Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)

I watched the movie with a Thai friend and to be honest, both of us went in assuming the movie would be terrible and, as much as I hate to use this word, problematic.

Still, I found the movie more entertaining than I expected. This didn't mean there weren't problems, however.

The movie is clearly meant to satisfy a desire for more Asian representation in Hollywood and is part of a trend that also includes movies such as Crazy Rich Asians. In particular, Raya is meant to satisfy an urge for Southeast Asian representation; there has been significant criticism by many that only East Asians are seen as Asian and that East Asians take up most of the space meant for all Asians, though I would argue we shouldn't be arguing over how best we can fit inside a box made for us by Westerners anyway (though that's besides the point of this review).

I personally have many issues with this excessive focus on representation by the Asian American community, and the shallowness of modern-day liberalism, in which marginalized identities are commodified for an outwardly liberal upper middle class. Still, I don't think representation is a bad thing at all. In fact, it would be great if it wasn't always done so terribly.

Unfortunately, as always, the representation isn't done particularly well and the movie is in some ways even detrimental to Asians, and Southeast Asians in particular. The way the movie was produced and the fact that Disney+ is only available in three Southeast Asian countries also makes me doubt that Raya was created for Southeast Asians rather than for the people at Disney to feel better about themselves for promoting Asian representation. Actually, more than that, to make profit off of the recent popularity of social justice initiatives in the West.

Disney's movies about Europe, oftentimes inspired by real legends, generally have a specific culture in mind. Brave -- Scotland, Beauty and the Beast -- France, The Hunchback of Notre Dame -- France and the Romani, Frozen -- Scandinavia with some token representation of the indigenous Sami people, Hercules -- Greece. And so on. This is not the case for Raya, although the dragons' designs are inspired by Naga, legendary creatures in the Brahmic tradition.

To Westerners, Europe clearly has diversity, and different European cultures are distinct from one another.

Asia, on the other hand, is generally seen as a homogeneous blob. Raya, in hoping to be a movie for all Southeast Asians, inadvertently reinforces an image in people's heads that Southeast Asians are all the same.

One can say, perhaps, that at the very least, this is progress from the previous image of East and Southeast Asians being blobbed together and also being seen as the same. But by trying to lump all Southeast Asians together, the movie has drawn criticism from many Southeast Asians who, despite the movie's desire to represent all Southeast Asians, do not feel particularly represented at all. To me, it seems like Disney did this intentionally to simply tick Southeast Asians off of some kind of representation list and never make another movie about Southeast Asians.

The movie ignores Southeast Asia's vast geographic, linguistic, and cultural diversity. East to west, Indonesia alone stretches an area that goes from China all the way to Belgium. Myanmar is home to a hundred languages (Thailand 73, the Philippines 120, and Indonesia over 300), with mainland Southeast Asia being home to numerous unrelated languages, whereas Europe is dominated by speakers of Indo-European languages. Europe is primarily Christian, but Southeast Asia has a rich and varied mix of Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, and indigenous folk religions that goes back centuries.

There are some commonalities within Southeast Asia that the movie takes note of, in particular regarding the region's Hindu-Buddhist traditions which originally come from India. But even then, this can be exclusionary of Vietnam, which was influenced more by Chinese civilization than Indian civilization, and the Philippines, where the culture was heavily transformed after centuries of Spanish and then American colonial rule.

There has also been criticism, of which I agree with, that the cast does not feature Southeast Asians. The voice actors are primarily East Asian with some Vietnamese, Vietnam itself being culturally a part of East Asia. The only non-Vietnamese voice actor that was still Southeast Asian I could find was the Indonesian Tania Gunadi, who is credited for an unspecified role.

This means, to the casters, Asians are still interchangeable and all the same. Even the writers who were hired to write the screenplay, Qui Nguyen and Adele Lim, are respectively ethnic Vietnamese and Chinese (Lim comes from Malaysia's Chinese minority, who tend to still be very attuned to their Chinese heritage and tend to speak their heritage languages instead of Malay). Head of story Fawn Veerasunthorn is ethnically Thai, but most of the writers are white.

Perhaps in some way, Raya is a step in the right direction, in that there was even an attempt to represent Southeast Asians. In terms of how they represented, Disney could have done a much better job. It makes sense from a business perspective though. If you're only going to make one movie about Southeast Asians, it's probably better to try to fit them all in to maximize who's included, especially when your audience can't tell them apart anyway.

For the time being, or at least until quality becomes better, I'll be sticking to where I usually go for my own (East) Asian representation. As in, I'll be watching movies and shows actually written, directed, and casted by Asians in Asia.