Dave28282 said: "GeorgeandDot said: "We want to be looked at as human beings without getting our culture ignored. "
Then why can't you look past stereotypes and refuse to see the well rounded characters as human beings?
It's a bit contradictory that you focus on that in a show that goes miles and miles beyond stereotypes.
Most other people focus on the bigger picture and real human characters already, feel free to join.
The fact that Kim works as a bar girl has so little to do with her personality, character and arc, that it is actually quite bizarre you focus on that. The fact that the great actor Jonathan Pryce got a role in 1989, which he did wonderfully, is also a very strange thing to focus on now, in a different time and era, which has nothing to do with this production now. You clearly have decided that you should have something against it, but your points have no merit. You heard a clock ringing somewhere but don't know where the bell-clapper hangs.
I'm probably going to get chewed out for this, but why not.
There is a difference, as others have pointed out, between being racist and having an understanding of racial connotations. It is, in fact, possible to see characters as being well-rounded as "characters" but also playing into racial dynamics and tropes that many find uncomfortable. These connotations are not because of some "racist" ideology that exists in a vacuum, but because of history and ideas and experiences that build up over time. And because art works on a symbolic level, we tend to look for or write in those secondary meanings and implications. Ignoring potential implications can come across as lazy or callous. Let's say someone wrote a show with a character who lives only to serve his or her employer. If both the servant and employer are, let's say, white, then we have a Cinderella story at best and an abusive nightmare at worst. But make the servant black, and there is no way to avoid evoking images and themes of slavery. It's not racist to say, I see the cultural and historical connotations and recognize it may be offensive.
There is also the problem of having a very small repertoire to "represent" an entire culture. It would be one thing, I think, to have characters like Kim or Liat if they were among many characters who are written as Asian women. But when they are the only representatives, that perpetuates a stereotype that means an entire group of people are only shown in one way.
The Vietnam War was tragic, that is true. There were real women like Kim, that is also true. So why couldn't we have a musical about that experience, rather than shoehorning it into a very dated storyline from an old opera that was written in the age of Western imperialism, with all the attendant ideologies?
GeorgeandDot, I hope I didn't step on your discussion or insert myself where I don't have the experiences.
