Quick post #2
This is why I bang on about racial representation. Thanks to the film ‘Olympus Has Fallen’ we are back to ye olde hackneyed representations of Asians, now, mightily conveniently, updated to North Korea. So timely. These negative portrayals have resulted in a swathe of racist anti-Asian sentiment ‘let’s kill Asians’ from people of all races (white, black, latino), all in the name of being American. Joy. See the Atlantic report here and my friend Phil Chung’s response (basically why are we still surprised by this) here
So much work still to do. What saddens me is that I am no longer even shocked by such comments. But one of these days, hate speech in tweets will lead to something and it won’t be pretty. I know the LA riots were fuelled by a whole series of events, but I can’t help but think that we are constantly on a knife edge. How do you get people to distinguish between fact and fiction? This is why that line of ‘it’s theatre, it’s imaginative’ really doesn’t wash when it comes to race on stage (and screen).
Theatrical Geographies 