#maws concept art is that art student who wants to add “poc” in their story but can't answer you when you ask for specifics

[jesncin]

I realized the image I had attached to the "Failure of Asian Lois Lane" essay of Vicki Vale's concept art expired (because of discord shenanigans) so here it is again as its own post (and I'll update the essay's link to go to this post instead). Discussion under the cut for why I think this is distasteful and racist.

So some people don't understand what I mean when I say I consider this concept art racist. The description to Vicki Vale's character reads: "40s, FEMALE, INDIAN-AMERICAN OR ASIAN AMERICAN". When people say "Indian American or Asian American" what they're telling you is they consider Indian people a separate category from Asian people. However- Indian people ARE Asian people. Indians are grouped under South Asian people. Therefore they are Asian.

This is a common colorist idea that Asian people are only limited to light-skinned East Asians (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean people)- completely excluding South, Southeast Asian, West, and Central Asians. Here's a terrible comedy bit Ronny Chieng did for the Daily Show displaying that very colorist mindset. Notice how the description for Vicki specifies "Indian" but is vague about what "Asian" means.

I don't know if this concept art is taken out of context, and if there were multiple iterations of what Asian Vicki Vale would look like- but as far as what this image presents, this full body design that ended up making it to final is the only iteration. Are we to believe this design was meant to encompass what "Asian American" and "Indian American" Vicki Vale were supposed to look like? If they decided she was going to be Indian, were they just going to color her with dark skin and call it a day? Are Asians that interchangeable to the crew that they didn't feel the need to design more versions of her? I truly don't know. And it's still possible that this is one page out of context from several concepts. BUT this show already doesn't have a great track record for stylizing ethic features- and it hasn't stopped them from monolith-casting Asian actors for their Asian characters.

I mean look at how they ended up designing a supposed South Asian woman on the show. Livewire/ Leslie Willis is voiced by Zehra Fazal, a South Asian woman. Many people had no idea Livewire is South Asian. I mean she's got blue eyes and blonde-white bleached hair?

It doesn't help that she stood next to this character who is also dark skinned and blonde-haired- so people assumed they were related and therefore assumed Leslie was Black. It's not my place to say, but I have seen some Black critics being critical of how characters like Jimmy were stylized.

Overall this show's artistic direction is a mess when it comes to race. We can't keep looking up the characters' voice actors to get confirmation on their ethnicity (with that logic, Sam Lane is Filipino despite his daughter in-show being Korean)! The character design or story should make that clear for you. If POC representation was simply up for debate or a matter of interpretation, then you're not representing anyone at all.

This is why I think the show is simply not equipped to tackle POC representation but especially Asian characters. If this is the kind of language and art style that is normalized behind the scenes to developing Asian characters, can you see why I'd be suspicious of any future attempts at tackling "more explicit Asian representation"? I don't believe the showrunners are racist. However I wouldn't trust them with representation either.

It wasn't until I wrote that essay that I learned Vicki was "Asian". It wasn't until now as I write this post that I learned both Steve Lombard and Roughhouse are "Asian" (we'll never get specifics, naturally). I knew both characters were voiced by a Chinese actor (Vincent Tong), but I didn't think for once that that translated to the characters he was voicing.

this show feels like a personal attack on me at this point. For the record, I'm not asking for Vicki, Leslie, Steve, or Roughhouse to have storylines informed by their Asian identity. If anything I consider these characters so superfluous to the plot MAWS wants to tell that these guys should be removed all together (the most frustrating of them being Vicki, who's yet another Asian American character who's explicitly xenophobic to Superman). What I am saying is that I should still be able to recognize these characters as Asian!