How to go about making race/nationality without being offensive

I kind of disagree with this. In general it's fine study martial arts or weaponry without people complaining you're appropriating anything. You say 'if he's a master martial artist and skilled with a katana people might find it racist and appropriation', but if they do, that's sort of on them. Maybe that's what you meant, though.

It was primarily Americans who were offended, or at least got mad. The Chinese don't really care because general racism isn't that much of a hot-button social issue in China. People complained because Matt Damon's character was a 'white savior' and not so much because he was appropriating asian fighting styles (no one complains about appropriation of combat-related things like weapons and fighting forms). In a film produced, created and distributed primarily only in China, the main character and hero was a white guy, which is why it drew criticism in the USA.

 

Thinking totally outside the box here ...but since this is a 'made up' story and not an actual history ...why not incorporate martial art into your story, but call the art something else? Something that isn't samurai? Make up the name. If you do that, nobody is going to be upset because you've appropriated their culture, and you won't need to twist yourself in knots trying to cover the issue. You could also make up aspects of the culture and the ritual yourself.

 

I think I can try mixing the cultures a bit with some sort of altered society with military and samurai, melee swords combined in a futuristic setting. So hopefully I don't have to explain and give so much reasons as to why, other than "crazy commander lunatic takes over and combines the ways of samurai rulership and weapon influences with an already existing arsenal of high tech military to his likings".

Well I guess you make a point, perhaps I could have it that the "evil commander dictator" guy got his influence on the way of the samurai do to training he received from a Japanese guy or the Japanese guy could be the one who started this new rulership of a samurai philosophical corporate and passed it on to the evil villain. I'm not really liking the idea of the MC hero being like a gaijin and not taking his role seriously. Almost as if he's making a mockery of himself not being Asian and abiding to an Asian influenced lifestyle as if he makes fun of, which would be out of his character. He's supposed to be a more serious character that's hardened, betrayed and tortured through his life who's also on the run. Maybe making him half-Asian will cause less controversy. I thought of having his Japanese side of relatives having some sort of powerful Yakuza connections and samurai ancestry which interests the villain in his plot schemes.

I find that very odd how many caucasian Americans found Matt Damon's character so offensive and in China they didn't mind it at all. Ok an idea of the MC becoming a samurai is in the future the evil dictator, (who happens to run a military/samurai type run facility), kidnaps the MC who goes through the training, torture and into a brainwashed assassin, years later somehow escapes, then goes from there how he develops proficiency more skills or the evil dictator is just a military/soldier/colonel ruler that takes MC, does the same brainwashing, MC (who's half Japanese) escapes eventually, discovers his father/uncle/or grandpa relative whatever from his Japanese side becomes apart of them and learns the way of samurai (which happens to be some futuristic Yakuza organization) could that make more sense?

I will try, the thing is it's sometimes hard to write a story that involves a certain influence of a culture that may have a certain meaning to others on how it's represented. There's always that troubled history that people will use to take offense to. Like if there was a character created by someone with Korean heritage but learned the samurai ways of training that could turn into a big problem by readers due to the history between both cultures and if the MC is white or half white I would have to be careful his nationality doesn't reflect from a country that had negative history with Japanese culture. But you are right because I don't want to let that interfere with my writings.

 

I agree with this. It just seems like these days people will complain and take offense more than ever for any reason. If I can get the story down right like in the future the evil dictator learned from a Japanese guy which made him a samurai martial arts fanboy and put it to use in his military training which he created a high power military/samurai society or he learned it from an antiquated samurai book and combined it in. Or he's just a evil military leader still with martial arts without the samurai background but the MC he kidnaps happen to be half or mixed with Japanese and he learned to be a samurai martial artist from one of his relatives?

So then it probably had more to do with him being a "white hero in China" which is far from what my story would be about.

That could work. Only thing is I really wanted to represent this futuristic samurai fighter. You're saying like make up the martial arts style or some made up style that basically represents a samurai by it's influence?

 

Just don't mention samurai at all, if you can avoid it. Or yes, your fighting style could be 'based' on samurai, if that suits your story better. (You might want to mention why a different style has evolved, though, if you're going to use samurai as the basis for it.)

Changing tack about naming your martial art might open up lots of story possibilities for you, however. And you wouldn't be looking over your shoulder, wondering who you're going to offend.

I am a little skeptical about 'taking offense' as a national pasttime, which it seems to have become these days. However, I can certainly understand how people get upset when their culture is misinterpreted or appropriated by another. Especially if there are connotations of racism and/or a dominant culture that subsumes a less-dominant one, then adopts 'fun stuff' and external trappings of the culture they've tried to wipe out. This happens all over the world, unfortunately—including the USA where I'm originally from, and Scotland where I now live.

So ...whatever suits your story, and you! Good luck with the writing. It sounds like an interesting idea.

 

That's cool, I was just drawing on some of my experiences here in Japan. Often the people who have it hardest here are the Japan enthusiasts ("weaboo" grates on my nerves) who think that, because they've memorized the lyrics to AKB-48's entire catalog and dyed their hair pink, they'll be treated as heroes by the local population. It's a long, hard fall for many of them, but if that doesn't fit your image of your character and story, go with the mixed-race thing. You can leave it out or incorporate it, but you should be aware that hafu ("half"-Japanese or mixed-race people) still face a certain amount of discrimination in modern Japan.

 

Yes, maybe ditch the fear & be 'offensive' - texture prejudice into the story-line.

 

Caucasian Americans. Americans don't come in one brand and don't descend from one country. It's why I clarified it the way I did to include "of Chinese descent". I highly disagree on the "white savior" part, but so does the producer, whose opinion is really the only one that matters.

@SilentWaves55 I suppose that makes sense in a loose way. Whether or not it makes sense, it'll still be a fine line and some people will likely get offended. Despite the fact that the American culture is derived from many other cultures, a group always gets offended by something. In some cases the offense is right and in other cases it's a little bit reaching.

 

Maybe I am better off changing the plot and style to something like:

"evil villain who's obsessed with military/combat/war/ancient sword fights and a martial artist fanatic, takes over with his crazy ideal ways and MC creates his blend and a hybrid mix of styles from all different aspects of training that no one has ever heard of"

That might help me avoid controversy and avoid others argument as to which culture should be represented more by another or it not being represented properly, etc. Cause I can worry less about offending who's belief in history or which race depicts what. Although I had planned on using "samurai" in my title and I wanted to represent it but it is a hot topic these days. When style writing as stories such as this, it gets pretty controversial with many, especially westerners unfortunately but thank you I'll do my best!

No problem and I do get what you're saying. It's not a bad idea at all, just might not suit my hardened and grizzled styled character for the MC who's been through a catastrophic ordeal. Think of a John Wick in a sci fi setting if that explains my story better. What I don't understand is how someone like Batman can get away with training in Asia and learning the art of being a ninja and using ninja esque moves and having a desirable love for Asian or Japanese culture, being that he is caucasian with an American accent. Maybe due to his iconic image that's been accepted from being around so many years? I don't know that many hafu hereos in stories that were done but it may still cause the same problems.

I'm not sure but I think I heard somewhere that Matt Damon's character might of been based on true events in China but romanticized.

So I'll really have to focus on what decisions I make as I'm trying to avoid as much controversy and misrepresenting another ones culture as possible. If changing the theme from samurai to something similar than it may just work out. I'll have to play my cards right and see how it goes.

Btw..out of curiosity, would representing some form of a Yakuza be out of line? Could they be represented in the form of samurai? Thanks so much.

 

I forgot to mention Beatrix from Kill Bill also representing as a white American female samurai, how that hasn't been brought to anyones attention, especially her being female which would be deemed by most for not being a male samurai.

 

The "samurai fighting style," guys? What is that, exactly? I guess I'm going to try this again. A samurai is more or less the Japanese equivalent of a knight. A member of a fighting class, a lower tier of nobility, in service to a lord or monarch, following a certain code or ethos. Maybe it's just me but I feel like if this entire thread were about knights, their ethnicity, and their "fighting style," it would sound a bit weird. Of course knights and samurai do train in martial arts, but there isn't a certain style that's tied to them, and they are not simply a type of fighter that can be found in any time or place on earth. Now, obviously people have successfully taken the terminology of "knight" and used it in sci-fi, but doesn't it tend to take on a more specific form befitting the setting, i.e. Jedi knight?

All I'm saying is, it's irritating to see "samurai" conflated with something like "kung fu master." (Also, it's a cliche that samurai are Japanese? Is it also a cliche that Vikings are Norse?)

Great Wall is kind of an unusual example of the whole whitewashing/white savior thing, because it was made by Chinese filmmakers. For that reason, a lot of people who otherwise are bothered by white savior media sort of shrugged it off (myself included). I was thinking more of movies like The Last Samurai, not Great Wall. However, saying that "Chinese people weren't offended" (all billion of them, I guess) doesn't by itself convince me that something is okay. Chinese people have thousands of other awesome movies starring Chinese heroes, so I'm not surprised they weren't offended. If it's primarily Asian-Americans who are bothered by something, does that make their complaint invalid? Why?

 

Have you actually watched The Last Samurai?

Otherwise, fully one your side (apart from the code/ethos part, much like the chivalric code that was a retroactive invention later on.), at the moment it seems like this person has more interest in the Hollywood presentation of the samurai than what they actually were.

 

I don't get the point you're trying to make? Americans of all racial backgrounds got angry towards The Wall. It wasn't just Caucasian Americans. My point was that Chinese audiences didn't really care about it that much.

Okay stop right there lol. The producer's opinion is not the only one that matters, and it certainly doesn't mean The Wall wasn't about 'white savior'. I didn't even see the movie and have zero interest in ever seeing it, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a lot of people complaining about it because 'why is a white guy the star in a movie full of chinese people'. I don't know if the complaints are valid or not (they're probably not), but I'm just saying that it doesn't matter what a creator or a producer says. They can ignorantly make something that they deem inoffensive when in reality it's deeply offensive.

I don't know if you're making this comment towards me or not, but I've never talked about a 'Samurai fighting style', merely the armor or weaponry generically associated with a Samurai, sort of how people pair "suit of heavy armor and sword = knight" or "cartoony horned helmet and axe = viking" or "black pajamas and throwing stars = ninja", etc. Samurai have fallen more in line with romanticized things like knights, pirates, ninjas, vikings, what have you in culture, making them usually a little safer to the whole appropriation thing (though they're not quite on the level of approachability as the other aforementioned things, some people would certainly get a little upset at appropriation of Samurai culture if it was done very poorly or in bad taste or something).

I don't think anyone here is saying something like this. I mean, the "problems" with The Wall and China's reception to it are all a very, very deep problem of their own right and everything.

 

I think we're going off of different experiences. Out of the many comments and articles I saw, I saw very few non-white Americans getting uppity over the movie and even fewer were of Chinese descent.

Given the producer's heritage (Chinese), his opinion is worth a lot more than the opinions voiced by people who aren't even of Chinese descent. For myself, I take the opinions of people who are of X heritage over that of others because other people have no idea what it's like to be of that culture and have no true idea on whether or not that something is offensive. Now, if it was a non-Chinese producer with only a tenuous link to Chinese culture and heritage then could see dismissing his opinions and looking at the critiques given to it.

My point: people who aren't directly attached to a culture don't get deem something offensive unless said culture has deemed it offensive already. I take this stance with writing as well. If an author has discussed situations with people from that culture and most are generally accepting (or at least don't care) then go for it. If there's adamant hate then backing off is possibly a good thing.

 

Well, we must be, but there are tons of examples of non-white Americans getting upset at The Wall. I don't know why you believe only white people can be obnoxious SJW-types or point out racial issues on this matter, but eh.

That's fundamentally untrue in almost every situation (at least at the comment's face value), but in this case it doesn't exactly matter what the producer's opinion is because it's not exactly an issue relating to race so much as it is to an accused problem in Hollywood films (the movie was a joint production with Hollywood and China, with China hoping putting a white guy in the lead role would attract Americans, so it kind of reinforces issues with Hollywood white washing rather than try to genuinely 'combat' them).

I'm just going to point out that this is actually a vaguely racist form of thinking. I'm not accusing you of racism or whatever, but a "No look, it's fine- a person of that race is doing it!" logic is seriously what a fascist like a neo-Nazi would say to support their views. As a question, would you consider it 'fine and not racist' if a black person looked at a clearly racist depiction of black people (and not even racist comedy, but just something purely racist) and said "no, it's fine"? What about the Chinese people living in China who may have found it offensive that Matt Damon starred in the movie? What do their opinions say when compared to the producer?

My point is that it's simply not really true to say that only members of a single culture/race can deem something as being racist or some form of whitewashing. If a Japanese dude produced the Ghost in the Shell movie and said "No it's fine that Scarlett is the Japanese main character", would this now not being whitewashing or offensive? Unless you want to consider that somehow different because in that case it was a white actor being digitally altered to look like a Japanese person.

The Wall also goes a lot deeper than just 'white guy being the savior' deal, because Matt Damon was supposed to be the tool that got Americans to watch the movie, so the Chinese producer was clearly already playing at Hollywood's assumption that Americans only want white stars. Do Americans now not have a say in this, simply because the producer is Chinese? Even though Matt Damon starring was literally specifically aimed at them?

 

I think it's tough to say since it seems like most Americans will take offense to these things more than foreigners will. The Last Samurai which is fictional but takes inspiration from a real life Frenchman who became among the ranks of a samurai. I didn't find The Last Samurai to be offensive, a story like that may of unlikely happened or very rarely occurred samurai wanted to keep within the family ranks, it still could've been possible. Ghost in Shell was straight up sci fi which leaves room for creativity, though I never really followed the franchise, any offense taken could probably be due to her originally in the story being Asian?

Back on topic, to make this easier for mostly everyone to enjoy, I could create the MC using a blended crafted style that uses combat arts with different melee weapons like katanas, viking axes, enhanced ninja bombs, chinese blade, claymore sword etc where swords and melee weapons exist legally in the new future world. Make him an official futuristic samurai due to the outlaw of firearms and try to be as accurate to it's origins served in more modern futuristic version of it. Which choice would be less offensive?

EDIT: I also believe that the book of The Great Wall featured the white hero protagonist but I don't think it was of any concern.

 

Well while it'd be okay for him to walk around wearing 'samurai armor' and maybe following a bushido code (for whatever reason), the point some posters here have been trying to make is that a samurai is actually a social/political caste, and if someone just said "Yup guys I am a samurai now", it wouldn't really make them a samurai (just like you can't really just call yourself a knight and have it be true, as that was also a social/political caste). Instead of saying "my guy is going to be like a samurai", you could refer to him as someone studying eastern martial combat styles and weaponry. Maybe he had a teacher who taught him how to fight with a katana blade or maybe he developed his skills some other way, maybe he wears some samurai-styled armor that he obtained somehow (perhaps he wears it only as practical armor, or maybe he wears it for some symbolic reason- or just because he's shallow and thinks it looks cool).

Some people will get confused with you calling him a samurai, as they'll think you mean to incorporate some of the political definitions of what a samurai was (but I get what you mean, you're trying to imply he's not a literal samurai, but just a dude who fights with a Japanese sword- like Samurai Jack or something, which I'm guessing is where your inspiration probably came from).

 

The Great Wall (lol i've referred to it as just 'The Wall' several times now woops) didn't have a book it was based on, it just had a novelization of the movie.

 

You could say that's sort of what I'm aiming for. Not quite the same as Samurai Jack but similar in the sense it could have some over the top moments and sci fi battles. If he could become classified as a samurai due to his samurai inherence then maybe it will work thst way or pull a Last Samurai but set on a futuristic time line with high tech gear but similar concept to how a non Japanese guy becomes a samurai or like you said, was trained by a real Japanese samurai. Not sure how that could work unless samurai classes are brought back in the new world.

 

Well samurai in technical definition was someone who was in that social class, though anyone could decide to try "following the samurai way" with bushido and stuff. Kind of like how a guy could be all "I will follow the way of the knight" and adhere to strict knightly honor codes. If you explain he's a samurai-fanboy at heart (maybe he had a teacher who was an asian guy who was from some long line of 'secret samurai' or something, I dunno) then you could probably get away with calling him a samurai, or having the character refer to himself as a 'samurai' or 'following the bushido way'. Just as long as there's indication that you know the difference between a 'real' samurai and someone simply emulating the codes/ideals of one (while taking the name).

 

Ohh ok, I must of got the wrong information thinking it used to be a book.

 

This could work out good without seeming misrepresented. So are you saying this would fit a good plot excuse for the main villain being the fanboy on how he calls himself as a samurai? Like how he uses the bushido way or code of the samurai to his advantage with his new world order vision in the future?

 

Well if it's your villain, then yes, perhaps he's a shallow 'samurai fanboy' who follows some kind of warped/misunderstood way of samurai honor/bushido. If the bad guy is shallow or mis-appropriating samurai culture, people will be a lot more okay with it.

 

No matter what you do, you'll offend someone. There are plenty out there who seek ways to take offense as if they were nuggets of platinum. Just be as diligent as you cn with your research, and let the oversensitive squawk away. Besides, if you manage to offend no one, you probably aren't saying anything worthwhile. You aren't giving readers any reason to think and to question assumptions.

But don't disregard complaints out of hand. You can always learn something new, even if the majority of complaints turn out to have no merit.

 

Yeah that's exactly what I had in mind. The villain learned his ways of bushido training from a real samurai but shows no proper honor in what he learned using it for military power, where as the MC hero who gets kidnapped and trained by the villain escapes to find the proper training and meanings. I would have the villain being a white westerner but the MC would be either white or half and half Japanese. How do I go about this decision without hurting others views?