Issues of Race in the New Street Fighter Movie
An Analysis and Review of Street Fighter - The Legend of Chun-Li
Jul 22, 2009 Michaela Spangenburg
Street Fighter - The Legend of Chun-Li is a movie based upon the old Capcom Arcade game Street Fighter and its numerous sequels, and in particular the first (and for a long time only) female character in the video games, Chun-Li. While Street Fighter is certainly a game with international flavor, racism is perhaps the last thing that one would think about when sitting down to watch this movie. Unfortunately, this film is rife with very troubling depictions and ideas that border on being outrightly racist and exploiting tensions between Asian-American and African-American communities.
Chun-Li’s Transformation into the American Girl Next Door
One of the first somewhat jarring differences between the movie and the video game that demonstrates the problematic role of race in the movie is that Chun-Li’s mother is seemingly a white American expatriate, and Chun-Li herself seems to have American citizenship.
While people of mixed race certainly are underrepresented in the mass media, the few times they do pop up is when a main character seems to have been deemed “not white enough” as seems to be the case here. Transforming a Chinese character into a character whose father is Chinese and who is born (and for the most part raised) in San Francisco seems to be a move of desperation on the part of the producers of this movie to make Chun-Li more American. The casting, in light of the actor's lack of talent seems to imply that the producers were looking for someone whose face has become identified with the American "girl next door" as Kristen Kreuk's has through her role as Lana Lang on Smallville.
Balrog - A Clearly Racist Depiction
While the original Balrog was questionably stereotypical (a man of African descent who wears boxing gloves), in the orginal Japanese series his name was M. Bison - a clear rip off of Mike Tyson, on whom the character was based. Because he was modeled after an individual, claims of racist stereotyping don’t hold water against the original games.
However, the movie's marked departure from the game character is one of the most clear and unapologetic moments of racial stereotyping in recent memory. Balrog is transformed from a lithe and agile boxer to a muscle-bound, super strong and unmistakably evil associate of Bison’s, playing into age-old stereotypes about black men being monstrous brutes. His deferential and unquestioning attitude towards the blond haired, blue eyed Bison conjures up images of slavery times, and the way the two of them exploit the people of Thailand insinuates ideas of race wars. Balrogs conflict with the Thai people is reminiscent of historical tensions between communities of people of Asian and African descent in American. At the movie’s lowest point, a Thai man throws a watermelon at Balrog’s head - a moment loaded with so much racist malice that the feeling and momentum of the rest of the scene, in which the Thai people rebel against their foreign oppressors, is completely lost.
Vega - Not Just From Spain Anymore
The filmakers, either in an effort to make more dark skinned villains, or some kind of confusion concerning the difference between various Spanish speaking countries, make Vega into a dark skinned, dark haired man completely contrary to the original version of him, which was a blond, pale man from Spain. At one point Chun-Li (who herself is fairly light skinned) calls him ugly, which strikes one as strange seeing as how the actor who plays Vega is rather handsome and the character himself is supposed to be a “pretty boy”.
The Invasion of the White Male Main Character
Randomly, two police officers of no seeming importance to the main storyline enter into movie. Big surprise - both of them are white, or at least white-looking. The male detective seems to provide what most American movies depend on - a white male lead. His acting is reminiscent of the worst of Keanu Reeves moments on screen and most viewers will spend most of the movie wondering why he is there in the first place. The answer? Because in Hollywood, when we set out to make a movie about China and Chinese characters, we must cast as many white people as possible and make all the people of color into racial stereotyped villains. And we have to set it in Thailand.
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