Dragons deserve diversity too

Learning, listening, and breaking our western assumptions of queerness

Recently I came across an author named Xiran Jay Zhao, a Chinese-Canadian woman who talks about Chinese culture and representation in media. When I saw that she had released ‘How Disney Commodifies Culture - Southeast Asians Roast Raya and the Last Dragon (part 1)’ I was intrigued. If you haven’t seen it, Raya and the Last Dragon is a Disney film that stated that it was the first Southeast Asian (SEA) princess and that the movie was going for authenticity.

Xiran was very upfront about her position: she’s not SEA, but she recognises the influence of her platform. She wanted to use it to uplift SEA and voices of the SEAdiaspora on this topic because they had been drowned out on platforms such as twitter.

Xiran hosted a three-part presentation on YouTube. In the presentation, South-East Asians and SEA-diaspora people from countries including Indonesia, Vietnam, and Singapore, break the film down. (But Xiran also emphasises that Southeast Asia is made up of 11 countries.) They investigate the film’s production and its content, covering mythology, culture, food, fashion and language.

Notably, part three of the series is dedicated to their investigation of the queerbaiting that is evident in the film. They posit that there is queercoding between the two main female characters which includes one of the main antagonists. There is nothing wrong with enjoying the romantic chemistry here, however it is a clear example of queerbaiting. Nothing about their relationship is explicitly confirmed, despite the intentional subtext. It is disappointing, given the increasing representation in western media.

The presenters highlight that the examples of queerness that the characters present included ‘cat-lady’ references, fashion choices, and flirty interactions that are western in their sources. To further support the failure in ‘authenticity’ that this film claimed to achieve, examples of queer culture from various SEA cultures are then given where mythology, folk religion, concepts of gender, and the evolving use of personal pronouns in gendered languages highlight the rich and diverse experiences

With colonialism being an undeniable contributor to the ongoing fear and hate, the continued push of western forms of queerness as the norm is something that needs to be broken down too. Queer SEA people are still fighting for their rights today, and something we can do is listen and learn, consume real media by queer SEA and break out western assumptions on what queerness is. You can find the original presentation on YouTube on Xiran Jay Zhao’s channel.

SEA Queer Media Recs:

• Movie: Memories of My Body • Graphic novel (‘23 release):

Lunar Boy by Jesncin Wibowo • Webnovel: PaperJam • Novel: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vyuong • Movie: Goodbye Mother • Movie: Song Lang • Graphic novel: The Magic Fish by

Trung Le Nguyen • Madame X – Indonesian drag queen superhero movie • Anthology: Stories for a cause by

Tabung Pelangi • Digital Queer Indonesia Archive:

Echoes from Our Past