for me as a southeast asian living in southeast asia, i think the biggest miss for raya besides the casting was how generic and western the story felt and a lot southeast asian countries don’t even get disney+
Also, it feels like an “Africa is a country” situation. It just feels like they took bits of everything from South East Asia and called it a day. There’s no distinctions or anything. It’s all blended together. I think Avatar did a better job because, even though they took inspiration from various Asian/Inuit cultures, they made a clear distinction on who was who.
I feel like it would've been better for raya to go to the differrent countries to gather new allies and defeat the big bad monster, maybe each of her allies comes from a specific country that is based off of a country from SEA? Maybe her allies have unique powers that tie in with their culture and these powers are used to defeat the bad guy and find sisu? Idk maybe its still too western/ a ripoff of ATLA but thats just my opinion
But the story it s not for you. Its for american audiences. Americans of Southeast asian descent. I m not from America,i m from Eastern Europe and the European stories from Disney have nothing in common with my culture,but you don t see us complaining 🙃
@@alex.profi27 Dude, not all SEA Americans like it either. I’m one of them. Edit: Also, there’s barely any Disney movies based off of Eastern Europe. The only one I can name at the top of my head is Frozen and that does NOT mix up all Eastern European culture, it specifically based on Scandinavian culture. Mainly Norway. Anyways, I don’t find that to be a fair comparison because Western media has always been European-centric. White people have always been represented in the media.
The Fangs not having rice, but have the most aesthetic and beautiful features of architecture and clothing, and literally SURROUNDED by water, is just the most inconsistent part of its worldbuilding there 😅 Unless if Namaari meant she didn't had rice for . . . a few months I guess.
@@BuizelCream I think they became "bountyful" after they acquired the biggest part of the stone (placebo effect) but yeah, they can't be that poor to not have rice!
Like Rejean said, they probably got richer after they got the biggest part of the gem. Also Namaari says that although the outside looks pretty its not pretty on the inside, so maybe they spend alot on how they look to the other clans to remain powerful, while inside theyre not as powerful as they pretend they are
It made no sense to me because they literally had this "terracing" system (idk how to describe it lmao but it's this field that's usually used to plant rice, the shape resembles stairs) at fang
Wait i just thought: what if she was lying? Like what if it was all calculated? Even if it was true, i dont rly think it would be Namaaris fault, since it seemed her mother was the mastermind the whole time
I’m Laotian and I felt so happy watching this, I saw so many aspect of my culture represented in this movie and it warmed my soul. Laos is a small country so a lot of people aren’t familiar.
I love awkwafina so much but I agree, when I heard she was the voice of the dragon, it rubbed me in the wrong way that the actress wasn't gonna be from Southeast Asia culture
I found the rice scene interesting and historically accurate. Lots of parts in Southeast Asia and East Asia suffered and some continue to suffer from rice shortage more often than you would think. Sometimes it is because all the rice is being taken by a wealthier area or the price drops so low that farms need to sell more of their stock in order to make enough money to survive. Also factor in different weather conditions of droughts and floods causing rice production to plummet. Seeing that she hadn’t had it in a while, I’m guessing maybe a year or more which is understandable if they were suffering from a bad year or two of rice farming vs never having had it.
An example I know of comes from a book called Lost Names about Japan's colonization of Korea in the 20th cen and it mentioned how rice, especially white rice, was a luxury that most could not afford.
yup i agree, even for my country in 1990s it's still difficult for a lot of average-to-poor people to be able to eat a good quality of rice eventho they work everyday in paddy field, but mina's statement about having a stew instead of rice is so accurate too bc at that time ppl replaced the lack of rice with different kind of tubers like sweet potato and cassava
Your line about the oldest cambodian garment only being from the 1850s made me sad cause I'm imagining all the super detailed clothes that are just lost to history
I was disappointed with the dragon’s facial appearances. There was a lot of potential to have ethereal looking dragons, instead we got those... disturbing eyes.
And a majestic, scaly dragon at that. She's meant to be a water dragon, that of which, means she should have scales since most water dragons/serpents in Southeast Asian culture _have_ scales, the beliefs were based on _sea creatures._ And we could've either had a tsundere majestic dragon or a himbo/bimbo majestic dragon as both can be formulated to the humor aspect of the movie and give more chemistry between Raya and the dragon, instead we kinda just got this awkward, 'relatable' dragon that doesn't actually know how to handle forgiveness.
Ethereal, majestic, fearsome, even? But NO, we got an obnoxious, Frozen-esque Awkwafina dragon- an ungodly combination devoid of any regard for the SEA mythos of dragons/naga… ya know, the cultures the movie literally appropriated from?
the dragons in the film look like eel+gecko+ferret+snake hybrids that bathed themselves in the type of paint you'd see at a kid's unicorn-themed birthday party
That's the problem . Disney should make disney + available in all southeast asia region since disney shut down disney channel southeast Asia :( , but luckily disney + is available in my country Indonesia but not all contain are in indonesian dub but ok
They could've made her more etherial, like she would speak in a really elegant voice and give raya important knowledge. But i guess this dumbed down MLP dragon is all we have
hey, the movies supposed to be for kids. it would make more sense financially to make the dragon a fun, cartoonish, mlp-esque character than an all-knowing-powerful-deity type thing
@@professorhistoire5349 We’re just saying, yes it’s suppose to be for kids, but kids are not the only ones watching, just because we want something more mature doesn’t mean it’s going to be inappropriate or something
I didn't mind the blending of cultures as much because the last few generations of my family had been pushed around escaping the political struggles in east and southeast Asia over the past century. We've lost parts of original culture, but also assimilated and had picked up things from the places we were able to call home for a bit of time. I have a friend with a similar family history who felt a bit attacked and invalidated when someone went off on them talking about how inaccurate it was because the cultures were blended. This experience - the pain of losing the connection to parts of our heritage but the joy of learning about and reconnecting to the origins of the cultural practices we've kept up even if they aren't all from the same place - is valid. I do hope that there could be more opportunities to explore the unique cultures in southeast Asia through something like a spinoff TV series (like there is for Tangled, Hercules, Aladdin, etc) with more time to do so, or future movies focused on more specific locations. A two-hour movie just isn't enough time to do it justice.
Raya is a movie I'm reallyyy happy to exists as a southeast asian even though I personally wasn't into it. Obviously it could do better in representation in both casting and culture the but you kind of just had to accept it as a SEA inspired fantasy world rather than actual SEA lol. I really want Disney to make another SEA movie though that does take place in the real world.
hey ph citizen here, and we actually went through a rice shortage when the pandemic started. bc our g0vt. keeps treating our farmers like shit it's ironic when u think abt how we used to be one of the too exporters of rice and now most the rice in the ph is imported :) so yeah it is possible to have a rice shortage in an asian country
I think some people forget that Kumandra is a fantasy land. Disney can’t just choose one SEA country to represent because Kumandra doesn’t exist, it’s just supposed to be a SEA inspired place. So they took different inspirations from various SEA countries to create this fantasy land. The representation here was actually pretty good considering how diverse SEA is. (I’m southeast Asian so pls don’t attack me)
yeah but disney and their rep said so themselves that this is a ASEAN representation, I'm south east asian too so I expect cultural distinction across the tribe, instead what we got was a melting pot of all the which confused me. Im just saying what they said, the project manager of Raya themselves said this was about ASEAN culture. If they said it was just a fiction loosely based on ASEAN them I would have bought it
@19:19 As a fellow Hmong, I am very proud that this movie included a minority in it. I was not expecting any minority representation in this film. I thought it was just going to be SEA countries, excluding minorities. Well, I was wrong, and props to Disney for including the minority in it.
Raya and the Last Dragon --- It was inspired by some of prominent figures & folklores throughout Asia - Tun Fatimah from Malaysia, Sang Kelembai... many elements were gathered between the vast regions 🕊️🐉🙏 I'm not familiar much abt folklores from neighboring countries... so maybe local can give some input on it... I'm from Malaysia🇲🇾♥️ I've watched this movie, fascinating! It's special and it was remarkable that they created it from home despite the pandemic halting the whole thing!
In Vietnam, my mom told me that rice was difficult to afford. Growing up, her family ate rice cooked with potatoes because potatoes are much cheaper than rice. Her siblings were told that they were only allowed to eat one small bowl of rice. If they were still hungry, they have to eat the potatoes. It’s why my uncles hate potatoes to this day. They simply ate too many growing up. A typical poor meal is rice (or potatoes if you are especially poor) and a bit of fish sauce or a pinch of salt, possibly with some green herbs. Also, I’m glad you pointed out the horror of people selling ao dai with no pants. It isn’t just a peeve for me. I feel disrespected when they don’t wear pants under the ao dai. Have you seen any of us wear something with our whole coochie hanging out? Also when they call it Japanese etc. I just want to say something. If you don’t know, don’t specify. I was also disappointed that there was only one southeast Asian actor. There are just not many southeast celebrities represented in American music and movies. I hope that changes soon.
just a quick anecdote(?): im from cambodia and it’s rare to see any mention of where im from at all. the best way, and a truly salty way, to describe how it feels is; “I come from a place that doesn’t exist.” so yeah, seeing clothing inspired from where im from is kinda groundbreaking for me. but im not excusing that the voice actors were mainly East Asian, we do not forget that.
There was an attempt to do that in Disney albeit the setting is in South America Ancient Peru 🇵🇪 “The Emperor’s New Groove” but due to the fear of losing more than gains finance wise, the aforementioned film 🎥 was turned into a comedy 🎭 film instead
They could've gotten inspiration from the Igorots or from indigenous tribes in Mindanao. The people in those areas definitely held onto the pre-colonial culture more.
One symbol I instantly picked up was tuk-tuk. In this animation, it is an animal but in real life, a tuk-tuk is a tricycle vehicle used for transportation throughout SEA. It is featured in many movies like Ong Bak. So Tuk Tuk (Raya's pet) is a symbol of transportation (vehicle).
wow i love this so much! as a person who is super into fashion history, i always want to know more about cultures outside of europe and america, so thank you for taking the time to educate people on this. so cool!!
Omg love this sooo much! Thank you for doing this!! I love fashion history but have been really looking to learn more Southeast Asian (since I'm Filipino) but most fashion history vids are western.
I have to confess that i know nothing about south east asia, not even the name of all the countries that are part to SEA, so raya for me was very cool and interesting to see a new culture… and oh surprise, SEA is so vast and complex, i saw very little. I have learned more about SEA here in YT with these type of analices, than from anywhere else (i was not a very applied student anyways lol i hardly know the history of colombia and this is where i live lol)
1:04 I watched a Norwegian show about some celebrities trying to lose weight during the pandemic with my mom, and one of them was a Filipino born celebrity chef. So one of the other participants asked if he recommended any Filipino dishes. He... Went silent and said "there aren't any good ones"... It was honestly pretty scary, as a Filipino internet friend of mine has talked fondly about their food and I think that most countries have some good food. So him probably being told during his studies that the food isn't good enough that he has to change until he gets traumatized is honestly terrifying... I'm planning on making chicken adobo soon as it looks so good!
1:25 DURIAN COST HOW MUCH IN CHINESE SUPERMARKET?! Is the export price that expensive??? It's about 4/5 dollars here in Indonesia, less if you can bargain.
This was such an amazing movie! amazing animation, diversity, great storyline and characters, and a positive moral:) Edit: the storyline and some characters are a bit clique but then again it is a kids movie and made by Disney
I don’t know if this is coherent but in Japan’s Heian period (794-1185) refined rice (the white one) was only for aristocracy, farmers harvested it but couldn’t have it! Since this movie is a melting pot maybe they relied on that
I haven't watched the movie, but based on this video, but I kinda dissapointed not much cultures appeared from Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, and Timor Leste region. I wanted to see a baju karung, kebaya, batik....
I know it's not supposed to be East Asian but actually East Asian (at least Chinese and Japanese, not too sure about Korean, sorry!) dragons are creatures of water as well! There's a lot of mythology about it that might have influenced Vietnamese mythology as for a long time Vietnam was a vassal state (I think that is the correct term) to China. Actually, several other areas in Southeast and Central Asia (even some European nations!) maintained tributary relationships up until the Qing era. (Not saying it was good for anyone, obviously this created some problems.) The fire thing actually comes from western dragons. Though through a lot of cultural exchange people don't often make the distinction anymore. All of this makes me think that they were possibly going for a general "Asian" dragon as opposed to the western one in terms of elemental association. Just thought I'd share this; thanks so much for this video! I learned a lot and I too was excited to see even a little representation for all of my southeast Asian friends :)))
As non/southeast Asian (Mexicans here?) And a Disney/fantasy fan, i felt that the world building is this movie was very veeery underwhelming. The other nations fall under the 'planet of hats' trope, with everyone but the main character's being very one note and pushed into a singular characteristics. I feel the movie could have gone at least 30-40 minutes more for world building to talk about the culture and the dragons or just any character that isnt Raya Sisu and Namari. Also while beautiful, nothing in the movie made care about the world or anything in it which i think would've allowed the influences to shine through. However, i did like that they kept to dragons being water based, and that the instead of flying the dragons run on water which is creative and negates all the criticism for Sisu not just flying everywhere. Also while noticeable, the influences really weren't identifiable, which was disappointing as a western audience since it felt like an Asian inspired mood, and almost stereotypical asian world while missing the actual, well, Asian aspect. Also i say asian and not south east specifically, because,movie just kinda takes from all, like avatar. Though TLA did it much better since each culture was a place, not just a quirky new setting. Also Con-baby and the sword, which i dont know the name of and only call it dragon sword cause it looks like one and should totally have name like Dragon sword or Heart of Naga or something, are the best parts. Fight me
hii 👋 southeast asian (Filipino) here! I love your videos, including this one! I love the pictures you included and the occasional commentary, but I wanted to share my critisms for this movie. I have NOT seen the movie yet... and that's because disney plus isn't available in my country 😐. yall can put me on blast for that-- okay, sure-- but really really think about how Disney made a movie supposedly about seasians while keeping it region locked. really think about it. 😐😐 *that exact fact really put into frame how this movie is about us, but not made for us.* and scraps from this video just proved the point. "we don't have rice bc we're poor" huh? 🤨😭 bro if you're poor in southeast asia, most of your meals will still consist of rice, people even joke about how they're broke when they eat rice porridge. and the dragon nerds scene😭 ¿?? they're not cishet white american men 😭😭 please they ought to act more respectful. am I nitpicking? idk, would you call it nitpicking if a billion dollar company made a movie about your culture, put mostly white people on the production, and acted like people from a completely different region can substitute for your folks just as fine? 🤷♀️ you tell me. I'm not saying people (esp non-southeast asians) shouldn't enjoy this movie, either. if you got something out of it, that's cool, but please listen what seasians have to say about the watering down of our culture to appeal to masses and then not even making it accessible. it's disappointing at best, disgusting at worst, especially knowing the history of western colonization in this region. enjoy the movie, but be critical, besties 🤟 that's all.
I was so sad about the dragon designs! It literally has the facial design of the girls from frozen.... Give me cool dragons! Not these baby-eyed looking ones.
@@shi_. 100%, but how cool would it be for them to have a cool ass looking dragon plushie instead of whatever this character design is. Missed opportunity in my opinion
The sad truth. By the time raya came out in March, Disney plus has yet to reach Malaysia (idk about other SEA countries tho) which is ironic because of how SEA is the inspiration of this movie yet we're not able to watch it.
i kinda feel it was a lost opportunity to have a mixing pot of cultures they could have just given one southeast asian culture to each part of kumaandra
@@sofia_c_1 In atla they kind of had certain cultures attributed to each nation. They were able to do that without demonizing the culture related to the “bad guys”.
@@dani802ella Atla also used the real history of Japan's colonization of other nations as a storytelling and stylistic backdrop (but they were able to avoid painting Japanese people as bad guys because the fire nation also had SE Asian influences).
@@sofia_c_1 Yeah, they could've accidently created another huns from Mulan situation. It could've been done well where no culture was painted as the villain, but it's Disney and I wouldn't trust them with that lol
All the nations in ATLA also mix different East Asian cultures, Fire Nation is more influenced by China, NOT Japan, and when you have both Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom as representatives of one single nation (China), there's ofc no complaints about that. Besides this is the first time SEA is officially portrayed and the producer is Disney now, they're gonna avoid all of that
As a SE Asian girl it was disappointing to me to not see a complete representation of my culture being displayed. I watched this movie with my mom and we both got very confused about why they would mix such different elements. I as an Indonesian girl would have liked to see garments from my country in a complete outfit rather than bits and pieces with that of completely different meaning. I think giving each land in Kumandra an association with clothing like they did with architecture would have been more satisfying.
super fair! i think they probably shied away from that idea due to the regional politics in the movie. heart was doing much better than all the other regions, and fang was considered to be "the villain," so basing that region on one country might be offensive.
@@gremlita they tend to do that. I think it would have been stronger making complete outfits based on cultures. As religious and social associations mixing between separate cultures can create a generalization of SE Asian culture. In generalizing the true meaning of certain elements can become appropriated.
@@gremlita understandable, people began stereotyping hyenas as evil animals because of the Lion King although they are intelligent magnificent creatures...
That's right! In Indonesia we have so many culture with different kind of clothes like kebaya, batik etc, why they don't put it as the each nation's clothes in the movie despite using "a random mix matching look a like asian" clothes and imagine to collab it with clothes from other country in SEA, it's gonna be so beautiful and rich!
@@vira7054 honestly, and this is my PERSONAL opinion, i feel like indonesia should have it's own representation as a movie and not combined, considering when you said "many", you actually mean THOUSANDS OF ISLANDS with each diversities in food, language, flora n faunas, surroundings, cultures, myths..
THANK YOU. Finally an Asian content creator that is WILLING to talk about the racism WITH IN the asian culture and not just here to pretend like oh well that was in the past or its not that bad. Tired of seeing east asians keeping their heads down on topics like this, acting like they don't benefit or part take from these disparities and colorism.
Not everything is good for all east asians either... I'm probably a bit biased, but i feel like westerners really hate China. I know communism is very bad, but all I hear about China is how they make cheap knockoff products, the governent gives you no freedom, and everyone eats dogs. China has so much rich and diverse culture, I cannot begin to describe it. Europeans really messed up our societies and the communist revolutions absolutely decimated our historical artifacts and knowlege. I feel so sad that so few people take the time to truly learn about China. Also, I'm really jealous of Japan. It is so popular right now, with foods, anime, etc. People think that the country can do no wrong. I really want to tell others about their horribe War crimes in WWII and about bad things in their modern society, but I'll just sound very petty and hateful :(
@@lucheng1945 i hang out mostly on animanga side on twitter and that's so true: so many unironic weebs that think jp is the pinnacle of perfection. on the bright side, there are also japanese and non-japanese jp cultures/entertainment enthusiast that are willing to have that conversation, from jp history (including their atrocities during WW) to the various issues still prevalent in jp society today (lack of regards for SA victims and racism, for example). the fetishist weebs are still loud, unfortunately. and maybe in general they're most representative of majority. but thankfully at least they're not the _only_ voices in the conversation.
@@skylerwhitefan Hmm...based on your comment and your cringey profile picture I assume that you are young and ignorant. I genially suggest that you go read a bit about the histories of China, Cuba, North Korea and other communist countries. If you are laughing about the consequences of communism than you really don't understand it.
@@lucheng1945 why is my profile picture cringey? it's just a picture of me. also ive studied communism for years and consider myself a marxist. The countries you listed are not even communist, but socialist. I suggest you go study instead, not just believe in anti-socialist brainwashing propaganda.
@@parkchimmin7913 prolly because of the vietnamese war, like in the musical Miss Saigon, the lead wears the exact outfit without pants (bc she is a sex worker). But def whitewashing.
i grew up here in the philippines and your video just hit home how much colonialism WRECKED my country's history and how different we are compared to other SEA countries
Indonesia also experience colonialism from many countries but they never forget their old culture unlike here in the Philippines trying hard to be an american or latina. We are not different the rest of the Southeast asian but only Filipinos still keep themselves being different emphasizing Latina culture and American culture. When talks about Filipino culture in pre-history, these Filipinos proclaim again that they don't have culture before Spain Colonialism. Lol We have similar culture with Malaysian and Indonesian but Filipinos still refused them because they are latina-asian. Mano po with the older people is similar to Indonesian and Malaysian but our country still say that Mano po is from Spain. Even the food have similarity with Indonesian too but Filipinos still refuse to accept the fact that we have similarities with Southeast Asian.
@@technojunkie123 a lot of our culture has been erased by spain and from the 1500s and to 1899 we were ruled by spain so a lot of our culture has european influences. Like compared to other SEA clothing, the cuts and silhouettes of our clothes have a distinct western influence like big victorian era sleeves, large skirts with trains, and fissues draped over the shoulders and chest, that's seen in the maria clara gown from the late 1800s
@@trydrinkpineapplejuice5911 im sorry but we literally got colonialized for hundreds of years. Our history books are filled of spanish friars literally shitting on our sculpture guardians or anito just to show how above they are. We didnt choose to forget all about it. Please dont shit on other countries history and past to show how culturally unique you are its not a good look.
A lot of Pacific Islanders felt the same way when Moana came out. Instead of choosing one culture, Disney tried to make a new amalgamation of Pacific Island cultures which made it hard for some Islanders to relate to Moana and her culture. I'm not surprised Disney made the same choice here.
They wanna pumping money out of it. Just one country in SEA or one one Island country are not enough buying power for an “Investment”. So they think just mixing everything together will draw more attention from every cultures included. And of course more money. And Mulan, on the other hand, China is a massive market. Plus lots of Chinese immigrants in other countries. I’m surprise why they still don’t do South Korea or Japan princess yet. These two are huge markets.
i love daniel dae kim and gemma chan, i thought they were great in their roles, but i completely agree, disney should have casted more southeast asian actors in this movie :/
and the fact that disney likes to incorporate a lot of their voice actors' acting and facial expressions into their characters' acting (see how much chief benja looks daniel dae kim). we could have easily seen and heard beloved seasian actors on screen but we didn't
@@slaymil YES, i saw raya in theaters last night and i couldn't get over the fact how much chief benja was modeled after DDK. i think it's mainly the jawline and/or face shape, i'm not sure. but i agree, disney could have easily casted SEAsian voice actors, as well as sisu's original character design, which i much prefer over the current one.
@@slaymil we wereeee :( i'm planning to ask for the art of raya and the last dragon book for christmas this year since i love collecting them from my favorite animated films. i would love to see more of its concept art. and hopefully we get a documentary about the behind the scenes like frozen II and soul, which should be coming out sometime soon
just a little bit of inside. this is more progressive than others. ex : kubo and 2 strings japanese but almost all white cast. kungfu panda chinese again almost all white cast. and it was amazing, this is amazing but hey all asian cast
As a person whose first lenguage is kot english, i spent so much time wondering why South East Asians felt the need to write "sea" in all caps, like were they really that proud of their culture being related to the SEA and just now i realized its actually an acronym and not refering to the actual sea. The reviews make much more sense now, i feel so dumb.
So many ppl get confused when I type SEAsian. Oh and not to mention the amount of times I’ve seen white ppl go “iTs nOt aSeAn iTs ASIAN!1!1!1!”; like sure, YOU know better.
Don’t worry, I always got confused about that until I saw your comment......and it doesn’t help that my first language is English and I’m partly Asian.😅
THANK YOU MINA! being a Cambodian everyone looks over us and assumes our culture with Thai. No hate we just get looked over for everything. Our true origins all lost when during the Khmer Rouge. So thank you so much for your detailed research. It was heavily inspired by Cambodia and I’m so thankful for that. I’m so happy Disney finally made a princess for us South East Asian girls ❤️
Fellow Cambodian here, I absolutely agree. We are always mistaken as other south east countries. My heart for once feels like finally someone doesn’t mistake us for other cultures.
Same. I’m honestly shocked at the amount of Khmer references in this film. Holy shit. We’re often overlooked (and people usually confuse us with Thailand).
Dw, as a fellow half-Thai I completely understand and respect the differences between our two cultures. Cambodian culture is very unique and beautiful, and I'd love to learn more about it!
I think the reason why Avatar was able to work the mish-mosh of different Asian cultures is because there were clear distinctions between each Nation, hence I felt that there was more "respect" with the cultures that they re-interpreted. However, with Raya I feel that there was not much respect to the individual cultures of the countries of South East Asia, because it feels like Disney essentially said "Well, lets mix it up cause why not" when in fact, there is a diversity in the history and culture of each SEA country. For me I feel that Disney could have used more ways to differentiate each region rather than just using color, and really played on the history of each country. The problem for me with Raya is that it poses as an appreciation for SEA without actually going into the beauty of the countries' individuality. Though I would like to say that I haven't watched the movie (Disney doesn't even distribute Disney+ to SEA lol), and this is all from my first impression.
@Jochi Khürelbaatar they’re greedy. Disney just think when they mixing all SEA together, the movie will draw attention from every countries. They wanna kill two birds with one stone. because just one particular country in SEA isn’t big enough market opportunity/ not enough buying power for them.
Let's be real for a minute: DISNEY DONT CARE! It's may seems bad, but it's true. Disney dont care for 'culture representation' or the individuality of the tribes. There would have to be an ACTUAL STUDY on the topic and, if they where actually interested on this, make some contract with an expert on the topic. NOT NECESSARY A NATIVE expert, but it's preferencial. Being a native don't mean you know the deeps of your culture. I'm a brazilian and I can tell about 10% of the people around me actually knows your folklore. The point and objective is to make money. And if you sell well enough thats ok. Avatar IS NOT a 'exact culture representation' and they make that their point. They took many cultures and mix and match, but as Frances De Guzman said, each tribe is diferent with their own cultures. Why? Because Avatar people care more about WORLD BUILDING than culture representation. When you 'representation' and 'message' is more important than the actual plot and entretaniment of the movie or show, that's what you get. I just cant repeat this enough: Gender, color and sexuality ARE NOT characteristic features. You character needs PERSONALITY to be a good character. And a story need more then 'a overall good message'. It needs to ne A GOOD STORY.
I work in animation. Any details that they didn't include aren't because it's "harder to animate" when dealing with CG (that only applies to 2D animation, where everything is hand drawn). In CG they just build the model, so them not including the dragon heads was just a design choice by whoever had say over that costume. In 2D, yeah, definitely small details like that are harder to animate like you mention in your Anastasia video! But...yeah....it was probably a head designer/modeler or executive's decision to get rid of the double dragon head which is weird because I think it would've looked better. Love the amount of research you put into your videos!
idk if that makes it better that disney "simplified" the designs 🥴 especially after hearing the cultural significance. but ty for sharing the info and respect to your work in animation!!
@@jimlight5137 we gotta keep in mind some of this movie was animated from the homes of the disney animators so it's possible that it was taking too long to render and they had to simplify it to adhere to deadlines.
My theory is that it had to do with merchandising. It's easier to produce a simplified costume for a doll or toy than a detailed, more historically accurate one. It kinda sucks that Disney bases their creative decisions off of marketing so much-- I always notice this in films like Frozen 2, where there are a bunch of costume changes for what I assume is the purpose of selling more toys. Just a hunch though.
My assumption was that adding embellishments of dragon faces so close to Raya’s face could have been visually distracting, maybe, since our brains are hardwired to notice them as well as spots of contrasting levels of detail. But I agree they would have been a cool and culturally significant detail. Plus, the artists at disney would definitely have the skills to design around that, so I’m kind of eyeing the toy merchandising theory the earlier comment brought up.
I can sympathise with the anger of Southeast Asians over casting East Asians in the roles from their culture. I always get angry when a Polish or Eastern European is played by an American or British person. They're all white, so what's the difference, right? Besides the fact that Eastern Europe has completely different history (e.g. no colonialism, in fact most of it was controlled by other empires: Ottomans, Austrians, Russians and Germans/Prussians, who all treated Slavs as second class citizens, even Russians were prejudiced against other Slavs) and very different culture from Western Europeans/Americans. And when I hear Americans speaking with perfect American accents or butcher Slavic names or words... ugh
Yeah, I’m Aussie but I’d really like to see the American film industry be more multicultural(not just melting pot multicultural). The American film industry dominates the rest of the world and it got a massive foot in the door by pioneering a lot of these industries. Which no one else can compete with, because America is so insular in terms of media(greatest nation in the world, anyone). Like let’s not forget that bad guys often have a British accent in American movies because of the whole ‘Americans can’t be bad guys concept’. Which if you think about that in depths, yikes. As an English speaking nation we are losing a lot, of words and terms because of this shit, I don’t care if this due to immigration(that’s natural) but not because of the failings of Aussie media. Sadly, we don’t have the natural barrier of language to separate us. Personally, I think the American film industry, needs to pump money into other countries film industries but also needs to just put tv shows on with different languages just to expose people to other countries history and current culture.
@@xXPirate-KittyXx I mean its not really the American film industry's responsibility to kick start other country's film industry's or to tell anyone else's story. If other countries want their film industries to succeed they need to put the funds into it themselves. The American film industry isn't stopping them from making their own stuff. Also, the American film industry doesn't operate as one single entity. Its just a mixture of different directors, script writers, and actors that want their personal creative visions to be seen by the public so its not like one secular operation that can carry everyone else on its shoulders. And other countries do have pretty amazing film industries as well so make sure not to discredit them. Its just that many people don't put in the effort to even try and find them because most people are already satisfied with what shows are easily available to them. But they definitely are there. For example Bollywood is thriving. Also, if you want to see really amazing and accurate period dramas I would recommend that you look into some Chinese shows because China makes tons of amazing shows about ancient China. I've seen some pretty good shows and movies from the Philippines, Spain, Mexico, Turkey, Japan, Korea, France, Italy, Iran, Taiwan, and Thailand too and I'm happy to make recommendations if you want to expand the range of shows you're watching. Netflix has a plethora of international films to check out if you wanted to. I do agree however that if American movie makers want to feature other cultures in their films that they should do it accurately and respectfully just as everyone should.
I feel y'all As a Mexican I hate when in a movie every male Mexican character shows with those weird big hats- like wtf those things aren't used since the Mexican Revolution
@@lysander3459 Disney is worth billions of dollars, and they can handle public critisms. They're not a new company either, they have the resources to produce movies to hire people from those cultures, research throughly, hire writers who will do the culture justice, etc. but they instead choose to water down aspects for the sake of making profit.
@@KamenRiderOtaru I think the point is that plenty of other movies have white and even East Asian representation, so when the perfect chance for more Southeast Asian representation comes along, Disney doesn’t fully do it justice
10:03 I too also HATE when people on etsy or depop don't wear the ao dai properly, or call the ao dai a cheongsam/qipao... like really? First of all you didn't do you're research properly, secondly that's just disrespectful, thirdly THEY LOOK DIFFERENT, different material, cut, design, etc smh. I've also come across sellers who call cheongsam/qipao as kimono 🤦♀️ or have their models pose like this 🙏 or have chopsticks in their hair or space buns UGH
omgg i feel you they don't even at least identify the clothes properly and just write 'oriental mini dress' with a bunch of dragon emojis in their listings and it just rubs me the wrong way so much
I’m Vietnamese and this really grinds my gears too. It’s so disrespectful to wear an Ao Dai improperly on purpose to make it more “sexy” to appeal to the Western eye when it is our country’s traditional garment and is supposed to be classy and tasteful. I also just hate it when people claim that “they didn’t know any better”. Literally if you’re going to wear any traditional garment that is from a culture that isn’t yours, learn to be respectful of the piece and learn the correct way to wear it so you don’t go looking like a goddamn fool. Smh
Sisu probably developed her siblings powers as a way to say that you are not just powerful alone, but from the strength from family, there is always something to learn from your family members that can make you stronger, and this is resonate with Southeast Asian culture because family is important.
I’ve heard people saying sisu strongly resembles the Filipino Bakunawa, a water dragon! The iconography is super similar especially with the moon/dragon crystal orb. Side note, Disney cast an unknown Filipina actress as Raya before firing her for kelly Marie Tran
Do you know why she was fired? I thought it was to give Kelly Marie Tran some spotlight after the flack she got for Star Wars but I was honestly super disappointed because i was excited to see Cassie Steele who is filipina Canadian
@@maryfaceeggo apparently they said it's because Kelly's voice ended up fitting Raya better. when they hired Cassie, Raya's entire personality and characteristics were totally different, and Cassie's voice didn't match up well with the character that Raya became in the end. personally, i feel like it would've been fine if Cassie stayed on even with Raya's changes, but my friend who works in animation and frequently deals with voice casting directors and voice actors says it comes as no surprise that a rewritten main character was recast entirely
i knew the southeast asian references would be here but i still thought it was so cool for someone to say "cambodia" so many times in a row! because the country that i've lived in for a good portion in my life isn't as recognized as their neighbors thailand or vietnam, and i just wanna say it's a beautiful country with amazing people and a super long and interesting history, so i hope people will like cambodian culture and appreciate it the same way they do with the surrounding nations :)
