CONTEXT | Ninjago Project ose

The Occident and the Orient

Orientalism

In order to understand the flaws of Ninjago, one must first put the show into the wider context of Asians in entertainment. Or, better yet, the wider context of perceptions of the East by the West and the harm that has come from it.

The term “orientalism” is defined as the way the West perceives and depicts the East in a stereotypical way that embodies a colonialist attitude. Orientalism is about the way the West uses the East as a cultural and moral foil to their own society in order to justify superiority. Although it initially came out of attempts by white people to honor and present Eastern societies to the western consumer, it became utterly entrenched with othering Asia—romanticizing an image of barbarism and foreignness. It creates an easy to swallow idea about what the East looks like, turning Asian from a huge, diverse continent of many different people into mysticism, martial arts, tea, strange clothes, belly dancers, shaman, stomach-turning foods, primitive living, and yes, ninja.

The Birth of the White Savior

One of the main reasons orientalism is so dangerous is because it is so appealing to the western world despite being a legacy of colonialism. It makes it easier for people to pass off subtler racism under the guise of appreciation or respect. This has led to the development of the white savior complex.

The white savior complex comes both from orientalism and the colonial rhetoric that people of color needed to be “saved” by white nations. White people who have seen only orientalist information about how Asia is poor, primitive, and barbaric adopt that rhetoric, seemingly unaware of how inherently racist it is, and instead think of it as “loving” Asia and wanting to help the poor Asians get better lives.

Over time, the white savior complex has spread from white missionary trips to books and, eventually, to film. Ninjago is far from the first piece of entertainment to be guilty of the white savior trope. The Help, Green Book, The Blind Side, Hidden Figures, Avatar, and countless other films romanticize the idea of helpless people of color being guided or led by a white person.

Left to right: Emma Stone, Octavia Spencer, and Viola Davis in The Help

White-Washing

Johannson, playing Motoko Kusanagi in Ghost in the Shell

What makes Ninjago an even more interesting case is the addition of white-washing in the mix. White-washing is the practice of replacing characters of color with white actors. Erasure of Asian representation, especially authentic representation, is a recurring problem, considering Asians are the least-seen race in the film industry. Roles written for Asians or previously designed as Asian are handed off to white actors for no apparent reason—though that has resulted in extreme backlash recently (see Scarlet Johansson for Ghost in the Shell and Ed Skrein for Hellboy).