Female Characters In Asian Movies Are Increasingly Diverse And Recognized By The World

Female Filmmakers (ANTARA)

JAKARTA - So far, film industry players have often portrayed Asian female characters to a lower degree than men. Meanwhile, in western films, Asian characters are based on stereotypes.

Now, filmmakers from a number of countries in Southeast Asia say that Asian films, as well as the roles of the characters (especially women), are increasingly diverse and recognized worldwide.

"In the past, we mostly found Asian female characters in western films in the form of a conservative mother, or, a daughter who rebelled from her family," said actress from Thailand, Manatsanun Phanlerdwongsakul, quoted from ANTARA, Friday, March 17.

At the Reflections of Me talk show organized by Netflix in Jakarta, the actress who starred in the series The Cave Rescue said writers who dared to change this phenomenon began to appear in her country.

"I think now the film industry has started to open up in exploring Asian female characters," she said.

On the same occasion, Film Critic from India, Anu Chopra said the same thing as Manatsanun.

According to her, the figure of Asian characters, especially women who are packaged in films, can have an unfavorable impact on women's real lives, such as whether there is a label of a perfect woman or not.

"In Bollywood, women are portrayed as the property of men, mostly women just sing and dance in their arms," ​​she said.

The good news is that things are slowly starting to change. Apart from female figures, films from Asia began to dominate the global market and attracted the attention of Hollywood.

This was conveyed by a writer from Vietnam, Eirene Tran Donohue. The woman who grew up in America said that the current success of Asian films is very impactful and capable of changing the world of international scriptwriting.

"I remember when the films Crazy Rich Asians and Squid Game were released and then boomed, suddenly the film industry in Hollywood became interested in Asian stories," said Eirene.

The writer of A Tourist's Guide to Love said that the aspect of the financial success of a film is also the main consideration for global filmmakers to produce stories from Asia, apart from Asian filmmakers who are also increasingly creative and competitive in terms of the quality of their work.

"Hollywood has also now paid attention to this issue, even now it's not just films, they have also recognized Asian music, for example, K-Pop which is very enormous," she added.

As for the director from Indonesia, Kamila Andini also gave her observations on this issue. In addition to the business aspect, the director of the Gadis Kretek series said that global society is increasingly able to accept differences from one another, including cultures between races and countries.

"I am happy that now many people are able to accept cultural differences. This can be seen from the rise of films and series that present this difference. They consider differences to be unique and interesting," she said.

Going forward, Eirene, Manatsanun, Anu Chopra, and Kamila said they were optimistic to see more Asian people who have power and are involved in this industry, to finally be able to speak out about 'discrimination' against Asians, especially women.