Dear Care & Feeding: Romance of the Three Kingdoms

[minoanmiss]

Content advisory: discussion of cultural appropriation and whitewashing



My son “Owen” is a theater kid. His school is doing an adaptation of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a Chinese historical/epic.
It’s not 100 percent finalized, but it looks like he’ll get the part of Sun Quan, which is apparently the third largest role in the play. However, we’re white and our family roots come from Germany and Poland. I do not see how Owen can take a major role as a Chinese historical figure without inevitably whitewashing actual Asian history. When I told him my concerns, he sarcastically asked who should take the role, because apparently there’s only one person of Chinese descent in the theater club and she’s not angling for a male part.

I think that under these circumstances, it is completely irresponsible for a school to put on a production which purports to display Chinese history. The only ethical option in my view is to get the play pulled. But I’m not sure how to go about doing that. I only vaguely know the woman who runs the theater club, and I’m sure if I just come in and tell her how insensitive the entire project is, she’ll shut down. Should I be going to the parents of the other children in this club, try to present some kind of united front here? I don’t really have any experience organizing something like this.

—Holding onto Integrity

Dear Holding On,

First: Have you read the play? If not, do! You could also ask to attend a couple of rehearsals. If you see anyone in yellowface or hear a fake accent, by all means put a stop to it. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with asking questions or sharing some of your concerns with the school, but right now you’re in a bit of a rush to condemn this production before you’ve learned much about it.

Not sure it’s possible to “whitewash actual Asian history,” since that actual history, by definition, is of Asia. Like, no one in the audience is going to get the impression that the real Sun Quan was a white kid just because your son is a white kid. This isn’t like those (fictional) movies where some white dude shows up to save China or Japan; nor is it like The Mikado (perhaps my most problematic fave, alas) or Miss Saigon, outdated shows written by white men that rely on tropes and stereotypes. The play your son’s school has chosen is based on a Chinese historical epic, centered on Chinese people, written by a Chinese person—all of which should and hopefully will be made very clear to the audience.

Is Romance of the Three Kingdoms a strange and kind of awkward choice for a school without many Chinese kids? Definitely. But there are ways it could be approached with genuine respect for the source material, which in and of itself is neither reductive nor harmful. To look on the brightest possible side, this play could introduce a bunch of students to a piece of Chinese history they might not learn otherwise. Obviously, I am just one person and no one has elected me Official Arbiter of What Is and Isn’t Asian Appropriation, but I think you can probably slow your roll and try to get a little more information before you start an organized crusade against this production.

Comments

[minoanmiss]

I think LW has the right spirit but she's very confused, to invert the popular quotation.

It makes me sad in my melanin when people interpret refraining from cultural appropriation to mean holding off on sharing culture. I think the drama club would be whitewashing if, for instance, they moved the story to the 100 Years' War in Germany and environs, thus giving people the impression the story is based in Europe. In fact I'm glad they're not doing something like that. And I hope with the columnist they're not going to put the cast in yellowface. THAT would be awful.

I mostly like the advice but I feel like there's something missing. Will see if the discussion brings it out.

[jadelennox]

it can get weird sometimes when theatre groups make these choices, but there's no evidence that Owen's school is doing the weird things. For example, when entirely non Jewish groups do Fiddler, I cringe, but that's a story about being a member of an oppressed minority culture under constant threat of both violence and assimilation. And even then the cringe is worry, not immediate jump to cancellation.

(Also, a lot of context is missing. One kid of Chinese descent in the theatre group implies a very non-Asian school, but is it? Are there other Asian-descent kids in the group who aren't of Chinese descent? What about the student body as a whole? Are the rest of the kids white, or is there a different racial makeup? Those are contextual things I'd be looking at in my Fiddler example -- a white church doing Fiddler is wicked different from a local community theatre group in a racially and religiously diverse community.)

Anyway, there's legit ways the LW should approach this, and they need to start by not making Owen their enemy, so they can be an observer of the process. Yellowface, fake accents, ahistorical costumes and set dressing out of Orientalist designs, those are all major red flags that they could raise -- if they're happening. And those can be raised respectfully and in partnership with a school theatre club director who is probably overworked and functioning in a panopticon. Hell, they probably want parent volunteers for the club. If LW and Owen aren't fighting, LW can volunteer to help with the costumes and sets.

If they have a relationship with the parents of the Chinese-American student in the club, they could ask those parents if they want LW to speak up. But also, they clearly don't have that relationship. And it would have to be an incredibly close relationship to make that conversation okay, anyway.

Honestly I'd think the best thing for LW to do is dial it back about 11 degrees, then have a conversation with Owen where they apologize for freaking out and then explain about the various red flags, explain why they're harmful, and ask Owen to reach out if anything happens that he wants help navigating. Give him information. and then trust him.

And then congratulate their kid for getting the part, ffs.

[ellen_fremedon]

Yeah, and a school play isn't a professional production. There are definitely shows that professional companies should simply not attempt if they can't get talent in the appropriate demographics for the roles. But a high school play is fundamentally about providing educational opportunities for the students it has--and, I think, has a lot more latitude in making casting decisions than a company that's hiring talent in from outside the community.

And I grew up in a small Midwestern town with no Jewish families, and I played Fruma-Sarah in my high school's production of Fiddler. I would not have had the context to recognize Jewish stereotypes at the time, but looking back, I do think our drama coach did a good job of avoiding them, and of giving us desperately needed context. (He had to teach us all how to pronounce "mazel tov.") We certainly all needed a 101-level exposure to Jewish culture and history, and there are worse places to start than Fiddler. We learned a lot.

But it would have been horribly mortifying to any Jewish audience members to watch us hack our way through.

Were there any? I don't know why anyone would have come from out of town to see it, but it was open to the public. Where does 'realistic assessment of local audience demographics' turn into 'functional exclusion'? Hell if I know.

[full_metal_ox]

For example, when entirely non Jewish groups do Fiddler, I cringe, but that's a story about being a member of an oppressed minority culture under constant threat of both violence and assimilation. And even then the cringe is worry, not immediate jump to cancellation.

I’m recalling a Tumblr post pointing out that, to Jews, Fiddler on the Roof is a horror story (and one commenter observes that the way subsequent history played out qualifies it as a horror documentary:

https://vaspider.tumblr.com/post/768843189488599040

(Also, a lot of context is missing. One kid of Chinese descent in the theatre group implies a very non-Asian school, but is it? Are there other Asian-descent kids in the group who aren't of Chinese descent? What about the student body as a whole? Are the rest of the kids white, or is there a different racial makeup? Those are contextual things I'd be looking at in my Fiddler example -- a white church doing Fiddler is wicked different from a local community theatre group in a racially and religiously diverse community.)

Another thought: is the lone Chinese kid in the theater group being put on the spot as The Official Consultant On Sinostuff (And Permission Slip Clerk?)

[minoanmiss]

oooh, that last point is an EXCELLENT one. (All yur points are good but taht last one resonated with me for obvious reasons)

[katiedid717]

I think it's sad that, as a society, we've become so afraid of cultural appropriation that there's no space for cultural appreciation. I would have loved to have access to more diverse media in my predominantly-white high school; the closest I got was my senior year Spanish class with a Venezuelan teacher, who pulled in reading materials from different South American countries whenever possible. How are students supposed to grow a sense of respect and appreciation for other cultures if any chance of exposure is removed?

[lethe1]

+1

[full_metal_ox]

Back in the 90’s, my fraternal niblings’ school put on a sketch for Odyssey of the Mind involving Tiger Woods as a character; the question was how the overwhelmingly white participants would interpret the role.

They dodged the whole colorfacing issue by making it a furryverse in which Tiger Woods was an actual tiger. (The sketch was about two hungry cats who’d signed up as Tiger’s caddies, in hopes that he’d get a birdie.)

[green_grrl]

That’s adorable!

[full_metal_ox]

Tiger did indeed get his birdie—-which turned out not to be the kind the cats were hoping for, but thereafter they went to the clubhouse together for ice tea and chicken sandwiches, so everybody won.

[green_grrl]

OMG ❤️

[movingfinger]

I hope LW would be scandalized by a group of non-Middle-Eastern kids putting on a Christian Nativity play, too.

[full_metal_ox]

The drop box for your mic is at the foot of the podium.

[minoanmiss]

snork

[ethelmay]

Reminded of when my daughter was involved with a grade school production of scenes from Once on This Island (I don't recall a single black kid being involved, but it was a while ago and I may have forgotten), which I think was justified by what's described in this paragraph on Wikipedia: "Note: The original cast was chosen along racial lines with darker-skinned actors portraying the peasants and lighter-skinned actors portraying the upper-class landowners. In the script, the writers provide small line changes that can be used to remove references to skin color to accommodate multi-ethnic productions, while preserving the storyline about differences between the upper and lower classes." It made me extremely uncomfortable and seemed like an erasure of Caribbean history to just blithely turn it into class-not-race. At least this production isn't pretending the people involved aren't Chinese.

[full_metal_ox]

I’m reminded of the animated Jackie Chan Adventures episode “Showdown in the Old West”; an unabashed homage to Blazing Saddles, being the adventures of a suspiciously lookalike ancestor of Jackie’s who’d migrated to the American Wild West to work on the railroads and wound up being press-ganged into the role of disposable sheriff.

The prejudice Wild West! Jackie faced from the white townspeople was as a…railroad worker!

[ethelmay]

Not - a PROLETARIAN! Horrors!

[full_metal_ox]

Could be worse, I suppose; at least he wasn’t a Methodist.

[minoanmiss]

1) you are right to be uncomfortable 1a) ugh colorism 2) ugh Once On This Island I hate that musical will rant another time.

[mrissa]

Yeah, my high school did Once On This Island with an all-white cast, and it was not good.

[firecat]

I am too white to have an informed opinion about this, but I think LW should start by meeting with the theater director to air their concerns in a spirit of “these are my concerns, do you have any thoughts on them?” rather than the spirit of “how dare you! stop this!” that’s on display in the letter. Maybe there are educational benefits? To my mind cultural appropriation is a problem mainly when it takes away opportunities for people of that culture, especially if a lot of money is involved, and double especially when people of that culture are punished for expressing it. I don’t see those happening here. Again, I could be completely wrong.