by Takeo Rivera
So let’s get one thing out of the way: it’s probably safe to say that Marvel and Netflix’s Daredevil is the finest piece of television ever made in the superhero genre. With its stellar cast and consistently tight writing and direction, the show can easily go toe-to-toe with any other major serialized TV drama in this golden age of Mad Mens and Breaking Bads, elevating superherodom to an unequivocal status of high art in much the way Ronald D. Moore’s Battlestar Galactica elevated the space opera. And, as a cherry on top, Daredevil happens one of the most progressive shows of the genre; in particular, Matt Murdock battles not some alien Super-Wario intent on blowing up the planet with an ancient glowing Rubik’s cube, but a scion of urban “redevelopment” — read gentrification — in Wilson Fisk, and spends an unhealthy time fighting white collar crime and community displacement by punching the crap out of it.
But Daredevil also has one massive problem: Asians. That is, Asians are the problem, and Daredevil’s problem is that Asians are a problem.
It’s such a problem that every time I recommend this frickin show to fellow Asian Americans — usually emphatically, with liberal repetition of “omfg” — the response is pretty much a unanimous “Well, that was great, except for the RACISM.” And then I’m sheepishly like, “Uh yeah, that’s true, yup” and shrug it off and keep watching anyway, because yes, it is that good, but, BUT, at a certain point I came to realize that, in the words of prophetic white space man Jean-Luc Picard to Alfre Woodard, “The line must be drawn here! This far, no further!”
Right now, you’re either 1.) getting as defensive as an otaku blabbering on about the legitimacy of schoolgirl hentai and demanding that it is perfect in every possible way; 2.) shrugging like I’ve been and being like “yeah, but it’s still so good;” or 3.) asking “what is a Dare Devil? What is this internet thing? I live in the 1920s and I think eugenics are swell.” If you’re #3, I can’t help you, but guys, Daredevil is indeed pretty racist, and we probably shouldn’t excuse it.
Here’s how it goes down: The villainous conspirators of Daredevil consist of a cabal of capitalists and criminals; besides Wilson Fisk, there is Fisk’s lieutenant Wesley, corporate accountant Leland Owsley, the Ranskahov brothers of the Russian mob, and then the two Asians, the yakuza Nobu (played by Peter Shinkoda) and the triad queen Gao (Wai Ching Ho). In the first episode, we are introduced to this crew of malevolent plutocrats atop the roof of a skyscraper, and both Nobu and Gao are stoic, inscrutable, and do not speak English, communicating primarily through disapproving scowls.
Nobu and Gao each reappears at the end of the episode during a pulse-pounding montage of Murdock’s nemeses: Nobu overlooks a worksheet of the city plan for Hell’s Kitchen with a large kanji character menacingly drawn over several city blocks, while Gao regally hobbles through a dimly lit warehouse overseeing rows upon rows of blinded (and as we learn later, voluntarily blinded) Chinese workers packing heroin for distribution.
Obviously, both Nobu and Gao represent pretty long-standing Orientalist/Yellow Peril tropes and stereotypes. As my friend Miyoko Conley exclaimed to me over social media, Gao is “literally a Dragon Lady,” a ruthless science fictional Chinese lady with a propensity for vast threatening power. Gao’s Chinese drug workers, who voluntarily blinded themselves in service to her, reflect the longstanding orientalist notion that Asians, while competent, have no sense of independent thought and blindly (in this case, literally) follow authority, like a mindless horde!
They are even zombielike in their affectation; in Episode 12 “The Ones We Leave Behind,” Murdock attempts to liberate the blind workers, but instead they swarm around him, extending their arms mindlessly towards him and groaning in classic zombie fashion, pretty much providing proof of scholar Eric Hamako’s thesis that the contemporary zombie trend reflects post-9/11 orientalist anxieties.
And of course we have Nobu, the ninja-yakuza who you can pull straight out of William Gibson’s Neuromancer (more on him in a hot minute). All of these characters are portrayed as single-minded threats without any interiority, redeemability, or depth beyond their own menacing desire to spread their own form of evil.
I mean, damn, it’s an impressively comprehensive smorgasbord of Asian stereotypes, and they’re all things we’re fairly used to. But in some ways, despite its lack of originality in this category, I think Daredevil’s orientalism deserves some special attention for several reasons:
1. Daredevil is really good. Since the critical consensus is that Daredevil is the best thing since half-sheet paper towel perforations, it makes sense to ensure that said metaphorical paper towels aren’t pre-smeared with the viscous bacon grease of RACISM.
2. Daredevil owes Asia. Let’s face it: any rapid fire non-boxing martial arts flick owes something to Asia. Especially f’ing Daredevil, the blind super-martial artist hero who rights wrongs and fights for the disenfranchised, who comes straight from the blind swordsman Zatoichi in Japanese cinema (the first Zatoichi film even predates the first Daredevil appearance in Marvel comics by two years).
As NOC’s Bao Phi has already pointed out, there’s a frustrating and racist irony of white men appropriating Asian martial arts while not providing any depth to its Asian characters.
3. The Anti-Asianism is Very Specific and Targeted. Among the villains, Wilson Fisk is provided the most complexity and depth, seducing the viewer into sympathizing with him. The other white American villains Wesley and Leland are not specifically racialized in their roles and could be easily color-blindly swapped. The Russian mobsters are certainly ethnicized quite strongly throughout the show, but are given thorough background, and one of them even exhibits a change of heart and sacrifices himself to help Daredevil in his final moments. Nobu and Gao come only in one flavor: inscrutable mysterious menace. They aren’t villains who happen to be Asian; their Asianness is central to their villainousness. Yo Daredevil, Executive Order 9066 called — it wants its Asian treachery stereotypes back!
4. Daredevil problematically racializes urban displacement as Asian. I’m not going to argue that East Asian investment is indeed contributing to displacement of the urban oppressed, as is portrayed in Daredevil. In fact, the show’s confrontation of the issue in general is extremely commendable. But the biggest problem is that Asian Americans — many of whom are older Chinese ladies who don’t look unlike Gao — are quite often also the victims of such corporate displacement and gentrification. The visibility of these Asian corporate fiends, paired with the utter lack of Asian American characters — much less Asian American poor — reinforces a monolithic image of Asians as synonymous with “foreign oppressor.” It’s the kind of logic that motivated anti-Asian events from the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act all the way to the hate crime murder of Vincent Chin in Detroit a hundred years later in 1982.
5. Asian Lives Don’t Count as Lives. And this is the one that’s really heavy.
To explain what I mean by point #5, what was most stomach-wrenchingly disturbing was the treatment of Nobu in Episodes 9 and 11. By Episode 9, Murdock has become so incensed with Wilson Fisk that he contemplates literally killing him, a line that he has not crossed throughout the whole series due to his moral code. Episode 9 temporally cuts back and forth between the central narrative and the climactic battle scene Murdock has with Nobu, who is dressed in a red ninja outfit and wielding a swinging blade on a chain.
Much of Episode 9, entitled “Speak of the Devil,” consists of a beautifully rendered discussion Murdock has with his priest, discussing the ethical and theological implications of taking one life for the greater good. As one would probably imagine, the overall message from the conversation is that killing corrupts the righteous person who does so. Nevertheless, Murdock is pushed over the edge when his client, elderly resident Elena Cardenas, is assassinated, and sets out to kill Fisk, anyway.
So what does Murdock do? He ends up killing Nobu.
Nobu has laid a trap in a moon-lit abandoned building, and he and Murdock engage in a rather epic, brutal combat sequence through which Nobu has an upper hand most of the time. At the end, Murdock manages to bash Nobu into a barrel of gasoline, the fluid covering him thoroughly (foreshadowing!). Nobu gets up, flings his chain-blade thing at Murdock once more, Murdock deflects it, hitting the lamp above, causing sparks to rain down on Nobu, which of course proceed to set him on fire. As Nobu is incinerating, Fisk arrives on the scene, thanks Murdock for taking out his rival, and Murdock futilely attempts to fight Fisk before escaping with his life.
Now, I don’t have too much of a complaint with Murdock killing Nobu per se; it was even, in effect, accidental. But the biggest problem is that on the tortured ethical scale that Murdock struggles with, it does not even register. Two episodes later, Murdock is debriefing with his priest once more, and the priest asks him if he killed his target, and Murdock says, “No, I didn’t kill him. But I tried to.” There is literally no mention of the death of Nobu in this scene, which is so preoccupied with the ethical choice of taking lives. Thus, for Murdock, Nobu’s life doesn’t even register as a life. Even the life of Murdock’s greatest nemesis, white man Wilson Fisk, deserves consideration.
During the Vietnam War, General William Westmoreland infamously stated, “The Oriental doesn’t put the same high price on life as does a Westerner. Life is plentiful. Life is cheap in the Orient.” Such a statement, of course, served to justify the Westerner’s devaluing of the Oriental’s life; why value their lives when they themselves don’t value them? The world of Daredevil is a world in which Asians are willing to gouge out their eyes, and suicide bomb, to better serve their masters; these are not lives worth a second thought.
Depending on your stomach for epistemic violence, this is a pretty hard pill to swallow. And yet, I’m still out there recommending Daredevil to all my friends due to its immense aesthetic rigor. It’s just important for people to know what they’re getting into, or, even better, for Marvel to dramatically improve the race politics within what currently stands as its most impressive franchise.
Reblogged this on Tintorera and commented:
An insightful take on Asian stereotypes
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Reblogged this on Monty On Movies.
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It really bothered me that the only “main” character of color, Claire was on screen for like 4 episodes and was circumstantial to the reality of our leading man’s humanity, but the Asian presence being so biased and full of stereotypes hadn’t even occurred to me. I LOVED the show. And I get IT! Nobu not being considered a life, WOW! Stunning that I somehow missed that, and I suspect most did in the following convo with the Priest. Something about your logic in your 4th bullet doesn’t resonate with me as my view of global politics holds the U.S. gov’t and corporations solely responsible for displacement on all fronts. Otherwise its a great piece saying what hasn’t been said yet. Much appreciated. Most of what we watch is racist, either overtly or through omission. Even the most well executed and entertaining shows we love to watch are likely problematic. It’s important to recognize.
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I want to defend the extensive background of Madame Gao, who she is and who she will be. I wanna make points about the importance of the specific area Nobu wishes to claim. I wanna jump in and defend my comics with all my energy…
But all that comic-logic and all my “but the storylines dictate” will not negate your very valid points.
Sadly, all these story-essential characters and plot points, written long ago when these stereotypes were (unfortunately) more accepted are EVERYTHING you said…
So I’ll agree with you.. and guiltily wait for the next season of DD.
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Very true about Nobu and Gao. I’ve often noticed that superheroes “no killing” rule often doesn’t apply to minority characters. I also thought it was very strange that Nobu and Gao didn’t get any flashbacks to flesh out their characters the way the Russians did. When you have 13 episodes and five enemies working together (the Russians, Nobu, Gao, Fisk and Owlsley) you can afford to take some time and make them all 3 dimensional characters. Sadly they relied on stereotypes to communicate character and the story was poorer for it. I was angry at Nobu’s death, mainly because I would have loved to see a rematch (why kill such a great fighter so early) and superheroes shouldn’t kill people they should imprison them i.e. The Flash, post season 2 Arrow, and traditional Batman via Arkham Asylum. And I still have many questions about Gao, which will hopefully be answered in season 2. I was also disappointed in the choice of Scott Glenn (who gives off the vibe of David Carradine) as little Matt Murdock’s martial arts instructor. Cultural appropriation indeed. I wonder if they even considered casting an Asian actor/actress for that role.
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Excellent critique! I am so glad to see someone lay all those points out so clearly. Actually, when a show is really well done and powerful I think it’s even more important to point out any underlying troubles it has. If it’s really good people are more likely to swallow any troublesome underlying stereotypes and that is dangerous. Being an excellent work of art should not exclude accountability for reenforcing damaging patterns of thought. DD’s very influence and excellence in many ways should make it even more important that it not try to package all those good things with something poisonous. That is how prejudices get retold over and over and over. Because nobody notices or it’s all overshadowed in all the praise.
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Smart and insightful commentary.
The main trap that this interpretation of Daredevil fell into was that it was based on Frank Miller’s run of DD in the 80s. Makes sense at first, it was that iconic run where the magazine hit the height of its popularity. But the man doesn’t just paint with a broad brush, he uses a roller, and he puts cookie cutter Asian villians in everything (see his run on Wolverine as one of countless examples). So, additional interpretation would’ve been required to humanize these one-dimensional characters. Could it be done? Yeah, the writers of this show did a spectacular job with Wilson Fisk. Did they do it? Well, the fact that Gao and Nobu have any personality is a huge improvement over Miller, but clearly the writers didn’t do enough.
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Never been much of a Daredevil fan and you have just made me want to watch this show even less. Granted, racist & stereotypical portrayal of an ethnic group is a much better reason to not watch it than “he’s probably not even going to put on the damn costume until the final shot of season 1″.
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Reblogged this on blacklightmafia.
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this Is bullshit. Complaining because Asians are cast as competent criminals in a story about competent CRIMINALS is stupid. complaining that there wasn’t enough back story for them is also shit because the Russians, kingpins lawyer and the banker where given no significant back story either (all we really know about the Russians is that they are gangsters who kidnap children) in fact at least the show hints to further exploration of the history of the Asian characters. the point about daredevil not showing remorse for ACCIDENTALLY killing nobu (who was trying to kill him) is more relevant but if a guy shoots at me and the bullet ends up killing him I don’t think I would take responsibility for that.
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Let’s ask a Russian viewer in America how they react to the show’s depiction.
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Reblogged this on Corner Store Press and commented:
Really great breakdown here. I haven’t watched the show yet but I’ve seen all the criticisms. This is a nice thorough explanation of the problem with the show.
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Great post! I really liked Daredevil but hadn’t thought about this side of its representation issues.
I will say I suspect that Gao’s storyline is far from over and her motives are likely among the more complex out of the initial cabal. I actually liked her the most out of Wilson’s co-conspirators and thought she came off surprisingly warm. Gao was actually more of a smiler than a scowler; Nobu on the other hand was always pretty one note.
It was a little odd Matt wasn’t more broken up about his Ninja adversary combusting like that, but you can add it to the long list of “If you trigger you’re own doom, I didn’t kill you.” incidents that make up so many on-screen-villain-deaths-that-heroe-are-kind-of-okay-with. Also, whilst on fire Nobu made the call to go in for 1 last jump kick, opposed to hopping into the immediately available bay (that flaming jump kick was super bad-ass, so maybe it was the right call).
Much like Gao, Nobu’s ninja death cult still has a part to play, so let’s hope for a more nuanced character to emerge from it in season 2. Also there is a pretty much a 1 to 1 Zatoichi character kicking around in the Daredevil mythos that could lend a hand to acutally devloped Asian characters as well.
Thanks for the insight, and here’s hoping season 2 does at least a little bit better. In the mean time brace for Iron Fist.
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On the isssue of Scott Glenn, I have no issue with that. Demanding he be Asian is delving into the same argument that Heimdall be white in the Thor flicks, or the believability that the Kingpin could be African American. If I wanted a blind Filipino kalista, descended from Princess Josephine, to train the hero of my story I’d look elsewhere. Stick was always an enigma and making him of Asian descent doesn’t improve the character, in my opinion. Marvel stuck with canon and they hired a great actor for it.
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“Murdock says, ‘No, I didn’t kill him. But I tried to.’ There is literally no mention of the death of Nobu in this scene, which is so preoccupied with the ethical choice of taking lives. Thus, for Murdock, Nobu’s life doesn’t even register as a life.”
As a Taiwanese-American, I was thinking the exact same thing when the scene played out: in my head, I was half-jokingly thinking Murdock should have replied, “No, I didn’t kill him, but I did kill someone else while I was there instead.” :-P
That being said–and I hope I’m not sounding *too* defensive about how things played out–I don’t think the big reason it was downplayed by Matt is because Nobu’s life doesn’t “register as a life” per se, but rather, because Matt was not going to the warehouse with the intent to kill Nobu or anyone else except Fisk himself. The whole morality issue & talking things over with the priest, those weigh heavily on Matt Murdock’s conscience because it is first-degree (pre-meditated) murder, which is vastly different from second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter, or accidentally killing in self-defense, which is what I’m guessing he might have viewed Nobu’s death more as…? Most people will draw distinctions between these various types of “killing”, and Matt is even more likely to do so considering the fact that he is a lawyer & would have to make such distinctions even clearer. I imagine he would have happily subdued Nobu if he’d been able to do so, but Nobu was clearly the superior fighter, & things took a quick turn from bad to worse for Daredevil in that fight; and even in the end, it seemed almost more accidental than intentional that Nobu caught on fire…
But yes, you do have a lot of valid points, & I do wish the writers had taken the time to flesh out the Asian characters a bit more the way they did with the Russian characters.
Regardless, I’ve been happy with the series & do look forward to season 2.
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There are no doubt some excellent points made here.. The comic genre does stereotype Asian characters, even when they are reinvented in the modern world.
Since the Hand Ninja clan will be one of DareDevil’s biggest adversaries, (Nobu was no doubt the first introduction to them) and Gao will definitely connect to the Iron Fist storyline later, I think it would be a great thing to react out to Marvel publically and in great numbers before those scripts are finished.
The entire Defenders story has a lot of Asian characters and stories, you have only seen the tip of the iceberg of what will come.
“Murdock says, ‘No, I didn’t kill him. But I tried to.’ There is literally no mention of the death of Nobu in this scene, which is so preoccupied with the ethical choice of taking lives. Thus, for Murdock, Nobu’s life doesn’t even register as a life.” This is a very true statement and one that passed me by completely..
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The part in your essay about Nobu’s death not registering hit me like a ton of bricks. I got some work to do in understanding the plight of others.
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Hmm.. Asians do not have a monopoly on what is called ‘marital arts’. Many other cultures including those in Africa have had their own versions of “martial arts” .
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That’s very true. It’s a double edge sword of wanting Asian presentation in mainstream media. Many times it’s via martial arts. Since East Asian cinema (Hong Kong and Japanese) showcased Martial Arts films from Wuxia genre of the Shaw Brothers to Bruce Lee and Japanese with Samurais and Sonny Cheeba. Therefore, when something present itself with many references of the Eastern arts, a lot of Asian actors see it as a way to get work. Other the hand, of course, they would also like to play roles in such a genre where they could be more like Tony Starks and Bruce Banner utilizing their intelligence.
You can also say, Caucasian don’t have a monopoly on being an altruist hero or being able to be mutated with super powers and etc.
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