shang-chi and why i am excited for the asian community BY MADELEINE CHAN @madeleinelyc Madeleine Chan is a mixed Chinese-Canadian writer and recent university grad living in Vancouver, BC. They enjoy critiquing and commenting on the pitfalls and positives of the world through writing when they’re not painting, reading, or being allergic to and consuming donuts.
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remember how excited my middle-aged, Chinese father was for an Asian character to be featured in a Star Wars movie. He had unequivocally been a fan of the franchise since the first film was released in 1977 but grew even more attached seeing Donnie Yen star as Chirrut Îmwe in 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. In his elation, my father even bought my whole family Funko Pop figures of the character to celebrate. It was something new, something fascinating. When the Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) movie trailer released recently, I saw the same excitement on his face. The first Asian superhero to grace the Hollywood big screen as the titular character, accompanied by a full Asian cast and starring
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beloved Canadian actor Simu Liu? Ecstasy. But the sentiment was just an extension of the growing power that a lot of the Asian community has been feeling in recent years with entertainment media. It’s also why I can feel that ShangChi will be a large tipping point in the continuation of the excitement and empowerment of the Asian community—on and off-screen.
ki, was called out in 2017 for creating an Asian pseudonym and persona to write comics under—of which he casually apologized for and wished that everyone would just “forget” about. This, along with the overbearing number of white comic creators and the incredible struggle Asian ones face to break through, just shows why they kept him on. It’s a miracle that Shang-Chi has an Asian director and writer.
To preface, this movie won’t fix Marvel’s long history Doctor Strange (2016) had of racism, white-washing, and white actress Tilda Swinton lack of representation in their replace a Tibetan character to comics, company, and films by appeal to a Chinese audience, a long shot. Older comics are and because the all-white ripe with yellowface and ori- writers couldn’t think of a way entalism; and recent comics to write an Asian female witharen’t totally exempt from this out making her a Dragon Lady. either. The Netflix show Iron Fist was a one-dimensional, white savCurrent Editor-in-Chief of iour attempt to reconcile the Marvel Comics, C.B. Cebuls- character’s orientalist history
