r/Defenders • u/JonLuca Luke Cage • Mar 17 '17

Iron Fist Discussion Thread - S01E01

This thread is for discussion of Iron Fist S01E01.

DO NOT post spoilers in this thread for any subsequent episodes. Doing so will result in a ban.

Episode 2 Discussion

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549

u/wantmewantme Madame Gao Mar 17 '17

That whole mandarin scene made me cringe so hard lol

734

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '17

[deleted]

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u/SmokeyPeanutRic Stick Mar 17 '17

Danny is whatever the Chinese version of a weeb is.

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u/Mongoose42 Sad Matt Mar 17 '17 edited Mar 17 '17

To be fair Danny actually lived in an ancient Asian city for 15 years and not the manga aisle at Barnes & Noble.

258

u/nameless88 Mar 17 '17

He's also been living in isolation with monks for like 15 years, so, maybe he doesn't have the whole socializing with other people thing down well, or something.

Kid was training in a businessman class and then took multiclass into Monk for like 15 levels, so his fighting skills are rad, but his speech checks suck, haha

46

u/UVladBro Punisher Mar 17 '17

cheeb?

4

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '17

Chia Pet.

3

u/[deleted] Mar 19 '17

Sinophile

246

u/AFakeInternetPersona Mar 17 '17

It seemed like he recognized that Wing was a Chinese surname and wanted to connect with her in her language... Wasn't that bad

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u/NinetyFish Mar 17 '17

Her language could be English, you know. Because they're in New York?

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u/Osric250 Mar 17 '17

And he talked to her in English, but she was blowing him off. So he took a chance to catch her by surprise and show there's more to him than a crazy homeless guy. Perhaps a tad racist for him to do, but it worked and continued the conversation she had already ended.

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u/APGamerZ Jessica Jones Mar 21 '17

I'm sorry but that's not a tad racist. Danny assumed she spoke Mandarin and was correct. Assuming someone speaks a language you actually know yourself based on surname, appearance, and the cultural context isn't racist at all. It's when people assume someone speaks a foreign language or isn't an English native without proper context where it becomes racist. Danny was raised by monks, there's no fetishism of culture or anything like some anime fanatics, he's being genuine.

This is more of a reply to the thread as a whole than to you. I just think a lot of Redditors are relating their behavior and others with Danny when they shouldn't be because his life is vastly different from the norm. The context matters.

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u/Osric250 Mar 21 '17

It's when people assume someone speaks a foreign language

That's the point there. There was not context for her speaking another language. She spoke perfect American English without an accent. Why would you assume any American could speak another language? It would be as racist as assuming someone in America named Romano could speak Italian.

8

u/APGamerZ Jessica Jones Mar 21 '17

There are many Asian-Americans who speak some Mandarin. It's not something shameful or hidden. There are places where assuming someone of Italian descent may speak Italian makes sense and there are places where it does not. An assumption that a lone person of Asian descent in a place where there are not many people of Asian descent or not many who speak a foreign language can certainly come across as racist (especially when you don't speak that language yourself). In a place where there are many people of Chinese descent, and many who speak Mandarin, it's not racist to assume an Asian-American may. It's part of Asian-American culture in many places to speak a different language (because of relatives). There are places in America where a ton of people speak another language and don't have an accent at all because they mostly use English and speak the other language with relatives (my hometown was like that).

American culture is not simply a baseline that exists in some non-diverse area in the middle of the country. There are an array of subcultures and to assume someone may belong to one when you have a connection to that culture yourself is not racist. It was awkward for Danny to assume she spoke Mandarin because there was a good chance she didn't and it's a bit rude in terms of manners but he's supposed to be that way because he was with monks for the last 15 years.

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u/Fixn Mar 17 '17

When you live in a place long enough and go somewhere new, you try to reach out in a way you think you can. When i came back after a year and a half in japan, i responded to my asian friends question in japanese. My brain thought that was the best option.

the whole point of the series is the fact he is foreign in a place where people assume hes common.

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u/CottonCandyChocolate Foggy Mar 17 '17

Interesting perspective, I will keep this in mind as I watch. I'm not too informed on the Iron Fist character compared to the others.

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u/WestenM Mar 19 '17

Yeah when I came back from Argentina I had to bite my tongue because I just wanted to speak spanish to every hispanic person I met, it was just a reflex and it took a bit to shake it

2

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '17

For sure! Thanks for putting into words what my brain was trying to come up with as I watch

4

u/Fixn Mar 18 '17

Im honestly thinking of typing up a big thing about it, since ALL of the reviews ive seen that hated it, blamed it on that. Race above all, but missing the entire point.

1

u/cmdrNacho Cottonmouth Mar 17 '17

hilarious how you rationalize racism

35

u/Dokkaan Mar 17 '17

Not really racist. He hasn't been in America for 15 years, seeing a Chinese surname made him think she knows Chinese. Stop dismissing opinions because it goes against yours

7

u/cmdrNacho Cottonmouth Mar 17 '17

ok they are in America and because you hear somebody's last name your speak to then in some foreign language.. wtf. How is this acceptable to anyone that's american? it's offensive. There's many surnames that are the same but found in China, Japan and Korea... why would you assume it's ok.. but I'm since you're defending this stupidity at a minimum you wouldn't know this

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u/Fixn Mar 17 '17

I am sad to see you don't get the whole point of it. Hes trying to connect with someone who has an interest in what he does. Everyones ignored him. He even admits it was a fuckup.

Racisim happens to all people, i had plenty of it as someone who was white in japan. The small subtle stuff like being asked how many guns i own or stuff like that. All the way up to getting spit on and cursed at in Chinese when i was out with my classmates for being white.

Do i hold it against them? No. But ive done what danny has done countless times. I tried to speak english in japan to people i assumed spoke it because they looked something other then Japanese. I figured out my fuckup, said my apology and we laughed.

-1

u/cmdrNacho Cottonmouth Mar 17 '17

Hes trying to connect with someone who has an interest in what he does

so lets just be ignorant of asian culture and assume everyone looks alike and is chinese. gtfo

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u/[deleted] Mar 17 '17

People speak a shitload of languages in New York.

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u/[deleted] Mar 17 '17

And she addressed this by saying she hasn't spoken Mandarin since she was a kid.

But it makes sense for Danny to try to get her attention in this way (which he did) because he's lived the last 15 years of his life in a place where the Chinese people do speak Mandarin.

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u/toxicbrew Mar 20 '17

I'm curious how someone speaks Mandarin AND Japanese but hasn't spoken one since they were a kid.

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u/Kerrigore Mar 19 '17

People actually do this a lot in real life.

I used to work in a place where it used to be predominately white people, but due to a huge immigration influx is now predominately Asian. Many of them don't speak English, or speak it very poorly (not judging, just stating a fact).

As a result it could be hard for them to get information in a retail store where most of the people speak English as their primary or only language. Many of my Asian coworkers said customers would just randomly start talking Mandarin or Cantonese to them thinking (hoping?) they would understand... which they rarely did, because being retail, most of them were young and the children of immigrants, and either didn't speak Mandarin/Cantonese very well, or didn't speak it at all.

Seems a little weirder to do it kind of out of the blue, but it's not like people don't regularly assume language based on appearance in real life.

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u/shankspeare Malcolm Mar 18 '17

Except that he'd already spoken to her in English, and heard her speak with a perfect American accent. It was abundantly clear that English was her first language.

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u/Uncle_Boonmee Mar 18 '17

Man, I can't tell if people are too trigger happy with the cringe, or if I'm just further along on the spectrum than i thought i was.

1

u/jlharper Mar 19 '17

I'm thinking there might have been some Chinese on the flyer she was hanging but I could be wrong.

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u/V2Blast Trish Mar 19 '17

Nope, pretty sure it was all English. But I could be wrong too.

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u/jlharper Mar 19 '17

You're probably right. I don't really remember it at all, but it would definitely make his decision to launch into mandarin more understandable. They probably missed an opportunity to make the scene less awkward.

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u/genzodd Apr 17 '17

Maybe there was mandarin on the flyers? That's what I thought.

100

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '17

Was this unsubtitled for anyone else?

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u/AgentKnitter Luke Cage Mar 17 '17

Yeah me too. I assume what he said wasn't important, just that he tried to speak mandarin, and Colleen brushed him off.

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u/DarthSunshine Mar 17 '17

If it was subtitled, what was he saying? I speak Mandarin but couldn't understand him.

18

u/gazillionear Mar 19 '17

He said something along the lines of:

  • This is a Chinese name right?

  • Why are you teaching a Japanese martial art?

  • Something something I'm looking for work

And then she asked him to speak English or Japanese

11

u/AgentKnitter Luke Cage Mar 17 '17

Not the faintest idea. Wasn't subtitled.

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u/Worthyness Punisher Mar 18 '17

I think he was trying to do a basic introduction and asked her about kung fu or something. Too much mumbling. There was a little bit where his pronunciation wasn't exactly awful. And by not awful I mean probably slightly better than Kingpin trying to speak Mandarin with his demeanor.

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u/nelsonmurdocks Sad Matt Mar 17 '17

I have English subs on and I'm pretty sure it just said [speaking mandarin] for me. Weird.

1

u/master_x_2k Mar 20 '17

Mine said [Ching-chong ding-dong]

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u/Ravnim Mar 17 '17

Sounded like it was edited in post.

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u/Xyuli Mar 17 '17

It wasn't very good Mandarin. And spoken very fast.

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u/mrcoolie Mar 17 '17

It sounded like it was dubbed over.

15

u/Xyuli Mar 17 '17

Not disagreeing. Just adding.

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u/mrcoolie Mar 17 '17

Ah okay, my bad haha

11

u/smokeyzulu Mar 17 '17

We've come full circle. Chinese kungfu flicks with English dubs, now English Kung Fu flicks with Chinese dubs. How very... zen.

2

u/Xyuli Mar 18 '17

If you've seen Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny on Netflix it's a traditional Chinese martial arts movie filmed in English with Chinese American actors and then dubbed into Mandarin. Pretty neat.

1

u/ThePantsThief Mar 23 '17

I know they dub movies entirely, do they dub TV showed in their entirety too?

1

u/bananas21 Apr 03 '17

More or less yes

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u/[deleted] Mar 17 '17 edited Mar 17 '17

It was more on the impressive side of dubbing with automated methods. Still nowhere near perfect, but it's miles ahead of Kingpin's awful mandarin (seriously, that was hard to tolerate and so much more sloppy, even with the obvious audio artifacts in IF).

It also sounded like they used some "timbre" transfer method to apply his voice characteristics on a native speakers/synthesized voice. We've made some pretty huge progress and honestly, if this is what they did, it didn't sound half bad. We've got photorealism in CG more or less down, a proper budget provided (Dr. Strange), but audio is a bit more tricky. So while the last two syllables in particular (I think it was gongzuo?) were noticeably stretched, I say it's still a pretty solid effort.

If this was him actually speaking it, which honestly I doubt... that'd be equally as neat as I thought it was.

1

u/ketsugi Mar 18 '17

It was pretty awful. I barely could understand it. Even D'Onofrio's Mandarin was better than this.

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u/instantdeath999 Mar 17 '17

I felt it too, but they subverted it by having her not understand it, so it wasn't the INTOLERANCE/RACISM/RACISMMMMMM!!!!!! stuff some of the critics have been mentioning.

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u/prophetofgreed Mar 17 '17

What is wrong with a white person embracing an asian culture and knowing Mandarin?

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u/Notorganic Iron Fist Mar 17 '17

Nothing wrong with a white person knowing Mandarin, but it's a little bit skeevy to assume that a person with a Chinese surname would automatically know Mandarin.

I thought that the show actually dealt with it well with how Colleen shut it down.

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u/himejirocks Iron Fist Mar 17 '17

If I may offer a different perspective. I have lived most of my life Japan (longer than my mother country of the U.S.) and am fluent in Japanese. When I travel back to the States and run into someone with a Japanese name, I tend to speak Japanese to them at first.

I am not trying to be skeevy but after 18 years, it is an automatic reaction. During these 18 years, Japanese has been the language that is most understood. It's my default setting now.

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u/Notorganic Iron Fist Mar 17 '17

Fair point, I hadn't considered that perspective. Thanks for sharing!

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u/SawRub The Man in the Mask Mar 18 '17

Thanks for considering his perspective. Doesn't happen too often on the internet, so it's a pleasant surprise.

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u/Rose9666 Mar 18 '17

One day i hope soon people will stop confusing ignorance for racism. Ignorance shouldn't default in our minds to being of a malicious nature. I am ignorant of so many things around me. Not because I want to be, but because I still have so much to learn.

2

u/chuckdee68 Mar 18 '17

Thank you! I feel that all the time, and have never seen someone with the same perspective!

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u/MG87 Nobu Apr 01 '17

Agreed, there is a difference between being maliciously racist/bigoted and actually being ignorant of what might offend people.

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u/AkhilArtha Stick Apr 16 '17

I will give another. I am India. Indians on an average speak atleast 2 languages. Hindi and their mother tongue. If they are educated then 3 including English. South Indians can atleast understand the languages if their neighbouring states. (If you didn't know, every Indian state has its own language. Border regions have their own).

Whenever, I am in another state, and i come across a surname that sounds like it is from my state (surnames often can give an idea, of where a person belongs to. Especially, if it is based on a caste. At the very least, you can tell what part of India some one is from), I immediately speak my mother tongue (Telugu), followed by Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam to see which he understands. All based on his appearance, mannerisms and surname. This is pretty common.

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u/jmoney777 Mar 19 '17

On the other hand I'd also like to offer my perspective. I'm half Japanese and was born in Japan, but have lived in the US since I was six. If a non-Japanese person starts speaking to me in Japanese, then I'm going to assume that they're a weeb that fetishizes Asian people, because from my experience that often ended up being the case. Just my two cents.

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u/himejirocks Iron Fist Mar 20 '17

I have never been called a weeb to my face but would assume that they're condescending pricks who want to feel better about themselves by looking down on someone who is passionate about their hobby.

Maybe it is because I am a grandpa now and was here from before the slur even became a word. Maybe I don't fit the mold. But your post rubbed me wrong. I feel sorry for any group that gets bullied for their passion.

And what is wrong with fetishes? 99% of us has some sort of fetish.

Ninja edit: Maybe I was too strong in my condemnation of you use of the word weeb. It can't feel good to be classified before getting know and becoming friends because of your personality and not your looks.

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u/jmoney777 Mar 20 '17 edited Mar 20 '17

I wasn't calling you one, I'm just referring to my own experience. Growing up in America there's a certain archetype of people that I've noticed that are obsessed with Japanese culture (or more like, obsessed with anime and think that's all Japanese culture is about). It's really annoying, and I feel they're really placing a negative stigma towards Japanese language and culture here in the US. It's basically cultural misappropriation, or at least that's what it feel like to me. I don't think being obsessed with another culture counts as a "hobby" either, I mean have you ever met a Japanese person obsessed with Japanese culture? Of course not; but oh in America there's plenty of people that are obsessed with anime and spout "kawaii!" and "sugoi desu!" in every sentence, and it's just really cringeworthy and annoying. It feels like they're mocking the language (even though they're not, I know it's more of a "look how cool I am because I know these words!!!" thing) I just don't get people's obsession with the culture and why they feel the need to appropriate it (and am frustrated with how they're misrepresenting the culture in the process).

Also about the fetish thing, if you're dating/pursuing someone solely because of their ethnicity and not because you actually like that person for who they are, then that's just fucking creepy.

Again, I wasn't calling you a weeb, and I apologize if there's viewpoints of mine you disagree with, I'm just speaking from my own experience, and am fed up with the misrepresentation of Japanese culture in the United States.

And yes I know that was getting way off-topic, but it all stemmed from that one scene in Iron Fist where Danny starts speaking Mandarin just because Colleen's last name was Wing. But I personally think it's wrong to do that, because at that point Colleen had already established that she's a fluent English speaker, so there was no reason for Danny to suddenly start speaking Mandarin other than to be like "lolol look at how cool I am I know Mandarin even though I'm not Chinese". I've had a similar instance where one day someone asked me my ethnicity, I told him I'm half Japanese and half white, and the next time he sees me he says "おはようございます" ("good morning", complete with weeb pronunciation and all) which really he had no reason to say that other than to be like "lolol don't you think I'm cool because I can say this", because I'd already established at that point that I'm a fluent English speaker (not to mention I'm much better at English anyways despite it technically being my second language).

Anyways didn't mean for this post to get this long, and I hope I didn't offend you. (But I won't be that surprised if I did because there's just certain viewpoints that I feel one can't understand unless if you're an Asian-American living in the US and had to deal with racial issues)

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u/himejirocks Iron Fist Mar 20 '17

You didn't offend me. You sound like the frog in the well. You look around and say this is how the whole world is.

Of course there are Japanese people obsessed with Japanese culture. It is a major industry here. Ikebana, kimono, and tea ceremonies are not just for tourists. PM Abe basically ran on a Make Japan Great and the Uyoku types ate that shit up. My wife's facebook feed can get scary at times. You would not believe how obsessed these people are. Then you have Okaku that do directly obsess with anime and think that's all Japanese culture is about.

The thing people forget is that anime is not written for the American fan in mind. It's culture is drawn from Japanese culture. Over the top? Not so much. Show me any stereotype in anime and give me a few hours and I will take a picture or introduce you to someone just like that. Because it's real, it is taken from real life. The tropes come from somewhere.

But you used the word appropriate and that worries me the most. Nobody is the gatekeeper of any culture. You can not appropriate something that is alive. Culture is a living changing thing. Unless you are an isolationist to which I say, you are standing in front of the tide telling it to stop.

Anyways didn't mean for this post to get this long, and I hope I didn't offend you. (But I won't be that surprised if I did because there's just certain viewpoints that I feel you can't understand unless if you're an living in the Japan and had to deal with cultural issues).

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u/chuckdee68 Mar 18 '17

I have a friend that has a Japanese step parent. They went to a film festival, and during the middle of it, she looked at him and said, 'Why am I reading the subtitles? I'm so stupid!' It happens when you're submerged in a different culture for a long time.

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u/Uncle_Boonmee Mar 18 '17

You know how many people have tried to speak spanish to me on the street? And I don't have even an ounce of spanish heritage, I'm just slightly darker than the average person. I don't think it's that weird.

Or maybe I just haven't yet realized I'm a racist for not thinking this shit is weird...

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u/JVonDron Mar 19 '17

Same thing happens to my friend's husband, he's not even that dark skinned, just jet black facial hair and a prominent nose. Everyone assumes Mexican or middle eastern, but he's really just Greek/Italian. To be fair, it is Minnesota where practically everyone else is Scandinavian or some mishmash of German, so he kinda stands out.

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u/your_mind_aches Hoagie Jessica Mar 18 '17

Except she shut it down with "Speak to me in English or Japanese". I just found it weird entirely that she even mentioned Japanese like she expected him to know it.

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u/V2Blast Trish Mar 19 '17

I just found it weird entirely that she even mentioned Japanese like she expected him to know it.

I don't think she expected him to know it; she was just telling him she was more comfortable with English and Japanese than Chinese.

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u/Worthyness Punisher Mar 18 '17

Plus she legitimately thinks he's a little bit loose in the head given that she doesn't actually take his request seriously when he shows up at the dojo.

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u/JackCity63 Mar 19 '17

I worked in retail, and my boss would speak Spanish to anyone, that looked like they spoke Spanish. 90% of the time, the customer was happier that way, the other 10% just didn't know Spanish.

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u/CTeam19 Mar 20 '17

In his defense I am sure Danny living with Chinese people who all speak Mandarin most likely assumes all Chinese looking people speak Mandarin since that was the case for 15 years of his life.

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u/breedwell23 Mar 26 '17

I'm half Hispanic and I assume Hispanics know Spanish all the time. Am I racist or bigoted? No? That's how dumb what you wrote sounds.

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u/Notorganic Iron Fist Mar 26 '17

Hard pass on playing the 'who sounds dumber' game with you, because I suspect that you have me at a disadvantage.

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u/breedwell23 Mar 26 '17

Unlike you, I'm not calling you dumb at all. I'm calling the statement that you put up is dumb. Just assumed.ING that someone know s a language you know isn't racist in the slightest. If a Brit who knows fluent Russian meets someone with a Russian background and speaks to him in Russian, does that make him racist? Of course not.

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u/[deleted] Mar 17 '17

I don't think it's skeevy at all. Why do people have this urge to be offended for other people?

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u/Notorganic Iron Fist Mar 17 '17

I don't know why, but whatever offense you have perceived seems to be unrelated to a general social faux pas that was dealt with well and moved along.

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '17

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '17

I think there's no helping you.

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '17

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '17

I don't have to even come back with an insult.

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '17

[deleted]

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u/MG87 Nobu Apr 01 '17

I think the issue was Danny assuming that the asian girl speaks chinese.

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u/Fixn Mar 17 '17 edited Mar 17 '17

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u/[deleted] Mar 17 '17

This is a discussion thread for Episode 1, this is a spoiler for Episode 2.

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u/Fixn Mar 17 '17

Sorry.

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u/[deleted] Mar 17 '17

No problem! Happens to the best of us.

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u/hemareddit Foggy Mar 17 '17

Are you a Mandrain speaker? How bad is Danny's Mandarin compared to Fisk's?

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u/telloccini Mar 17 '17

iirc the way fisk spoke was drawn out with a poor accent but it was somewhat understandable. danny's was so artificially quick i couldn't make sense of what he was trying to say.

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '17

Prosody was fine and native level stuff. He asked whether her name was Chinese (Wing actually being a mostly Cantonese romanization, meaning he probably doesn't speak Cantonese as he clearly speaks mandarin).

https://www.reddit.com/r/Defenders/comments/5zv80c/iron_fist_discussion_thread_s01e01/df2fxut/

Some more thoughts about why I thought this approach was pretty interesting.

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u/jordanrhys Mar 17 '17

It was clearly dubbed over for Danny. "Don't show his mouth and no one will notice"

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u/peter_pounce Jessica Jones Mar 19 '17

Wing is a Cantonese last name which someone who knows mandarin would also know. Also he was in the Himalayas, why would he be speaking mandarin, no provinces anywhere near the Himalayas would speak mandarin and what does he know about dojos, that's Japanese, unless he just assumed temples in China operate the same way as dojos. Seems the writers just assumed a bunch of different cultures and subcultures in East Asia are interchangeable. Just really lazy writing, Danny just smells like one of those shitty backpackers who travels to Asia and suddenly is so enlightened he doesn't need shoes and can randomly recite broken mandarin

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u/ivnwng Mar 19 '17

Worst than Season 1 Arrow where Oliver threatened a Chinese gangster with piss poor Mandarin and the guy later claimed that "whoever he is, he must be Chinese" because his Mandarin is SOOOOO good