They Call Us Bruce - Episode 27: They Call Us Nerds of Color

Jeff Yang and Phil Yu present an unfiltered conversation about what's happening in Asian America.



What's up, podcast listeners? We've got another episode of our podcast They Call Us Bruce. Each week, my good friend, writer/columnist Jeff Yang and I host an unfiltered conversation about what's happening in Asian America, with a strong focus on media, entertainment and popular culture.

NERDS! This episode, we welcome friend and fellow geek Keith Chow, founder of the Nerds of Color empire. We talk about the rise of nerd culture, representation, bad adaptations, and the changing face of fandom.

Five Showrunners Who Could Have Gotten Iron Fist Right

By Keith Chow. Cross-Posted from The Nerds of Color.



Three years ago, when I initially wrote about casting an Asian American in the lead role on Iron Fist, I had no idea the NOC would become ground zero for the #AAIronFist movement. I just never thought an Asian American Danny Rand was that radical a notion! Now that we're on the eve of the show's debut on Netflix -- in addition to its star's recent Twitter tantrum -- years-old arguments are starting to resurface on twitter and elsewhere. Coupled with early reviews savaging the series, I figured now was as good a time as any to resurrect one more Iron Fist thinkpiece before (hopefully) never having to talk about this goddamn show ever again.

Ms. Marvel Wants You to Go Vote Today!

Cross-Posted from The Nerds of Color.



Today is Election Day in the United States. And the choice couldn't be clearer for the millions of voters heading out to the polls. We're either going to wake up tomorrow playing R.E.M. or Beyoncé. Later this month, Marvel Comics will be releasing Ms. Marvel #13 in which the book's titular hero will be urging the citizens of the Marvel Universe to similarly exercise their inalienable rights to vote.

Reviewing the Reviews of Marvel’s Doctor Strange

By Shaun Lau. Cross-Posted from The Nerds of Color



Six months and change after the release of its first trailer -- and therefore about the same amount of time since co-writer C. Robert Cargill's infamous "[t]he social justice warriors were going to get mad at us for something this week" rebuttal to Asian American critics of the film's whitewashing -- the initial reviews are in for Doctor Strange, and they're not encouraging.

Oh, the movie? Actually, the critics seem to like it just fine. Being The Nerds of Color, however, we’re interested in looking at a different metric. Doctor Strange's whitewashing of primary character The Ancient One was, after all, one of the driving forces behind the hashtag and rallying cry #whitewashedOUT in May.

So no, this isn’t a review of Doctor Strange the film, but a review of the reviews of the film, using a simple standard: how accurately and humanely did each review portray Asian American dissent over the whitewashing of The Ancient One?

Bruce Lee Movie Stars a White Guy Because Of Course it Does

By Keith Chow. Cross-Posted from The Nerds of Color.



This morning, Deadline unveiled the first trailer for Birth of the Dragon, which recently made its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival. Ostensibly, the film depicts the legendary fight between Bruce Lee (played by Philip Ng) and Wong Jack Man (Yu Xia). But because this is Hollywood, the movie is going to be told from the perspective of a white dude.

AMC's Into the Badlands: The Time is Now

Guest Post by Keith Chow



I'm on vacation! This week, I'm taking a much-needed break to recharge the batteries and get a change of scenery. To keep things going around here, I've enlisted the help of several friends of the blog to submit guest posts on various topics of their choosing. Here's one from Keith Chow, cross-posted from The Nerds of Color.

As we near the end of 2015, one thing is for sure: it's a great time to be an Asian American television consumer. For the first time in history, you'll need two hands to count the number of major television programs to feature Asian American leads! On ABC alone, you have shows like Fresh of the Boat, Dr. Ken, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and Quantico.

This Sunday night, the biggest network of them all -- AMC -- throws its hat into the ring with Into the Badlands, a dystopian martial arts drama starring Daniel Wu. And I can safely say the show is unlike anything you've ever seen before.

Is AMC Finally Embracing Diversity This Fall?

By Keith Chow. Cross-posted from The Nerds of Color.



It's hard to believe it's already been a week since Comic-Con started, but here we are in that post-Con daze, and I'm still recovering. While I might need some more time before getting back into regularly scheduled posting, I didn't want to leave before I comment on a couple of the trailers that came out of SDCC. No, not this one or that one. Instead, I want to focus on the early looks that came out of the AMC presentations and how the network is kicking off the post-Don Draper era by seemingly embracing diversity in the casts of its newest shows.

As a network, AMC was at the forefront of the Golden Age of Difficult Men. From Mad Men to Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead, the protagonists on AMC's shows were usually anti-heroes who traverse in the grey area between right and wrong and make the hard decisions despite the consequences. So it's because of characters like Don Draper, Walter White, and Rick Grimes -- along with Tony Soprano on HBO -- that television drama about bad men became the prestige format for cable. The other thing they all have in common? They're all white men.

Enter the White Privilege

By Keith Chow. Cross-posted from The Nerds of Color.



Over the weekend Ain't It Cool News revealed that the internet's favorite hack director Brett Ratner is interested in remaking Enter the Dragon. At a screening of Rush Hour in Los Angeles, Ratner told the audience -- almost in passing -- that he is in the early stages of developing the movie and is looking for a martial artist to star. Now, before you start foaming at the mouth and cursing your keyboard, rest assured that this isn't an official announcement that the movie is happening. For all we know, Ratner is just putting it out there with the hopes that Warner Brothers would give him the opportunity to do it — as blasphemous as it may be.

Of course, the internet is beside itself that a hack like Ratner would dare remake a classic like Enter the Dragon and is appropriately showing its disgust at the idea. Here's the thing that no one's seeming to be complaining about, though. Both of the names for the prospective lead that got tossed around in the original post are white. Buckle up, because some "reverse racism" is about to go down after the jump.

Robin Ha's 'Banchan' Comics Will Make You Hungry

By Keith Chow. Cross-posted from The Nerds of Color.



Last weekend, at Baltimore Comic-Con, I had the opportunity to run in to several members of the SIUniverse fam in attendance. One of the alums I visited with was artist Robin Ha, who was exhibiting in Artist Alley for the first time. Not only was it great to catch up — however briefly — but it was also an opportunity to get a print copy of Banchan in Two Pages, a pretty cool recipe comic she's been updating on the tumblr of the same name.