Does Not Obey the Laws of Physics

So, after reading a lot of fluffing for Wakanda Forever, I was beginning to question what the hell was going on when the only ones who seemed to have a problem with the movie were...of a certain ilk. The difference being that my problem with the movie stems from the fact that it decided to pit two exploited minority groups against each other rather than have them unite against their common enemy: white men.

(An aside: the movie really goes out of its way to make white men look good, seeing as the few examples of colonialist impulse by white nations are coming from white women. Like...wow, really? Thanks story. 🙄)

Finally, I found someone (much more eloquent and thoughtful and not of that certain ilk) who had the same problems with the film as I did. Specifically, the uncomfortable valorization of royalty, as if the problems of these African nations (and people of African nations) could have all been solved with just the right kind of "great men" to lead them — and yes, sometimes that involves great women. The point is the Marvel movies are really enamored with the idea of one person/royal family having to bear the burden of fixing an entire nation's problems rather than the common people coming together to solve the problem collectively. Of course, part of this is because the Superhero genre is basically built on this ideology — that's why they're superheroes — but the other reason is because Hollywood perpetuates and reinforces individualist ideologies that so permeates American culture that it's almost impossible to find anything that even proposes to offer the alternative. While I get that the popularity of the savior trope goes hand-in-hand with the increasingly chaotic and depressing reality of the world, which leads to the fantasy that all problems are simple enough to be punched into submission, I would argue that there is just as much fantastical draw to the idea that people of opposing views can somehow put aside their differences and come together to solve a universal threat to their shared interest. (You know, maybe if all these super geniuses put their heads together to invent clean energy and cheap/free sources of energy, we'll solve the climate crisis, which will save so, so many more people than moderating the petty squabbles of the ruling class?)

Maybe it's just me, but seeing the working class unite to rise against their exploitation and over-coming national boundaries in an international movement that reaches across borders to fight for their shared interests against a body of uncaring politicians would be a pretty satisfying fantasy, too. Oh wait, they were the bad guys in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. (That show was such a clusterfuck, but I'm getting off topic.)

My other problem with Wakanda Forever is the juvenile approach to geopolitics. Like, yes, it's satisfying to see a black woman lecture the white nations about their continued imperialist presence and treatment of the African continent (which, again, ought to have been the set up for a story of black and brown peoples uniting against their white oppressors but for some reason wasn't), but uh...the U.N. and the international world order and diplomacy doesn't work like that? I mean, the U.S. is apparently eager to go to war with a nation that they classified as a superpower. (Also, how the fuck does a hermit nation like Wakanda become a superpower? Being a superpower isn't just based on military hardware, there's also economic and cultural soft power to consider.) Like, yeah, white countries are irrational when it comes to seeing non-white countries rise, but they're not that irrational. In our real world, right now the U.S. is literally trying to contain China whilst doing their best to avoid a war, because even racism has to submit to logistical reality.

And I really don't think it takes away from the story's point (white oppressors gonna oppress) by having the white nations' foreign policy be a more realist mirror of the real world. If anything, it would highlight the insidious nature of some of the white nations' war propaganda, where they invade sovereign countries under the excuse of liberty. In the 21st century alone, the U.S. has engaged in 12 wars on foreign soil. How many of those were welcomed by the people they're supposedly liberating and how many foreign civilians have U.S. drone strikes killed so far? Would be nice if the movie touched upon that a bit instead of making Wakanda and Talokan fight for no reason. (The entire war between Wakanda and Talokan — which really was more of a skirmish than an outright war given how quickly that conflict was resolved — could've been easily avoided if any single person involved had half a diplomatic bone in their bodies. FFS, these heads of state act like petty teenagers.)

Vox's review of Shang-Chi is so awkward. Racial issues have been defined by White-v-Black for so long, pop culture just continues to fumble when faced with the awkward Not-White-Not-Black but definitely racial issues.

This sentence really encapsulates everything wrong with non-Chinese American understanding of the Chinese American culture:

Cretton’s movie also embraces Chinese American culture in its meticulous fight scenes.

Right. Where do I begin?

One of the stereotypes of Chinese Americans is "I know kungfu". And yet here, the Vox writer is desperately trying portray this as a positive. It's basically the equivalent of saying someone has embraced Mexican culture because they made an authentic taco or embraced Brazilian culture because they learned Samba. It's such a shallow understanding I'm kind of...baffled that this sentence even got past the cultural sensitivity check.

I mean, I get it, even something as shallow as getting the martial arts stuff right is nonexistent in American movies and it is one of China's biggest cultural exports, thanks to the likes of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, but...uh, Chinese Americans are descendant from all parts of China, not just the Guangdong (aka Canton) Province. Much like Hollywood doesn't represent the USA, neither does Hong Kong wuxia movies represent all of China. Equating respect for the wuxia genre as respect for the Chinese American culture is just plain...well, offensive.

Not to mention the Chinese American experience is not a monolith: there's the first generation immigrants, second generation immigrants, immigrants who came before the Chinese Exclusion Act and those who came after, those who came before '49 (PRC established) and those who came after, those who came before 6/4 (aka Tiananmen) Incident (another huge ideological shift in potential sources of Chinese immigrants) and those who came after, and all of these experiences are very different due to their differing social, political, and economical strata. So a movie that tries to explore the Chinese American experience would at the very least acknowledge these differences. Descendants of immigrants who left China to flee the CCP are different from those who left China under Manchu Qing rule which is still different from those who left China due to human trafficking. These encapsulate very different political ideologies and cultural identities. And yet American pop culture keeps lumping them into the same category.

(Aside: I imagine the Latinx community suffers the same kind of frustration, as an immigrant from Mexico and one from El Salvador and a native of Puerto Rico will have very different feelings about what constitutes as their culture. Or maybe I'm projecting.)

Anyway, where was I?

Oh. Right. Trying to make Shang-Chi sound not problematic. Ugh.

Look, when MCU decided to make Black Panther, they wisely decided the cast, crew, and especially writers and directors should probably, maybe, be of African descent. Both Ryan Coolger and Joe Robert Cole are black. I'm not saying they encompass all of African American experience, but they at least have a more nuanced view and a lived experience that helps them avoid fucking the story up.

Meanwhile, Shang-Chi has Dave Callaham, Destin Daniel Cretton, Andrew Lanham as screenwriters. Ah, yes, now that's a wide sampling of the Chinese American voices. 🙄 I'm sure all these non-Chinese Americans can truly capture the Chinese American experience.

I'm not against White people trying to understand a non-White culture. But Shang-Chi? This ain't it.