Some friends and I were sitting in the restaurant waiting to order our food while Disney music played in the background. One guy started telling a story of a time when he challenge his friend to ask their waitress if he is the father of her child. He then said, “Tonight’s challenge is to use Mulan in some sentence with the waitress.” We all laughed and started throwing out some hypothetical situations. Sometimes my mind makes weird connections, and I thought about a Mulan play production. Why was I going to ask the waitress about a Mulan production? Because, obviously Mulan’s character is Chinese (even though we were at a Japanese restaurant, my mind thought Asian). I then wondered, “Would the character of Mulan have to be played by an Asian person?” What if a white or black individual was casted? Would a production even cast a black person to play an Asian character? How would the audience react to such a juxtaposition of races? Would make-up or costumes be adapted to make the characters appear more Asian? What about the eyes specifically? Would make-up be used to make the character’s eyes look more “Asian?” But that would be based on a stereotype of Asian appearances. Would Asian individuals be offended by that? The questions are endless as my mind continued farther down the path. Which brought me to my next thought…
Is there a neutral race? Or neutral skin color? One that is not identify exclusively or distinctly with one racial group, but rather all racial groups. Just a final thought to leave you with.