Why Don't Asia's Heroes Look Asian?
Pick up the region's comic books and you'll see a deep-rooted racial bias
By NURY VITTACHI
Come with me to a place where many of the deepest, darkest, innermost thoughts on the super-sensitive subject of race are hidden. I visit it regularly, and what I find there never fails to shock me. The place is the comic-book section of the street-side newsstand. I have been addicted to such kiosks for 30 years, and in Asia, the message they offer differs greatly from the commonly accepted line on race.
This is a pet interest of mine, for two reasons. First, I once worked as a cartoonist myself. Second, while fate has given me the coffee-colored skin of a South Asian, my wife has the milk-tea look of a Caucasian and my adopted children the vanilla-latte appearance of the Chinese.
In modern societies, we say all races are considered equal. We tell children that the only correct attitude is to disregard racial differences completely. At the same time, we add that we are proud of being Chinese or South Asian or Irish or African-American or whatever. But we are lying. I spend most of my time in Asia, and our comic books--which surely encapsulate some of our favorite dreams and fantasies--reveal what we really think on the subject: Caucasians are superior, and we want to be like them.
Ouch! No! This cannot be true. It would be too painful. But let me show you the evidence. Every comic on the newsstand outside my office in Hong Kong depicts heroes with round eyes, straight European noses and fair hair. Not a single one of the 17 publications for sale features a hero or heroine with Chinese features. No character has straight black hair, narrow eyes or small, flat noses like the ones my children have.
Consider what artists call the "six-heads rule." A character's height is typically six times the length of his head--or seven times for an especially large Caucasian superhero. But if you want to portray a realistic, petite Japanese salaryman, the ratio is only four- or five-to-one. These and a host of other technical giveaways show that Hong Kong comic book heroes are, incontrovertibly and without exception, Caucasian.
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