Sean Astin as Twoflower? (Via)
Okay, I know Twoflower is the Tourist stereotype (though I think they can play that as more the silly American tourist than the Japanese tourist and still cast an actor of Asian descent -- insurance salesman on vacation struck me as the American in Europe plot idea) and the whole Agatean Empire is transparently stereotypical Asia, but this strikes me as more instances of making a mostly white franchise even more white under the banner of "sensitivity." Just more of a pretty nasty trend of taking out offensive Asian characters and not putting any good Asian characters in to replace them.
There's got to be a better way to handle this stuff.
Amusingly enough I never saw the Agatean Empire in the first couple of books as an Asian stereotype, nor did I see Twoflower as an asian character. I figured the Agatean Empire was an analogue to America (what with the roads being "paved with gold" and all) and that the characters had (what sounded to me like) "Native American" names to give it a foreign feel. Twoflower just seemed like the bumbling naive American stereotype that had shown up in other works by British authors that I'd read, so I just went with it.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't until I read Interesting Times, I think, that I even made a connection between Asia and the Agatean Empire.
Anyway, is this a made for TV work? I see the Sky One name is attached to it. I didn't even know that there was a live action versio of Hogfather - I'm going to have to look that one up.
I always saw Twoflower as an annoying Australian tourist (due to the Counterweight continent) - though I can see him as an American, as Aussies overseas don't tend to have as much money. Who sees him as an Asian from Asia?
ReplyDeleteI only read the first one, but I never saw Twoflower as Asian, either.
ReplyDelete...this strikes me as more instances of making a mostly white franchise even more white under the banner of "sensitivity." Just more of a pretty nasty trend of taking out offensive Asian characters and not putting any good Asian characters in to replace them.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a pretty sticky, probably-no-win situation.
Replace the Asian character with a white one and you lessen diversity.
Take out the Asian character with no replacement and the movie's still less diverse and there's a hole in the plot.
You can alter the Asian character so he's less offensive, but it doesn't change the fact that it comes from an offensive source -- Charlie Chan is Charlie Chan, no matter how tidied-up he may be. Maybe if you played it as a deconstruction of the original character it could work, but I dunno.
I think the only way to keep everyone satisfied is not to adapt the source to a new medium at all.
I agree with Jer. Twoflower always struck me as American, not Asian.
ReplyDeleteThough, I should point out, I've never read "Interesting Times."
I think it was years after I read the book that I caught on that he was supposed to be Asian. I heard that he was a "tourist" and immediately assumed he was a white guy in a floral-print shirt. :)
ReplyDeleteScott -- It may be because I followed the Watch before I read Rincewind, and the Agatean Empire (though never visited, only referenced) was always a really obvious analogue to Asia in the Watchbooks.
ReplyDeleteWhen I read Twoflower I always pictured an Asian-American man in a Hawaiian shirt.
Split the difference: cast Masi Oka. Then all the complaints will be split between ethnic stereotyping, typecasting and using a popular American actor for shameless publicity. :)
ReplyDeletePlus Masi Oka as Twoflower would be totally bitch-rod awesome...
ReplyDeleteCount me as someone who hasn't read enough of the Rincewind/Twoflower books to think of him as Asian. He's just 'foreign'.
ReplyDeleteCould it be an honest mistake?
I kinda caught the Asian sterotype as soon as they introduced the camera. Added with the very polite personalty, I figured he was Asian. My idea of the American tourist is more loud mouth, everything-is-better-in-my-country, "evil American" sterotype.
ReplyDeleteI always saw him as Asian. Then again, the first book I read that had Twoflower in it was Interesting Times, which had the Agatean Empire. And that was definitely an Asian culture.
ReplyDelete