Turning red in Britain

As I said before about Turning Red, it’s really a film about the Asian diaspora in the west and more specifically Canada, which makes you wonder what would happen if Turning Red were to be set anywhere else in the west. One would wonder what would happen if Turning Red were set in somewhere like Britain, would there be British references and perhaps a British sensibility had Domee Shi’s parents moved to somewhere like Croydon for instance? I kind of pondered and contemplated about what would happen if Mortal Kombat were made in Britain instead, wherein Jax would’ve been African-Caribbean instead among other things.

But this brings up an odder possibility of somebody like Ed Boon assimilating into the larger African Caribbean community, since the Latin American community in Britain isn’t that large and also if his own mum moved to Britain instead. Then another would be a stronger anti-Thatcherite streak in the earliest Mortal Kombat game, if it was made in Britain instead and possibly taking on a rather different tone or theme. Turning Red is very much a byproduct of a Canadian, it’s awash in references to Canadiana. Meilin Li doesn’t just live in Toronto, but also encounter an actual Canadian store and her parents eat food from a real Canadian restaurant, Tim Hortons, though it also has a branch in the Philippines.

British Turning Red would have a rather different sensibility, if not an entirely different feel and mindset, it wouldn’t be entirely different from regular Turning Red but more in the sense of having a somewhat different sense of humour. There are probably Asian Britons who relate to her without difficulty, like their Australian counterparts do, so a British Turning Red would turn out no differently in a sense. The only real differences would be the references, swap Tim Hortons for something like Greggs plc among other things. I actually have this story in the back of my mind that’s inspired by Turning Red, but where it’s set in early 1990s Britain.

Its versions of Meilin Li, Priya, Abby and Miriam are all into the rave scene and also tend to be late teenagers, this Meilin Li even has family in Hong Kong but that would mean it would’ve still been a British colony as it had yet to be returned to China. This Abby is from Myanmar, which was a British colony. India too was a British colony, well so are Jamaica, Barbados, Malaysia, Ghana and others and some of them even achieved true independence. Barbados recently became a republic, whilst Jamaica wants to become one itself. It would be the closest thing to what would happen if Turning Red were set in Britain, but being an original story it takes more liberties with the themes and leitmotifs.

It’s not a one-on-one copy of Turning Red, but rather something that has its own take on some of the same themes underlying it. Here’s the story that I wrote that’s inspired by Turning Red.

all-night-partyDownload

Turning Red and the Asian Diaspora

Admittedly, I never lived in a western country and I have yet to go there myself, let alone Canada but I do have relatives who live in its more southernly neighbour, America. Turning Red’s resonance for those in the diaspora is that the characters are either free from stereotypes or provide a more nuanced look into how and why they’re like this, Meilin Li wants to be more independent but gets into a fight of sorts with her mum, who feels inadequate for the way things turned out to be. That she wants to go to a concert real badly, despite her mum’s wishes, could be seen as ungrateful to some but on the other hand, it’s kind of interesting that there’s an Asian diaspora character who’s actually defiant.

Not so much defiant in a superficial way but rather somebody who wants to do things their way, despite going against their parents’ wishes, one who’s even going through puberty and the motions of it all. Meilin Li isn’t Disney’s first attempt at showcasing an Asian diaspora character before, though earlier attempts in other productions might either be stereotypical or seemingly Asian without trying. If you remember the cartoon programme Recess, there’s a character who seems to be Asian and her name is Ashley Spinelli. She kind of looks Asian to me and it’s surprising why there’s not a single episode that I remember showcasing the possibility of her being adopted, given she doesn’t look white.

It’s not strange for some Asian people to have western surnames, it’s the case here in the Philippines with a good number of people and also for those who’re adopted, such as Leah Lewis for instance. Some have western surnames because they married western men, logically if they have any children they too will inherit their father’s surname. But I feel with Turning Red, here’s a character who’s explicitly from the Asian diaspora without being a stereotype. Going further with that, Meilin Li is explicitly Chinese Canadian. Two of her friends are Indian Canadian and Korean Canadian respectively, with Miriam being the lone white girl.

Abby even speaks Korean from time to time, whereas in the case with most other productions to indicate that this character is of Asian descent is to give them an accent. It’s like this in Phineas and Ferb where the character of Baljeet has an accent, this would’ve been excusable if he could’ve been an immigrant himself. But I don’t think this aspect is expounded any further, as far as I can recall, whereas Priya, Abby and Meilin all sound very North American. There are differences between Asian diasporans and those who never left the countries and one good indicator is the accent, it’s like that between myself and my American relatives.

My American relatives have very American accents, whilst me and my relatives that never left the Philippines don’t despite being fluent Anglophones. I don’t think this is an aspect that many white westerners get, perhaps because they often see people of colour as interchangeable as they are foreign. This isn’t always the case, especially with places like America, but this is particularly the case with countries like Britain where those in the diaspora of any other nonwhite majority country gets plagued with the question of where they’re from. Skunk Anansie’s Skin has faced it, so has Domee Shi at some point though she never stated it as far as I know.

The differences get bigger when it comes to how acculturated one is to another country and culture, to the point where a character like Meilin Li could easily be read as a third culture kid. She’s not quite Chinese, but never quite Canadian either. Similar things can be said of Priya and Abby, though their stories aren’t explored yet and sadly may never be. I feel when it comes to third culture kids, they live in a world that’s different from both their host countries and the countries where their parents came from. It’s something kids whose parents never left for another country wouldn’t get immediately, unless if they travelled to another country even for a time being.

That’s just me talking about the way Meilin Li is presented and why I believe the experiences of an Asian diasporan can be different from an Asian who never left their country.

Torn between this and that

As I said before, characters like Lady Shiva and Storm were written by white people for such a long time that the stench won’t go away immediately. They’re pretty much white people’s ideas of what exotic, nonwestern women are like as they’re often contrasted with Westerners. Works like Turning Red and American Born Chinese give a better idea of what it’s like to be torn between East and West, in part because they’re written by those in the Chinese diaspora so conflict with Western culture feels more organic.

In the sense of being caught between two traditions as well as common expectations of them, in American Born Chinese Jin Wang is contrasted with Chin-Kee who’s deliberately stereotypical. Now that’s something you won’t see in well most works written by white people, since it’s something they don’t wrestle with that much. To the same extent Asian Americans do, not to mention being haunted by stereotypes that it’s something American Born Chinese addresses very well.

Likewise with Turning Red, the heroine Meiling Lee wants to do what she wants even if it’s something her mother doesn’t approve of. DC Comics has attempted something similar between Cassandra Cain and her mother Lady Shiva, but it feels so manufactured compared to what Meiling Lee goes through. Again, that’s what happens if a white person tries to write a nonwhite character well in most cases to be generous.

It doesn’t have the sting of what it’s like to be truly torn between two competing cultural influences, perhaps made more ironic by that Cassandra Cain is the daughter of a white man and an Asian woman. So there really ought to be a story where she does feel torn between two worlds, which should make the most sense given her familial background. Maybe not yet, but I feel that’s something both Turning Red and American Born Chinese have accomplished.

I personally think even if you have white Americans who believe they are part of a persecuted cultural minority, it doesn’t have the sting of hypervisibility the way nonwhite people are subjected to in the West. Well as far as I know about it as I don’t live in a Western country myself, but some of my relatives do. While Cassandra Cain is a fine character in her own right, if one wants a more realistic portrayal of what’s like to be torn between two cultures we have Turning Red and American Born Chinese for now.