I am South East Asian and Iām getting tired of people writing away my culture.
I am not sure how many of you know but Disney just released a trailer for the movieĀ āRaya and The Last Dragonā and many people have been taking the moment away from the South-East Asian people (like me) by comparing it to The Last Airbender. Now Iām going to tell you why you should NOT be comparing them.
First, we need to debunk the idea that we can cumulatively call someoneĀ āAsianā. That is very much an American concept, a label slapped on our continent to make it easier for them to identify us. However, we have 48/49 countries, with over 1 000 000 languages and cultures. Itās very problematic to pin us down as Asian when we all have distinguishing ethnicities that sets us apart. If anything, certain provinces have similar mythologies, or came from the same previous kingdom, and for that reason it would make more sense if we were identified asĀ North Asia (Siberia), Central Asia (The āstans), Western Asia (The Middle East or Near East), South Asia (Indian subcontinent), East Asia (Far East), Southeast Asia (East Indies and Indochina). I kind of wish a large number of Americans can see this so they will start calling us by these human geographical groups rather than a continent, and this may dispel the need to compareĀ āAsianā movies.
Now to the comparison of the two movies. The Last AirbenderĀ follows East Asian (and some South Asian, New World, Inuit, and Sireniki influences). That is very very different from Raya and The Last Dragon, which completely South-East Asian. Here are some cultural aspects from the trailer:
She uses arnis as a weapon, Arnis is commonly National Martial Arts of the Philippines.
The intro of Disney shows a place in a rock; it represents Sigiriya Rock in Sri Lanka.
When she jumped out of a house, the houses were designed in Thailandās traditional houses.
The Villainās mask is called Barong Mask from Bali, Indonesia.
The Sword of the villain and the sword that Raya pulled are designed from Indonesiaās sword.
The wavy sword sheās using is a Kris which is a traditional sword in the southern part of the Philippines. So basically her fighting style is Eskrima which is Visayan (central Philippines) but use weapons from Mindanao (southern Philippines)
The whole thing might be inspired by Princess Urduja, the Filipino warrior princess.
The Sea Dragon is from Phillipines and itās called Bakunawa.
Rayaās clothes are Vietnamese traditional clothing.
Her animal that she rides is Khmer name, Thuk Thuk. When u have came to cambodia for 5 years ago and you want to go somewhere, you have to call āThuk Thukā and they will ride you anywhere you wanna go.
the yellow tribe is Indonesian or Malaysian
the purple tribe is Philippine or Malaysian
the green tribe is maybe Thai because of the Elephants or Cambodian because of the advance weaponry
the white tribe is Thai because of the Dholes, clothes, and the sword
Please do not take this moment away from us- South-East Asian culture and mythology has always been written away in South Asian and East Asian dominant movies. Our culture was put into the Legend of Korra and was written off as East Asian and due to this misinformation of cultures, we are now compared to some show that has never represented us. Please stop it. Let us have our moment- though our cultures are mashed together for this South-East Asian adaptation, it retains alot of our key aspects.Ā
South-East Asians are not South Asians or East Asians or Central Asians. We are our own. Let us have that. For once in Hollywood,Ā āAsian repā is not a Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Indian.
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