{"id":310,"date":"2014-11-10T21:51:17","date_gmt":"2014-11-10T21:51:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/now\/?p=310"},"modified":"2015-03-13T20:03:54","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T20:03:54","slug":"big-hero-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/now\/big-hero-6\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Big Hero 6’ shows that an Asian American cast can top the box office"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Big<\/a>

Big Hero 6 stars (L to R): Hiro Hamada, Baymax & GoGo Tomago. Source: disney.wikia.com<\/a>. \u00a92014 Disney. All Rights Reserved.<\/p><\/div>\n

This past weekend’s box office numbers are in, and Disney’s latest project\u00a0Big Hero 6<\/em>\u00a0stands soundly on top. This might not come as a big surprise, considering that\u00a0Frozen<\/em>-fever is still holding every auntie’s TV hostage<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 but the film still breaks ground, especially in the scope of Asian Americans in cinema. And Hollywood should take note.<\/p>\n

\"Daneil<\/a>

Daneil Henney (left) and Ryan Potter (right), co-stars of Big Hero 6. Source: sanfransokyo-bae.tumblr.com<\/a> (yes, that’s a real URL)<\/p><\/div>\n

Big Hero 6<\/em>\u00a0is a robotic sci-fi tale that revolves\u00a0around\u00a0Hiro Hamada,\u00a0 Disney’s first explicitly mixed-heritage protagonist. Hamada is voiced by Ryan Potter, who is of Japanese and Caucasian descent himself (our friends at CAAM did\u00a0a great interview<\/a>). In fact, the entire film is placed in a “Hapa environment” of sorts, set in San Fransokyo, an architectural and cultural\u00a0hybrid of the cities the name references.<\/p>\n

Casting Asian Americans isn’t new to Disney, whose\u00a0Mulan<\/em> in 1998 was voiced<\/a> by Ming-Na Wen, BD Wong and George Takei, among others. \u00a0Still, the studio has been inconsistent when it comes to this matter \u2013\u00a0the lead role in\u00a0Lilo & Stitch<\/em>\u00a0wasn’t voiced<\/a> by a Hawaiian (or an Asian Pacific American, for that matter), and we’d have to go as far back as\u00a0Aladdin\u00a0<\/em>or even The Jungle Book<\/i> to locate another Disney animation starring characters from a broader Asian origin (let’s pretend the Siamese Cats from\u00a0Lady and the Tramp<\/em> never happened). Among those mentioned\u00a0films, the only voice actor of Asian descent was Lea Salonga for Princess Jasmine’s singing parts.\u00a0So while Big Hero 6<\/em>\u00a0is a fictitious metropolis which never reveals what country it’s actually in, its cultural mash-up of settings, characters and themes means it could very well be Disney’s\u00a0first Asian\/American film that actually stars Asian American actors.<\/p>\n

Hollywood’s reputation for\u00a0placing\u00a0white actors in\u00a0Asian roles is a tale as old as time\u00a0\u2013 from Goku in Dragonball: Evolution<\/em>\u00a0to Aang in The Last Airbender<\/em>, glossing over the past century of Asian roles in American film would show\u00a0little progress since Paul Muni and Luise Rainer donned yellowface<\/a>\u00a0in 1937’s\u00a0The Good Earth<\/em>. The track record for animation hasn’t been fantastic either, with white actors playing the lead roles in\u00a0both<\/a>\u00a0Avatar<\/a> series’ and the English dubs for\u00a0Dragonball Z<\/a>\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0Pokemon<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>(I just ruined my childhood going through\u00a0those links, BTW. You’re welcome).<\/p>\n

\"superheroes\"<\/a>

SmithsonianAPA’s greeting card to Comic-Con 2013<\/p><\/div>\n

I’m not the only one who has been griped by this cinematic phenomenon. When 2010’s\u00a0The Last Airbender<\/em> revealed an all-white cast (minus Dev Patel as the villain, of course), it caused such an uproar that an entire website called Racebending<\/a>\u00a0was launched against the production, and\u00a0multiple<\/a>\u00a0petitions<\/a>\u00a0continue<\/a> to<\/a> call for a reboot of the franchise. Director M. Night Shyamalan, who’s Indian American himself, seemed aloof about the matter, insisting that the diversity of the cast and crew was on par with the United Nations<\/a>. Those who have tried to actually find logic in prioritizing white actors in these roles have alluded to Asian and Asian American actors having less audience\u00a0appeal than white actors, despite the fact that these films have<\/a> failed<\/a> among critics and fans alike.<\/p>\n

Enter\u00a0Big Hero 6<\/em>,\u00a0adapted from an obscure Marvel series about a Japanese counterpart to\u00a0the Avengers<\/a>. Unlike other Marvel titles like\u00a0X-Men<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 which has an existing fanbase, or other Disney films like\u00a0Maleficent<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 which is based on a childhood classic,\u00a0Big Hero 6<\/em> relies on Disney’s promotion engine and, more importantly, its characters and storyline. Merely being a Disney film hasn’t always been a shoe-in (anyone watching\u00a0The Rescuers: Down Under<\/em>\u00a0tonight?), but critics and audiences have been singing this one’s praises since it opened at the Tokyo International Film Festival late last month.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A night view of San Fransokyo, the make-believe home of the Big Hero 6. Source: disney.wikia.com<\/a>. \u00a92014 Disney. All Rights Reserved.<\/p><\/div>\n

Debuting an awesome cartoon about Asians in the land\u00a0known for cranking out awesome cartoons about Asians is a tough job for anyone, but\u00a0Big Hero 6<\/em>‘s ability to exhibit\u00a0cultural tropes between America and Japan without being overly cheesy or offensive was impressive even to a cinema Grinch like me. Sure, I scoffed a bit at the pagoda-topped Golden Gate Bridge, but I also couldn’t help but feel validated to hear someone on the big screen say “red bean paste” as casually as one would say “hot dog.” The cast is diverse enough to make me suspect at least one member of the talent scout was\u00a0a former member of the Third World Liberation Front \u2013 Potter, along with Daniel Henney, Jamie Chung, Damon Wayans, Jr. and G\u00e9nesis Rodr\u00edguez make\u00a0T.J. Miller\u00a0and Scott Adsit’s roles the only two\u00a0not filled by an actor of color.<\/p>\n

\""Big<\/a>

“Big Hero 6” \u00a92014 Disney. All Rights Reserved.<\/p><\/div>\n

I must say that I left the film with a bittersweet feeling, as I was disappointed when I didn’t see any Asian American names in the credits among the top-level crew \u2013 this is a testament to the fact that much progress is yet to be made.\u00a0But\u00a0where\u00a0Big Hero 6<\/em>\u00a0does succeed\u00a0is that it actually tried what many of us knew would work all along \u2013\u00a0make characters that reflect the audience, and hire actors who reflect those characters. So if anyone else in Hollywood is still wondering if our audiences are ready to see more Asian Pacific Americans\u00a0in the big screen, I’ll leave you with yet another box office dominator:<\/p>\n

\"therock\"<\/a><\/p>\n

NOTE: Are you interested in seeing more films where Asian Pacific American actors are playing Asian Pacific American characters?? Come by the Baird\u00a0Auditorium at the National Museum of Natural History on Saturday November 15 for the Beyond Bollywood Indian American Film Festival!!<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\"bbff\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Disney’s latest hit stars Ryan Potter, Daniel Henney and Jamie Chung as Asian American leads.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":319,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[56,52,54,53,55],"class_list":["post-310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apa-everywhere","tag-asian-american-representation","tag-big-hero-6","tag-cinema","tag-disney","tag-hollywood"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":324,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions\/324"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}