Just Saying | Criminal Minds and smearing Singapore: why can’t Hollywood ever get Asia right?
Yonden Lhatoo says the recent uproar over the depiction of the city state in Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders reflects Hollywood’s old disrespect for Asians
Can everyone get this right once and for all, please: you are allowed to chew gum in Singapore; you just can’t import the stuff or sell it, although bringing in a small amount for personal consumption will not get you caned or summarily executed.
This crucial difference is ignored in an episode of the US television series Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders that has so many Singaporeans up in arms over the way their beloved city state has been portrayed.
Watch: How Singapore is portrayed in “Cinderella and the Dragon”
I don’t follow the show but ended up watching offending clips from the Cinderella and the Dragon episode, inspired by a hilarious online rant by local blogger “mrbrown”. He airs a litany of complaints about inaccuracies depicting Singapore as more of a stereotypical Chinatown than a respectable global metropolis.
Watch: Blogger ‘mrbrown’ on inaccuracies depicting Singapore in Criminal Minds
FBI investigators on the case of two American flight attendants missing in Singapore suggest the city’s judges are harsh on foreigners who commit crimes “like, chewing gum”. They describe one of the local districts as an “overcrowded slum with a thriving underworld”. They also say a whole bunch of other things that have left most Singaporeans shaking their heads in dismay at the level of ignorance in Hollywood about their city state.
The Singaporeans have a point. Hollywood really needs to get with the times. But who’s listening? We’re asking studios and writers to be sympathetic to Asian cultural and geopolitical sensitivities when they can’t even get basic ethnicity right in casting actors.
Asian American group slams Scarlett Johansson’s ‘whitewashed’ Ghost in the Shell
“Whitewashing” is the name of the game, with Asian roles being filled by more bankable Caucasian talent. That’s why Scarlett Johansson is cast as Japanese cyborg Motoko Kusanagi in Hollywood’s film adaptation of the classic manga, Ghost in the Shell. As you can see, we haven’t come far since the days when John Wayne put on his yellow face for the role of Genghis Khan in The Conqueror.