Dear Jason Wu, why does the only East Asian guy in your Fashion Royalty series have to be a ninja? Aren’t YOU sick of people thinking all Asians know martial arts and kung fu?
mister ninja
Why couldn’t he be… umm… a designer? Or a photographer… or chef even?
jason wu = asian guy = designer
regular guy
If you ever add a South Asian guy to your set of characters, please don’t make him a call centre guy no matter how exciting his secret identity is… thanks.
Tags: doll designers, east asian, fashion royalty, integrity toys, male dolls, stereotypes
Call Centre Guy … ROTFLMBO! People LOATHE Call Center staff.
When I saw last year’s Takeo Mizutani, I thought, d–n he looks great in that suit. Oh, he’s got a cool sword. The ninja angle didn’t register with me much until you mentioned it. But no, it isn’t fair to make the only East Asian male figure be a ninja.
Then again, Takeo would look great in dramatic poses. And I can see ALL of my FR guy (Luke doing martial arts. But then again, that isn’t in his storyline – don’t think so anyway.)
Good point.
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Therese Reply:
July 3rd, 2009 at 8:59 am
I’d read Takeo’s profile and pretty much gagged at the ninja part… ninja? Geez, haven’t I heard that before (I’m of East Asian background too)… and the most worrying part is, another East Asian guy (Jason Wu) designed him!
Of course, Jason Wu is not an American Native (by that I mean, American born and raised not actual Indigenous American) so he might be forgiven for not being completely aware of such stereotypes in the “West” but he seems to be a savvy intelligent dude and has spent a lot of his life in America and other “Western” countries to recognise this.
Aside, I’m guessing that making Takeo a Yakuza member would probably be a bit too scary for FR storylines. But imagine the tattoos, how cool would they be!
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Therese Reply:
July 3rd, 2009 at 9:03 am
BTW, being a Call Centre Worker is actually seen as a respectable profession in India so I’m not bagging out the job, just the stereotype. Now, Bollywood dancer/actor? That’s not so bad because it has the glamour to fit into the FR storylines – they already have Isha anyway…
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I laughed when you dropped that ‘call center’ phrase. It has a lot of stereotypes attached to it.
Thank you for raising the point on stereotyping Asians with martial arts.
I guess Jason Wu find it hard to create an Asian looking dolls without the props. Take away that samurai’s sword, and I find it hard to call him Asian.
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I’m laughing so hard!!!!!!!!!LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLL!! Why did Can Takeo have to be a ninja? Couldn’t he just be a plan old spy, but a very cool one! I love Jason Wu! I saw him at the last showing for the doll of 2008 and maybe next year I will grow a backbone to talk to him! Jason is very cute in Person! But I do wish he did something different with the First Takeo and I glad the 2nd one is really cool!
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I just about peed my pants when I read this entry! OMG–it didn’t occur to me at all, either, that Takeo had a sword. I associated the sword with something else, actually–well, I’ll just leave it at that!
LOVE your blog. I’m posting a new link to your feed on my blog–I still have your Blogspot link on mine.
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Therese Reply:
July 31st, 2009 at 1:28 am
hey thanks for commenting Alison
I don’t update too much at blogspot nowadays but I still use that account to comment on other blogs
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I felt the same way about Jason’s Monsiuer Z “Jungle Fever” doll. This doll is so fierce looking I just ordered her last week but I was so disappointed in her title. Hello! WTF!
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