Tag: ethnicity

Cartoon blog 45: Representation in creators vs representation in characters

Hey here is something that never happens to me. When I’m watching a show like Breaking Bad, I don’t say to myself : “Wow, this is so good, I wish there was an Indian character to represent me in the show.”

I respect representation as long as it comes from the author, or the auteur depending on whether they have an original vision or not. I’ve heard arguments especially for popular intellectual properties that if there is no representation then the show runner, the writers, the director, the creator, etc, must be racist.

Let’s say there was an Indian antagonist, a brutal bad guy, should I be offended that the representation is wrong?

I firmly believe that we should let the people tell good stories. I’ll enjoy good honest stories because it will reflect the human experience accurately without any required filters. And since I happen to be human, so I can relate.

But forcefully inserting characters just to show you are progressive makes me cringe.

OK let’s say representation becomes a requirement for the creative work, for storytelling, how would the creators know what they define as representation is objectively correct or is proportionate to the actual real human population of the world?

And if the studio starts conducting surveys to dictate what characters the author should and shouldn’t use in a story, it stops being true characters, and start becoming ingredients in a product, NOT a work of ART.

Seth Godin beautifully said that ART is what Humans make, well if the ART is flawed, doesn’t it make it more HUMAN?

I’ve said it before I’ll say it again ART is all about how people feel when they create it and how they feel when they enjoy it. If you want real representation I vote for representation of creators, not artificial extracts included in a Art made into a commodity.

If you are fighting for representation, STOP FIGHTING, START CREATING. Create so much and so creatively that they can’t ignore your voice.

Bonne journée.

Cartoon blog day 43: Interracial relationships

Before you think about it, the title is totally click-baity. The word “race” is still a question to me. I once heard one of my idols, the author Alan Moore say that in the human genome there are no traces of race, it is a human construct, essentially Race is an illusion. (Note to self: Find out for once and for all if race is still a valid word to be used).

To put it in context, before what I tell you what happened, several days earlier I was in a meetup to network people because I was looking for a job, and I met this Indian guy to whom I said something within the lines of: I understand my Boris can be strange for people to hear, because I am probably the only Indian Boris in the world. But it shouldn’t be a surprise to see people from different cultures sitting around a table hanging out. 

For a short time I used to live with my friends because I didn’t have a job so I couldn’t afford to pay for an condo. Back then I used to have habit: take the laptop in my backpack, walk around the mall with air conditioning because it was too hot outside and have the usual conversations with myself, sit down somewhere and let the words pour on the computer with the aim of organizing them later in form of a blog post (or hopefully several blog posts).

As I got on the escalator going up, I noticed something which took me off guard. Something that made me think about my comment mentioned above that people from different culture spending time together, living together should be completely normal.

What I saw was new but beautiful, I saw on my right an interracial couple on the escalator going down, so far so good right? But wait it was an Asian man and an Indian woman. Now why was that surprising to me? Have you been surprised like this before? Have you thought why?

As humans I believe we are programmed to see patterns everywhere, that’s how we went from hunters (figuring out at what time it was good to hunt) to farmers (planning the harvest) to corporate executives who use forecasts to build strategies. But if you have to understand this is the first time I see this configuration and I have lived in India, in France, in UK, in Germany and now in Thailand. 

I just realized that, all ethnicities mix but some ethnicities mix more than others. 

Bonne journée..

cartoon blog day 40: SPLIT

I believe there is an unexpressed frustration or suffering people in minority groups go through. Let’s take the example of European expats in Asia. I know this is true in India, I have discovered it’s similar in Thailand too when it comes to the way Caucasian people are perceived. To put it simply almost everybody thinks Caucasian people are rich. 

Food panda is a delivery service in Thailand. When I  was talking to someone in a meetup event from Japan. He expressed his surprise to see a Caucasian person riding a food panda scooter. 

Of course, there are reasons for this, we see images of privilege, the higher quality lifestyle from Europe, the United States and so on, not to mention the exchange rate of currencies. 

No matter where you are from, travelling to a country which is not even aware of your mother tongue can throw you off, however, it’s an experience I recommend to everyone. 

No matter how different the experiences are just remember to not be afraid, by putting yourself out of your comfort zone you have taken to road to wisdom and humility.

If you can’t afford to travel, how do you travel without travelling? READ BOOKS.  

Bonne journée.