I love him but....
Hiro Nakamura is not Japanese.
I know it seems like he is. He speaks Japanese, looks Japanese, has a Japanese corporate mogul father and a Japanese sister and most of all he has a Japanese salary-man as his best friend. But on tv, he's not Japanese.
Why?
Because Hiro Nakamura has two things white boys want - the ability to manipulate time and a kick-ass sword. Think about it. He's a fan boy's wet dream. He's a fan boy's wet dream who is also a fan boy.
While fan boys and fan girls come in many colors, for the most part they're represented on tv as being white; white men between 18-40 with a portion of their income devoted to comic books, going to cons, buying statuettes, going to comic book movies and buying other swag.
They are also represented as having a grand amount of mental space filled with seemingly useless trivia about comic book characters, continuity and themes. But in Heroes, all of that works to Hiro's advantage. It helps him figure out who and what he is. It helps give him purpose, inspiration and determination. It has him coming across as the open minded one.
And then, to top it all off it's established that the soft, dumpling geeky one, with powers of such cosmic scope, works out, toughens up and gets kick-ass in just five years as he struggles to save the world.
Japanese people aren't brown.
We don't have DL as the geeky one who's aware that there must be plots within plots. And there's nothing that would have stopped him from being so. We've seen him read comic books with his son. Moreover, Micah isn't the small child who knows what's coming, both because of his genius and because he's read the lore books aka comics. Micah could drive the story forward as much as Hiro does (even if done in short bits because of child actor laws etc). But that's not the case.
Simone was the girlfriend of a comic book artist. At some point he must have at least described part of his vision of his work to her. Or she might have researched it in order to push him, and prove to him his work was just as valid as any of the other comic book masters and he didn't need the drugs. But she didn't immediately believe in humans with seemingly impossible abilities either.
The only other person who's been as searching and wanting import in his life has been Peter Petrelli - Lil emo white boy.
Which makes me believe that Hiro, despite the cultural nods to his past and his childhood and his country of origin isn't seen as a person of color by the writers, advertisers or a goodly population of the viewers. Because we've seen how the characters of color have been faded to the background. Even Mohinder's storyline lags unless he's caught up with another character, usually a white character; one of the Petrelli's.
I think that even though fans of color look at Hiro and see someone of color, to the rest of the world, he's passing. Or maybe I'm just seeing things. Maybe he's "exotic for the win!".
x-posted
ETA: May 4th. spiralsheep in among the comments managed to sum up a large part of what I was trying to express in this post. Her thoughts here.
I can try to catch up and reply to everyone on this post, but I'm not likely to, at least not anytime soon. I didn't expect this kind of response and am not prepared for it, due to RL concerns and a personal sense of frustration as I wonder if I should have phrased myself in a completely different way.
I know it seems like he is. He speaks Japanese, looks Japanese, has a Japanese corporate mogul father and a Japanese sister and most of all he has a Japanese salary-man as his best friend. But on tv, he's not Japanese.
Why?
Because Hiro Nakamura has two things white boys want - the ability to manipulate time and a kick-ass sword. Think about it. He's a fan boy's wet dream. He's a fan boy's wet dream who is also a fan boy.
While fan boys and fan girls come in many colors, for the most part they're represented on tv as being white; white men between 18-40 with a portion of their income devoted to comic books, going to cons, buying statuettes, going to comic book movies and buying other swag.
They are also represented as having a grand amount of mental space filled with seemingly useless trivia about comic book characters, continuity and themes. But in Heroes, all of that works to Hiro's advantage. It helps him figure out who and what he is. It helps give him purpose, inspiration and determination. It has him coming across as the open minded one.
And then, to top it all off it's established that the soft, dumpling geeky one, with powers of such cosmic scope, works out, toughens up and gets kick-ass in just five years as he struggles to save the world.
Japanese people aren't brown.
We don't have DL as the geeky one who's aware that there must be plots within plots. And there's nothing that would have stopped him from being so. We've seen him read comic books with his son. Moreover, Micah isn't the small child who knows what's coming, both because of his genius and because he's read the lore books aka comics. Micah could drive the story forward as much as Hiro does (even if done in short bits because of child actor laws etc). But that's not the case.
Simone was the girlfriend of a comic book artist. At some point he must have at least described part of his vision of his work to her. Or she might have researched it in order to push him, and prove to him his work was just as valid as any of the other comic book masters and he didn't need the drugs. But she didn't immediately believe in humans with seemingly impossible abilities either.
The only other person who's been as searching and wanting import in his life has been Peter Petrelli - Lil emo white boy.
Which makes me believe that Hiro, despite the cultural nods to his past and his childhood and his country of origin isn't seen as a person of color by the writers, advertisers or a goodly population of the viewers. Because we've seen how the characters of color have been faded to the background. Even Mohinder's storyline lags unless he's caught up with another character, usually a white character; one of the Petrelli's.
I think that even though fans of color look at Hiro and see someone of color, to the rest of the world, he's passing. Or maybe I'm just seeing things. Maybe he's "exotic for the win!".
x-posted
ETA: May 4th. spiralsheep in among the comments managed to sum up a large part of what I was trying to express in this post. Her thoughts here.
I can try to catch up and reply to everyone on this post, but I'm not likely to, at least not anytime soon. I didn't expect this kind of response and am not prepared for it, due to RL concerns and a personal sense of frustration as I wonder if I should have phrased myself in a completely different way.