I got some thoughts on this! If you trust me, have a read. I promise I won't be too angry and scoldy, I just want to give you some contemporary and historical context to actually have an informed discussion about this in the first place. https://twitter.com/WilliamD1123/status/1287305443207938048

Exhibit A
Daredevil is one of those "I don't kill" superheroes. The rare times he does kill, he goes to Catholic confession for it. When he kills Nobu, there's no confession scene. Nobody cared. He didn't care. The fans didn't care. His life didn't matter.

Exhibit B
Nolan Batman doesn't kill. Unless it's a building full of Asian ninja people. He burns down the place with Ken Watanabe inside. But hey he saves Qui-Gon! So it's OK! No moral crisis necessary!

Exhibit C
Let's go to real life. Remember the mass shooter Elliot Rodger? He's remembered as an incel misogynist. But did you know his first victims were his Chinese roomates? It was a racially motivated killing. But I don't recall it being covered this way when it happened.

Elliot Rodget HATED Asians. He wrote about it extensively in his diary. He was half Asian himself, but felt his white blood made him superior. His white father was a Hollywood director by the way. He worked on The Hunger Games.

So how did America (and much of the "Western" world in general) become so desensitized to violence against Asians? Well here are a few big events ...

There was the Opium Wars, where China literally lost it's "War on Drugs" to dope peddling Brits. But in modern history books this is usually presented as "those weak drug addicted Chinese lost a war to the British. The End."

There's the horrific history of Colonialism in Asia (and all across the world really). It's too big for me to cover here, but just look into any country that was colonized. The "Age of Enlightenment" was also the age of DEEP systemic racism that still has deep roots to this day.

The US had the "Chinese Exclusion Act." It was the only time in history that an entire race was barred from immigrating to America. There was a case where an American woman, for the crime of marrying a Chinese man, lost her citizenship and was deported to China.

During World War 2 the US rounded up Japanese Americans into internment camps. Their lives were uprooted and broken. Many lost everything. Their life savings, their belongings, their property. Just wiped out.

But something I'd like to focus your attention on is the Vietnam War. I'm sure you've seen a movie or two about it. Maybe you learned about it in history class. It's a complex issue and I can't possibly sum it up on Twitter.

But I think it's generally agreed upon that the Vietnam War was when American "lost it's innocence." It was the first war where the press no longer waited for government approval to show footage. Journalists reported from the ground and showed how UGLY war actually was.

It was the first time in American history that regular citizens were getting a relatively unfiltered look at the ugly horrible mess that is war. The rose tinted glasses came off. And much of this was conveyed with images of dead Asian bodies.

If you grew up in North America, think about every time you've seen an actual dead person in mainstream or educational media. Odds were it was a dead Asian person. Probably from the Vietnam War.

The calm burning monk. The Vietcong soldier in the middle of getting his head blown off. The naked little girl, running in terror, her clothes melted off from napalm. These are iconic anti-war images. But they're also incredibly depersonalized. More symbols than actual people.

This kind of imagery helped to end the Vietnam War. But they also fatigued the collective conscious of America. And they set the conscious or unconscious expectation that it's normal for Asian people to ... be dead.

Asians have some of the worst representation in Hollywood. They are on screen far less often than White, Black and Hispanic people. Even when you factor in that Asians are more of a minority in America, their on-screen numbers are still worse.

So, Asians historically have some of the worst representation in American media. But there's also less apprehension about showing Asians dying in both fiction and the news.

I was just talking to an American friend about all this. He told me that when Kenji Goto was beheaded by ISIS he heard about it on the radio, where without warning, they played audio of the Japanese man begging for his life in his last moments.

When was the last time that without warning, mainstream media showed you a white person burning alive? Getting their head blown off? A naked mutilated little white girl running for her life? A white man begging for his life? These things are "normalized" when it comes to Asians.

(It's also pretty normalized for other races, as you can see with how often the news shows footage of Black Americans being killed)

(And just to be clear, don't get my tone wrong. I'm not trying to guilt anyone. I'm just describing how things are. And I'm definitely not saying "I want to see MORE dead white people!" Please dont misconstrue what I'm saying in bad faith. Social Media doesn't have to suck!)

That's how you arrive at Daredevil, a very character driven show about the hero's fight against evil externally and internally. A show where he AGONIZES over killing. But he doesn't bat an eye at killing an Asian dude. And the fans don't seem to notice either!

(Yes I know Nobu comes back later, but come on he was SUPER DEAD in that season! He's literally prone and burning on the ground lol. Absolutely no reason for anyone, including Daredevil to think he survived)

And now that I hear this news from Nobu's actor, Peter Shinkoda, about how the 4-time Eisner Award winning, 2-time Emmy Nominated, Peoabody Award-winning writer Jeph Loeb repeatedly said "Nobody cares about Chinese people and Asian people," I'm not surprised in the slightest.

When I hear that Joph Loeb also instructed the writers to diminish the story arcs for the Asian characters I was also not surprised. I'm used to this stuff happening in Hollywood.

But what DOES surprise me is that for once in my life, people seem to actually care and see that "hey, maybe this isn't right!" when it comes to Asian American issues. So hey, that's nice!

I hope this thread has been informative. I encourage you to have polite, respectful discussions about this. Try to be decent to each other, even if you disagree. But hey I'm not your mom! Do whatever you want. I really do hope this thread helped tho!

LOVE&PEACE

Thanks a ton if you read this far! If you enjoyed this thread please know that I often write about videogames, animation and art in general with a long view for historical context. I treat Twitter like a blog. But I also have a proper website here: https://art-eater.com/articles