vampigami just introduced prem and ive seen a few people call it weird/racist for his song segment. people disagreed, but didn’t attack anyone. but when you said grendiaper was racist basically everyone attacked you.
i just wanna know how you feel about that and your opinion on prem’s song in general. do you think its racist or just something silly??
Prem’s definitely coming across as a caricature to many and given how this show handles Asian characters i can’t say I’m surprised.
A lot of the people who got aggressive were non-Europeans fans who aren’t familiar with French racial dynamics , so the more insidious elements of Grendiaper were harder for them to recognize. At the same time, many fans are very emotionally attached to Zoé, which made them treat criticism as an attack to her instead of like. Criticism of the show. No one gives a fuck about Prem. No one’s sending doxxing threats over prem.
Caricatures like Kung Food or Quilin are easier for people to identify as racist because they’re blunt and in your face. Grendiaper’s messaging was pretty normalized, which is why I even encountered French people who defended the choice to depict scary evil brown men being evil because it’s realistic or whatever.
As for Prem himself, I don’t feel great about his role. He’s introduced as yet another disposable non-white love interest, (I can see him getting the Nino n.2 role, aka inconsistent characterization no exploration and having whatever hobby is convenient for the episode) Counting Kagami and Delmar, this is the fourth time the show has done this. I don’t think the writers meant harm, but my South Asian friends agree it’s a very bad look.
I have this theory that I got more this than anyone else because I have a brown woman as my profile picture on twitter
* I’m counting adrinette as a white ship. The show consistently spares her all of the East Asian cliches it hands out like candy to everyone else. She’s designed to look as white as possible and her heritage is almost never relevant. Sabine could be her step mom and almost nothing would change.
