by the people it is about. So the framing should be pretty accurate to real life.
Dongs Macabre
aka Daedalos42
Just like Hollywood, you seem to be under the impression that minorities can only end up with another person of the same ethnicity or with a white person.
The article is focusing on South Asian representation in Hollywood, so no.
You ripped that way out of context, friend. Shes not saying that to say they shouldn't fucking be together rather shes explaining the pathology behind Hollywood's willingness to show a Brown man - White Woman pairing as opposed to representing a Brown Man - Brown Woman pairing. It disingenuous of you to quote that to try and say the thinks every and all interracial relationships are just the result of white supremacy. You can do better than this.
Gotdatmoney
Member
Asian guy + Black woman typing please and thank you.
Seriously I wanna see that.
The movie is practically autobiographical! It's not a couple of people using their own experiences to fill in the gaps in a character's arc or personality, they wrote it about themselves! Your entire point collapses once you take this into account.
I think the writer has a valid point to make, but that she literally picked the absolute worst movie to do it. In using this movie the article opens itself up to being interpreted in this way.
Zen_Arcade
Banned
I don't really know how you could argue she's not. She's criticising a movie written by two people based on their personal life experiences and equating it with media clearly manufactured and made up for no other reason then the fact that in both situations an inter racial couple is involved.
This doesn't wash because Hollywood in general is highly secular. You could argue the only "religion" that gets serious play for the most part is Judaism, and even that's with the caveat it's rare to see religious practice versus cultural signifiers.
As for the article, I cannot imagine how depressing it must be to treat every relationship in the real world as needing to hew to your progressive ideals. The author's point goes way beyond complaints about on-screen romances and hits pretty hard on real-world relationships in a pretty icky way.
Everything in the article implicitly or explicitly is talking about dating in reality, not just in films. Like this bit: "In choosing an Asian man, these white women also symbolically reject all the white men who have oppressed Asian men for centuries. And by earning white love, the Asian man gains acceptance in a society that has thwarted them from the very beginning. When an Asian is loved as a white man, he is taken on a road to realization. It is at once an act of love, and of revenge."
This stuff isn't just framed as film tropes. The only way her complaints make any sense is if they are supposed to stand in for real relationships people have. Otherwise who the hell cares about the film?
Trojita
Rapid Response Threadmaker
It's an independent movie.
I get where she is coming from? I remember a site called bitterasianmen.cm or some shit where the Asian guys complained about Asian men being emasculated in the media, Asian women loving white men, and Asian men's inability to get white women. Like shit was weird, they fetishised white women in ways way worst than they accused Asian women. They seemed exponentially more disloyal than the Asian women they criticised, they were just capable to jump the fence.
A key part of what I think people are failing to grasp from this is that it's not an attack on the couple this particular movie is about. It's rather about what Hollywood decides is worth pushing to the masses.
Nobody is saying their story isn't worth being told, just that it's emblematic of a larger trend of what gets widely distributed in the market. Ergo, a systemic issue. But a lot of you can't parse targeted individual critiques from systemic issues regarding a lot of topics so I'm not surprised many of you are slow on the uptake here.
Nobody is saying their story isn't worth being told, just that it's emblematic of a larger trend of what gets widely distributed in the market. Ergo, a systemic issue. But a lot of you can't parse targeted individual critiques from systemic issues regarding a lot of topics so I'm not surprised many of you are slow on the uptake here.
You Are Viewtiful
Member
As a brown dude, this. Do South Asian/Middle Eastern women have that much of a problem getting dates though? That's the first I'm hearing of that.
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