【Text/Observer Network Ruan Jiaqi】
Artist Ma Boqian's recent performance in "Actors Please Seat 2" has attracted attention, and even an interview with him 3 years ago has also been turned over.
Everyone was surprised to find that he had been expected to play an Asian role in a Hollywood blockbuster. In the end, the reason for his defeat was ridiculous: the filmmakers "hated" that he did not look like An Asian, and another Korean actor was elected because of his single eyelids and smaller eyes.
Speaking of this, Ma Boqian was speechless to the point of losing his expression management.
Ma Boqian is a Chinese-American, born in 1996 in New York, USA, his father is Ma Qingyun, a member of the American Institute of Architects and design director, and his grandfather is even bigger, li Ange, the former coach of the Chinese women's volleyball team.
Growing up with a golden key, except for kindergarten and elementary school, the rest of his student years were spent in the United States, and the journey was also smooth.
In 2017, he participated in the talent show "Children of Tomorrow" and won the runner-up of the national finals, thus beginning to emerge in China, and since then he has developed as a singer and actor.
This interview was just after Ma Boqian won the runner-up. Talking to the host about the difficulties of competing in the competition, he mentioned his previous difficulties in performing arts in the United States with an Asian face.
Originally, Ma Boqian was very confident that when he was in high school in the United States, everyone wanted to be the most eye-catching person on the campus, including himself.
But at that time, many Asian students did not dare to do so, and they were puzzled by Ma Boqian, questioning how he could dare to try to stand out on the turf of other people's homes.
At that time, Ma Boqian did not think that this was a big deal, and simply thought that other Asians were bound by the so-called identity, and the fault was that they did not trust themselves, and he also felt that as long as he did not care, the so-called discrimination and prejudice were nothing.
But then, during an audition, reality poured him a bucket of cold water.
At that time, Ma Boqian participated in the audition for the Hollywood movie "Moving Maze", which is adapted from the first novel of the same name by James Dashner's "Dystopian Science Fiction Trilogy", which tells the story of a group of teenagers in the labyrinth forest in the maze forest in the age of doom, the process of exploring the secrets of the maze and cracking the maze.
In the film, there is a main character of Asian identity "Mino", Ma Boqian and another Korean-American actor Lee Ki-hong entered the final round of selection.
In the end, Ma Boqian was rejected, on the one hand, because he was underage at the time, and the filmmakers were worried that they could not shoot at night;
Another reason made Ma Boqian feel strange: the filmmakers thought he didn't look like an Asian.
Lee Ki-hong, who was praised by the filmmakers for "single eyelids and smaller eyes", took the role and starred in 3 seasons of the series.
Thinking back on this matter, Ma Boqian was indignant but helpless, and he exploded in the interview with excitement.
He really realized that even if he didn't care, it was still difficult to avoid unfair treatment in the United States as an Asian, which was one of the reasons why he chose to return to China to develop.
Although the film did not choose the wrong person because of the "face value threshold", Li Jihong performed brilliantly in this series of films, but this confusing selection criterion made netizens once again feel the deep-rooted stereotype of the Image of Asians in the West, bluntly saying that this is a kind of racial discrimination.
How could there be Asians who were "expelled" because their eyes were not small enough, not single eyelids, and did not conform to the "Asian face" in the Western concept?
Some netizens pointed out that this precisely reflects that many Westerners are talking about pursuing the so-called "Asian face" and "high-end face", but in fact, they are just using "aesthetic diversity" as a cover to secretly smear and ugly Asians.
In the eyes of some Westerners, the "Asian face" is a fixed layout with a flat face, squinting eyes, a collapsed nose bridge, and a freckled face.
They argue that this is similar to the fact that in Western films, Asian characters are often treacherous and cunning villains.
Zhang Ziyi, one of the most well-known Chinese actors in Hollywood, also admitted in interviews the bitterness and injustice suffered by Asian actors in Hollywood.
In recent years, in Western film and television works and advertising, the display of Asian americans has been repeatedly criticized.
In the advertisement of the Italian luxury brand Dolce & Gabbana, a Chinese girl with a single eyelid tastes Italian food with chopsticks and an inexplicable smile throughout the whole process;
The promotion of makeup products of the well-known Spanish brand ZARA, the freckles on the faces of Chinese models also triggered a discussion of "insulting China";
The ZARA storm gradually subsided, and the American version of the fashion magazine VOGUE made domestic netizens fry the pan because of sharing a photo of a Chinese model.
Netizens' views mainly revolve around whether this photo is "discriminatory or not", "whether it is a high-end face or a stereotype of Chinese looks by foreign media".
Later, the first Golden Globe Award, the Asian film queen Okafina and the visual queen Wu Shanzhuo, also triggered a fierce discussion about whether this was "Western aesthetic hegemony" or a breakthrough in Asian culture.
Okafina
Sandra Wu
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