Simu Liu IS Shang-Chi

He’s a great big hunk of spunk

 

Simu Liu looks better with facial hair. Wish they kept it for the movie

 

I have to get that bomber jacket

 

Fight you for it?

 

If I didnt have a crush on Simu before, I certainly do after this film.

 

Haha, this was awesome, really well done.

 

Simu...

OK, check this out (even though people are gonna have a hard time believing this, but here we go). In 2013, I was hired by a small business based out of Bolton, Ontario called My Perfect Superhero Party. It's exactly what it sounds like. I dressed up as Spider-Man, Batman, Captain America, a pirate, and a Jedi Knight. Simu, believe it or not, trained me for my first party! It was here in Mississauga, ON (sister city to Toronto) and he was playing Batman. The idea was that he would show me how the gig is done via interacting with the kids, engaging them, and so on. We didn't stay in touch after that, but he was kind and pleasant.

I came back from Shang-Chi just now. While I'm glad at least one of us is living out the ultimate fantasy of playing a superhero for real, there was a promo shown before the film started in which he spoke about what it means to him to be playing an Asian hero. In that promo, he said that he used to dress up as Spider-Man and that he could never take his mask off because he's Asian.

I'm here to say, that is a baldfaced, f*****g lie. Anytime I, or anyone else, every played a masked hero, we were told to keep the mask on so as to no break the illusion, for the kids' sake, that we were who we were portraying. We couldn't take the mask off because the kids right away would know we're not Peter Parker from the movies, Bruce Wayne from the movies, and so on.

I like Simu as an actor and as a person for the most part. But I lost a little respect for him once I heard him say that.

 

I can see that. A lot of celebrities are cashing in on identity politics. I don't believe for a second he was ever the least bit oppressed as an Asian here in Canada. He's almost the exact same age as me and for as long as I can remember Asians have been well integrated into Canadian society and culture. No discrimination or anything.

I just try to tune that kind of stuff out from celebrities. It's all fake as f***.

 

I respect his efforts for more diverse characters because he wants to create new stories with new characters. At least he's not trying to gender- and race-swap established characters. IMO, when he talks about diversity, he means actual diversity. But he's being caught up in his own hype. I hope someone brings him back down to Earth.

 

He’s embellishing his story a little bit, but I think his overall point rings true, and was made to convey that Asians growing up had no superheroes that looked like them that they could look up to, and see themselves in. All the popular superhero characters that were available were white. So in essence Simu was dressing up to play white characters and pretending to be them.

There was no Asian superhero that he could play. Which is why a movie like this is rather important in establishing an Asian superhero that will hopefully catch on as much as the white ones, or at least give characters that the demographic can connect to. Giving Asians in the West a superhero to look up to that looks like them is vitally important and a major reason this movie is even being made. Superheroes, even if they aren’t real, can be an empowering and inspirational in real life. Now an Asian guy who used to dress as non-Asian characters gets to dress up as a Asian superhero for the very first time in his life time - this time to serve as representation that will hopefully inspire many Asian children. Something that Simu and many other Asian Americans or Canadians didn’t have growing up.

 

That’s pretty damn impressive

 

Even if there weren't superheroes specifically, there were role models to look to like Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan. Also, he wasn't just embellishing; he flat-out lied, and that's not good. The parents who hired us knew full-well what we looked like because our images were on the business's website. That he was Asian was neither here nor there. The parents just want someone who is good at keeping kids busy for an hour or so. Hell, I've played Superman and I look nothing like him. I'm not exceptionally muscular and I have very thinning hair. The parents, and the kids, didn't care.

 

Could you cry anymore about how a minority feels in a white dominated society/culture?

 

Not really. Being a minority myself, I find it comical.

 

Then you missed the entire point of his statement because as a minority myself I 100% understood what he meant.

 

Then get out more and realize that the human experience is a universal one. If you're relying on fictional media to validate your existence, the problem is with you, not pop culture.

 

It's funny, because you don't even see the irony.

 

Attacks make Vancouver ‘anti-Asian hate crime capital of North America’

 

Anti-Asian Hate Reports Surge In U.S.—But It May Be Far Worse In Canada


Why does anti-Asian hate exist in Canada? Decades of 'scapegoating, blaming’ has built racism into ’structure of society’, expert says


History of wrongs towards B.C.'s Chinese Canadians - Province of British Columbia



The worst part of the ignorance around today is that it must be willful.

It must be cultivated.

It must be worked on to be ignorant in a world where so much information is actually available with little effort.

 

Did you really "all lives matter" the reality of living in the US as a minority?

 

Certainly seems the title of this thread should be fixed so the lead actor's name is spelled correctly.

 

"No discrimination or anything". Ok. I was in Vancouver myself in 2016 and witnessed white dudes say racial epithets at Asians. I don't know if they were Chinese but they sure thought they were considering the things they said. If you yourself never witnessed it, then uh fine. However, that's kind of ballsy to make a claim there is no discrimination or anything.

 

Whatever guys. Bathe in this stuff all you want. On the other side of the coin - the side you virtue chasing types don't want to see - are actual minorities getting sick of the white saviour, holier than thou attitude that's currently popular in western society.

Anyway, I don't feel like getting suspended again because I enjoy the discussion here so I'm out of this particular debate.