Everything Dave Chen Is Occupied With

My Asian Female Friend Elaborates on Scott Pilgrim's Portrayal of Race

• IN RESPONSE TO: http://davechen.info/post/878263842/knives-chau
• David Chen: yo
• L____: Hi
• David Chen: so the other night
• David Chen: I sent out this twitter message
• L____: haha, yeah, I saw it
• David Chen: oh about my friend who didn't like scott pilgrim
• David Chen: only the friend was you?
• David Chen: ?
• L____: yup, that's the one I saw
• David Chen: and all my twitter followers FREAKED OUT!!! and they were like "EXPLAIN YOURSELF," only I couldn't really. So basically
• David Chen: I mean, I couldn't fully elaborate on why it bothered me. because i wasn't you.
• David Chen: so basically if you want to write or say something about it
• David Chen: there are lots of people on the internetz that would be interested in your response
• L____: lol
• L____: So now I need to put into words why it was bothering me, rather than being happy with the nagging feeling that something wasn't right in the way knives was portrayed?
• David Chen: well
• David Chen: you don't "need" to do anything
• David Chen: all i'm saying is
• David Chen: if you want to
• David Chen: there's a captive audience
• L____: well I mean really do you think anybody would debate that there was something deragotory in the way she was portrayed?
• L____: Wouldn't the debate be more over whether I should be offended by it or not?
• David Chen: well
• David Chen: first of all, would it affect your opinion to know that Bryan O'Malley, the writer of Scott Pilgrim, is half asian?
• David Chen: and secondly, a lot of people are arguing that her portrayal is meant to be satirical
• L____: From what I read, people were like you should be happy with it because she was better in the movie than in the books
• David Chen: I mean, few people in that movie AREN'T portrayed as an extreme version of themselves
• L____: But all I can say is that whether or not the writer is half asian, and whether or not she was portrayed as an extreme version of herself, I noticed it, and it bothered me
• L____: enough so i semi-didn't enjoy the movie and spent some time trying to figure out why
• L____: Maybe it would have been different if I had had some background in Scott Pilgrim or had some idea of what I was getting into, but I didn't
• L____: And not knowing any of that stuff, it did bother me
• David Chen: In general, I think it's a tough line between satire and just plain ol' racism
• David Chen: and you have to do it really skillfully
• David Chen: It seems (based on my interpretation of the movie alone and with no understanding of the comics) that part of what O'Malley (writer) was trying to do was satirize American conceptions of different races
• David Chen: but in the movie it may not be as subtle. it may come off as racist.
• David Chen: That's my conclusion based on the movie and our conversations, anyway
• L____: I think there's a difference as well in the feeling that the narrative is laughing with us vs. the narrative is laughing at us
• L____: And it's hard to get across that the narrative is laughing WITH us when most of the protagonists are caucasian
• L____: I'm not sure that i would have called Knives a protagonist
• L____: so much as a foil
• David Chen: Yeah
• L____: to compare Ramona Flowers against
• David Chen: So
• David Chen: any closing remarks?
• L____: I guess the point is that as a person coming in having no idea what the Scott Pilgrim books were about and even being normally willing to laugh about the occasional racial slight, the racial portrayal caught me off-guard, and bothered me
• L____: I had no expectations of the movie
• L____: and no prejudices or offenses according to what I had known before
• L____: So this was from me coming off a clean slate
• L____: Though admittedly, maybe I shouldn't have said this was a stereotype again Asian women in general
• L____: rather against smitten (asian?) high schoolers
• L____: either way, it was just the portrayal that bothered me
• L____: And I said bothered me and not "offended" me
• L____: for a reason
• David Chen: what is the difference for you b/t those two
• David Chen: ?
• L____: I guess when I say bothered me, I would say that i definitely noticed it as something that was done "wrong" or "not well" and made me think quite a bit more and was something I wasn't happy with
• L____: But I'm not ready to take up the torch against somebody and say that it was an awful movie because of it or say that it should never have been done
• L____: Because like you said, to some people it will just be racial satire and there's nothing wrong with dabbling in experimentation with how far to go
• L____: For some people it will be really funny, especially if you are pushing the limits. I just happen to be more sensitive in this case, and I can recognize that.