Sherlock Holmes, Lucy Liu and the Chinese in media

While the UK modern-day adaptation of Sherlock was deemed to be racist against the Chinese by some people (I haven’t seen it so am saving it for when I feel like seeing things that friends say are racist), the US modern-day adaptation of Sherlock (which moves Sherlock Holmes to modern-day New York) is set to star Lucy Liu as Watson (at least according to the Hollywood Reporter and Den Of Geek).

While it’s a great step forward in terms of Chinese representation in Western media, it’s just a shame that Watson tends to be one of the dullest (albiet dependable) roles one can play. Even Martin Freeman can’t do that much with it.

I’m also heavily amused that both publications are trumpeting it as Watson changes gender!, as opposed to Watson changes gender and race! Which either means Lucy Liu and/or US media has transcended race, or that the Chinese don’t really count in terms of race representation…

Mirrored from almost witty.