A certain artist (based in the Philippines might I add) recently made a J.CO (Indonesian donut restaurant chain) gijinka recently, and people accused them of whitewashing their gijinka because the character’s skin was too bright.
I, as an Indonesian, am seriously offended.
Not by the gijinka,
but by the masses of people who are being offended ON MY BEHALF FOR THE WRONG REASONS.
The most insulting thing about this whole situation is that this website fucking auto-assumes that all brightly colored characters have been whitewashed and that this is always a bad thing and racist because of how things are in the West.
Hi.
Indonesia is not the United States. Indonesia is not a country in Europe. Indonesia is a multicultural society in Asia made up mostly of Southeast Asians, Melanesians, and East Asians. You can NOT apply the same exact sensitivities and narrative to Indonesia as you can in the West.
…Let me give you a quick rundown:
Racism in Indonesia is not always about about a white skinned race oppressing a darker skinned race. If anything, it’s more to do with Xenophobia and Religion.
Following up on that, here’s the shocker: The DISCRIMINATED MINORITYin Indonesia has a lighter skin color than the PRIVILEGED MAJORITY.
East Asians, mostly Chinese, who generally have brighter skin tones than your regular Southeast Asian person, are regular targets of hate speech, discrimination, racism, and even a 1998 genocide that still strikes fear and opens up old wounds in their hearts upon mention.
PLEASE GET THAT INTO YOUR DENSE SKULL.
Indonesia has serious racial problems, but you can NOT automatically assume everything as from a western country perspective.
To do so is seriously, seriously racist.
The intention was “right” from your perspective, but please. Do your research, and don’t automatically always assume that light skin is whitewashing. You’re touching on a VERY sensitive and often radically different subject depending on which nation you are talking about.
It’s INSULTING to your fellow PoCs.
I feel insulted. I feel like this website just made a unanimous decision for me because I’m either too “uneducated” “uninformed”, “tolerant” or WHATEVER the fuck you think of Indonesians to feel offended for myself. This website made me think that the Indonesian restaurant chain CAN ONLY be run by Southeast Asians when there are hundreds, if not thousands of East Asian J.CO employees whose lives and stories, and struggle against discrimination you’ve just invalidated just because of your westernized view of racism.
AND TO TOP IT ALL OFF, THE ARTIST YOU’RE MAD AT IS A PoC FROM THE SAME REGION AS INDONESIA THEMSELVES, (the Philippines) AN ARTIST WHO HAD NO INTENTION OF WHITEWASHING. WHO JUST SAW REALLY NICE COLORS THAT WORKED AND THOUGHT IT WAS COOL. WHO KNOWS FULL WELL THE STRUGGLE SOUTHEAST ASIA HAS HAD AGAINST EUROPE IN THE COLONIAL PERIOD.
IT’S AS IF YOU’RE TRYING TO LECTURE A VICTIM ON WHY THEY SHOULD FEEL VICTIMIZED INSTEAD OF UNDERSTANDING OUR STORY. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU, TUMBLR.
Who wants to hear how I rekted a straight boys ego in gym class today? Because in really fucking proud rn
*is waiting*
*cracks knuckles* okay nerds listen the fuck up.
So I’m in a special gym class for the swim team, so it’s coed with the boys and girls swim team for my school. It’s leg day, and I was setting up my rack for squats. Now I don’t usually go hard in gym because I don’t fucking care and I’m a 3 season athlete, I don’t actually need extra fuxking exercise. I only put maybe 10 pounds on the bar, and this fucking twig looking punk ass comes from fucking nowhere and starts laughing. Mind you I’m taller than fucking everyone in this class, I towered over this twerp. I ask him why he’s laughing, and he says, WITH A STRAIGHT FACE, “Women are so weak” and I almost decked his ass right then but I bite my tongue. For no fucking reason he decided to continue, “Why are women even in sports, they can’t do anything! What’s your max, 50 pounds?” And all his friends are laughing and telling him how cool this he is. So I challenge him to a squatting challenge, I want to see how much weight he can squat. He’s all reluctant now, saying how that wasn’t safe for me, how I might hurt myself, but my swim coach comes from behind and says she would like to see it so he’s like “Fine, whatever, if you get hurt it ain’t my fault.”
He proceeds to put fucking 100 pounds on, my ass is trying not to laugh because wow that’s “a lot”, and the whole time he is struggling, groaning and making gross ass male noises, and only got 4 reps in. He sets it back on the rack and looks at me with this fucking smirk, surrounded by his douche group, and omg I’m about to just drop kick his ass, and he does that stupid hand motion towards the rack.
I walk over and my team members ask me how much I want. I tell them to double it. Everyone stops and my coach is smiling cause she knows how much I can squat. My teammates are like “… Are you sure?” And I tell them how I’m fucking ready. So they put 100 more pounds on, making it now 200 pounds, and I tell them to back off. I then walk over and add 50 more pounds, the whole time looking at this white trash. He looks like a dead man, crusty lookin ass about to pass out. The bar now has 250 pounds, and I get 15 reps in. I set it down and I walk up to him, not having broken a sweat, and just pat him on the cheek before continuing on with my workout. My teammates are all freaking out, telling me how cool that was and how they never knew, but the boys team looks like they’re going to cry. I’m really fucking sore but I regret nothing.
That’s the story how I went up in weight for my squat with the pure determination of breaking up fuckbois dreams @ask-elizabeth-holly-hamilton
Okay I was looking back on this because we were maxing today and my coach said that wasn’t my max and I’m like??? What, and I realized I never accounted for the bar, so that makes total weight was 295.
every single negative stereotype about women was dreamt up by men who were projecting. fight me about it.
“women can’t drive”
It is so well known that women are better and safer drivers than men that OUR CAR INSURANCE RATES ARE LOWER. Women get into fewer accidents, get fewer DUIs, and receive fewer speeding tickets than men.
“women never shut up”
Several scientific studies have shown that not only do men talk more than women, they also think that women have been talking for much longer than they actually have. Men interrupt and talk over women, dominate conversations, and still think women talk too much.
“women are shallow”
Lol next
“my wife is my ball and chain lmao”
Multiple studies have shown that marriage between men and women: Increases male lifespan, decreases female lifespan Decreases male depression rates, increases female depression rates Decreases male stress levels, increases female stress levels Increases male health and happiness, decreases female health and happiness Increases a man’s chance of getting a raise or promotion, decreases a woman’s chances of getting a raise or promotion
“women are too emotional”
Men love to say this about women after hurting them, in order to shift the blame and dismiss their feelings in one go. In reality, women are taught to hold our tongues and control ourselves quite literally from birth. We’re taught to put men’s needs and wants ahead of our own emotions regardless of the personal cost. Men are taught to do more or less whatever the fuck they want to women. Men take their emotions out on women while women are expected to shove theirs down.
I could go on and on but I don’t really think I need to.
“women are shallow” (just read the book, Dataclysm. by okcupid founder (?) that includes data about sex, gender, race, in finding online romantic partners)
I need to say something to the skeptics out there, the ones who are annoyed with YoI, the ones who believe it’s yaoi trash.
Yuri on Ice is quite literally revolutionary so far. It is a big deal. We’re not screaming over some spineless fanservice or some homoerotic subtext. You’ve probably seen the screenshots and gifs out of context and thought, ‘wow, that looks pretty gay.’
No, you do not understand. It is gay.
This is an anime that is not labeled as yaoi- meaning, it is not basic, heteronormative fanservice intended for women with problematic themes. It is not shounen-ai, where it simply teases the watcher for hints of homosexuality but never actually goes through with any of it.
Of course, there is fanservice- butt shots, body shots, what have you- that is skillfully placed in with the rest of the story.
But so far, this show is not queerbaiting.
So far, only three episodes in, Yuri on Ice has been smashing anime stereotypes one after another.
This is unlike we’ve seen in Sports anime. This is almost comparable to No. 6; an anime with a solid, well-done plot that so happens to have a gay romance rather than a straight one. However, Yuri on Ice isn’t just that. There is no doubt this show is one about sexual awakening. That much was painfully clear throughout episode 3.
Not only is it unique that this show is about sexual awakening, but it is between two men. It is very real, very blatant, and not made fun of. It is not a joke. It is not a facade to draw the fangirls in. This is real.
The amount of proof for this is outstanding. The ending song is a great example, from the lyrics to the pictures shown.
‘You’re so beautiful tonight I was simply entranced Even the hourglass was C’mon and take my breath away’
And, as pointed out in previous posts, the act of combing one’s hair is an intimate act between lovers in Japan. That was focused on in the ending sequence of instagram posts.
In episode 3 alone, there was the significant dialogue of Yuri as he skated about how he found his eros in embracing his femininity. That was not made fun of in any way- it was accepted as the right thing, and Yuri felt more comfortable being ‘the woman seducing the playboy,’ the playboy being Victor. If you had any doubt about who the playboy was, Victor’s whistle was a skillful and clever way to give that away all too obviously.
If you haven’t watched Yuri on Ice yet because you believe it’s all fanservice, because you think it is like Free, or Hibike! Euphonium- you are wrong. Both of those shows, while absolutely beautiful and I personally enjoy them both, are constantly skirting around homosexuality. They do everything to imply romantic attraction, but do not actually take the next step. They tease, but don’t give. And this show is not like Haikyuu or any other sports anime, where you can easily see the bonds in the show as platonic or romantic (depending on how you want to think about it).
No, this show is gay, whether you like it or not. You can deny many anime of being gay, as being something only the fangirls are seeing for their shipping desires, but you cannot deny this one.
This is representation, and by god, I hope this show continues to do what it’s doing. If nothing comes of Victor and Yuri’s relationship, this show will still make history as the biggest queerbaiting flop ever seen. And, if it continues to do as amazingly as it is, by god will it be hard to beat.
