EDIT: I want to apologize for not using Xiran's correct pronouns. I didn't know they used They/Them. I also want to apologize for mixing up Agrabah with "Arabia." That was very silly of me because Arabia is the name of a real peninsula. I think it's important to acknowledge that Disney did hire a lot of artists and consultants from the cultures they referenced to help build the world of Raya, and I genuinely think their contribution was the movie's saving grace. However, at the end of the day, they will not have the same amount of influence on the movie's tone, writing, or direction as the writers and directors. Hence, it is extremely dubious that Disney was not willing to put Southeast Asians or people who at least had ties with the culture in roles that had the MOST control over the movie.
This is so true, there's so many things that require people of the culture attempted to follow to create correctly; at least in their eyes. If you are not then you may miss things, or only use surface details and not go in depth as to why they are there.
My main problem with Raya is the message. Now trusting people and having faith in others itself is not a bad message to have, however, the way is presented is God awful. First, she's betrayed as a child and it brought around the apocalypse and destroyed the lives of hundreds if not thousands of people including her entire tribe and father and then as an adult she's essentially gaslit into trusting the woman who has been hunting her down the entire movie, shot Sisu, and doesn't really feel much remorse that hundreds of people were practically dead because of her.
@@ocinidolegna And again when they’re betrayed for the dragon gem AGAIN, the message isn’t don’t give your trust blindly it’s that you don’t trust enough.
Personally, with where the movie is going, instead of the ending we got, Namaari would run away with all the crystals and leaving everyone else stoned. I wonder how people would feel about this ending instead of the one we got.
@@missplayer30 Honestly, it would’ve been better for a redemption arc if they showed long before that Namaari feels genuine remorse for what the world has become and wants to make it right. However, she goes about doing this by trying to subjugate and conquer the other tribes for their gems and Raya continually stops this fueling their rivalry even more as Namaari sees this as Raya trying prevent peace from being returned
@@annieandelsieofarendelle3294 I think I didn't made it clear enough. The ending is supposed to take place during the fight with the Droons, where the five characters are surrounded by them and have to use their pieces of crystal to fend themselves. Then, they tried to go with the trust lesson and give their pieces to Namaari before turning to stone. However, that's where the story change. Instead of Namaari trying to reassemble the pieces together, she ran away with all of them, leaving them, including Raya, stoned. The rivalry cannot continue if Raya is stoned. Do you understand?
The fact that they animated every piece of fur and researched how the fur worked for Zootopia/Zootropolis and then decided to just be lazy with Raya and the last dragon just baffles me!
From what I heard, Disney gathered up their Latino employees and had them all talk about their families and used that as inspiration for the characters in Encanto. My Professor who is an ex-DIsney animator says Isabella is the spitting image of Lorelay Bove, assistant production designer of Encanto.
Disney hopped on the drama of Asian-hate when they've already made Zootopia. A great example of diversity and lesson for racism. Even Encanto already simple example of diversity
Every time I see Raya pop up I’m just like “oh right that kid’s movie which has the message that the victim should relentlessly trust and love their abuser”. Words cannot express how much I hate Namaari. I always go into any type of content prepared for a trauma trigger, but I never expected to be triggered THAT HARD when Namaari straight up started gaslighting Raya into making her believe that SHE was the one who killed her own friend and brought on the apocalypse, when it was ALL 100% Namaari’s actions. And then, THEN everyone trusts Namaari to save the world, and she STILL tries to run and only save herself, and ONLY when she realizes she can’t save herself by fleeing, does she put the pieces together. And THEN she is absorbed into the main group, and Raya, her victim who she hunted and betrayed and abused and deeply traumatized, is responsible for her healing. It is disgusting and I can never stop yelling about how this was shoved down the throats of children. Okay I will watch the video now, just needed to vent about this for the hundredth time bc just seeing the name makes me so mad 😭
I agree with all of this except I don’t really think Nammari didn’t run because she realized she couldn’t or at least I didn’t see it that way. The scene made it seem like Namaari saw Raya’s face and realized she was wrong for running and decided to save them. Although I believe Namaari was a horrible friend I think she had a change of heart at that moment. I could be wrong because I didn’t watch the whole movie only a few minutes after the beginning to the end. I didn’t like the way the message was presented especially for little kids.
And then if you get vocal about it, those producers would blindly out you as a racist, or a bigot, or a minority oppressor, or something like that What a world.
The worst part is when people considered her an "redimided character" like Zuko when the truth is that she doesn't shows any of the principal features of an actual redemtion arc, she never reconsidered her own actions and values or take the consequence of her actions but blame others for them, and then Raya and the other forgive her like nothing??? Idk, it's confusing.
I'm so glad someone feels the same way. I think my turning point to realising how horrible Namaari is was when she shot Sisu and then blamed it on Raya. Like, no, she was attempting to stop you from shooting her. She just executed it wrong. Her arm was on the trigger ready to fire, so I don't understand how it's "Raya's fault". I understand how the whole premise was MEANT to show that Raya was too distrustful but she honestly had a reasonable cause. Someone she thought a friend betrayed her and started an apocalyptic world where everyone struggled to survive. She HAD trusted Namaari and she got repayed by losing her father (or at least temporarily which feels wrong to me. It just makes me feel like it was meant to be those kids movies with the shitty plot where no one faces consequences despite being in a highly dangerous world). No wonder she doesn't trust her. Although I do think Namaari did have the thought of survival on her mind at the ending, I don't think the action she took was out of convinience. She did not know that putting the pieces back together would do anything up until it worked, so I think her feeling of guilt was genuine there, but it seems out of character so I understand the conclusion.
Yeah and the message was just so weird, along with the pop culture references, I legit wanted Raya to just punch Namari at some points, and I genuinely believe that the message should have been better if both Sisu and Raya learned from one another to thrust but to not do so blindly.
Did you know, in some of the oldest Raya concept art, the setting isn't even Southeast Asia. It was just post-apocalyptic scifi. The Southeast Asian elements really were just tacked on! It's possible that Namaari and her mother's designs, especially her mother's dress, is a leftover from that early development phase, which just makes this whole thing even more insulting. Yknow, as an Indonesian, I was like, "Where are the crowns??" when they showed all the kingdom leaders. How could they possibly overlook the opportunity to show off the various intricate SEA crowns?? It’s just laziness, pure and simple.
Yes! I even saw concept art of Namaari with a metal arm. And right?! I cannot believe they made monarchs a thing in this world and didn't even give any of them crowns.
@@-chenlanying5818 not even close, first of all we doesn't have that much royalty and Royalty unlike what you see in European doesn't go full tyrant Royalty here actually mingle with commoners rituals and festivals is where you found this Royalty celebrating with people, heck I even get to attend the wedding of them so called Royalty, it's free to all citizens like those in Jogjakarta they actually open house and everyone is invited, royalty in Indonesia today doesn't have that much privilege they are symbol of people while they still being allowed to rule their own kingdom like in Jogjakarta it's more like they're Governor. And about face and how people represented in the movies, South East Asia is melting pot of culture, next door village is different even with same island for example west Java is different with Jogjakarta, it's very different people because in Java there is several culture like Betawi ( Jakartanese) Javanese (Very broad term there is 5 major Javanese subculture for example having different clothing, festival and ritual) You might question with such vast amount of differences how we form a nation? After all good example like those Balkans they never get along with each other, the answer is simple it's tolerance for the most part and the second most important part is curiosity it's always fun to learn what other do in Indonesia at least because often times this culture mingle with each other even in Borneo natives culture is named Dayak, but you could find in one community there is Sundanese, Javanese, Bugis, Toraja, Manadonese, Batak all living in harmony in single neighboring community. Ethnically we can be different too skin color vary, we do have white, not pale white, you can say we just consider 2 color, another is bright another is dark wr also have reddish complexion but tall usually fell on dark categories bright categories is white, yellow and such.
@@gkagara no it is not simple. If it is then rebellions wouldn't happen, Timor wouldn't separate. Timor is like big middle finger to the so called unnegotiable unity
I don't get why people even think elegant and girly can't be portrayed as strong and badass. Like girly could be wearing a crown and punch the shit out of someone with it. I mean with the pointy ass crowns I see in alot of traditional SEA clothing...that shit could be a murder weapon
Coming from someone who has family members that did traditional Khmer dancing, yes, those crowns are very pointy and they’re kinda heavy too. I once got scratched by one when I tried to pin it to my hair.
I've always enjoyed the fem fatale troupe or those fight scenes which began at a dinner so the woman has this sleek dress with slits to make kicks and always has one hidden knife under, it shows how a woman being femmine is badass and how they take advantage of that
I feel like the movie had a problem where they didnt focus on any of the southeastern countries? They tried to lump them into one... they literally had five regions that could've EASILY each represented a country
@@callimara THIS! It's funny because as a Filipino, I saw the movie's environments and thought to myself, "Wow. These just look like the crew went to just one tourist spot in one country." Even funnier that my dad was watching the movie some time ago, and he told me "This isn't South East Asia, this is just Vietnam???" So yeah. The crew went to MULTIPLE SEA countries. They could have had one country, one nation. Hell, we could have even had different dragon species per nation (like how Philippines has the bakunawa and Singapore has the merlion as two examples).
@@callimaraI feel like there might be problems then with one of them being the hostile one (Avatar the Last Airbender was unpopular in Japan for that reason).
If Disney decided to take on Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland as well as Norway as inspiration for Arendelle, I would be pissed. And that’s because I’m half danish. Not every country is the same. I went to Norway on my last trip to Denmark recently, and they are two completely different places. Same with Sweden. It would be upsetting. So I know how you feel Calli.
I feel like the nordic cultures and especially the scandinavian ones are almost pretty much the same though, so calling them two completely different places is maybe exaggerating a bit much but i get your point otherwise
@@hage17 Hi! Icelandic here. Can we not try to justify lumping a bunch of cultures together, even if we (incorrectly) believe them to be practically the same? Thanks
@@ogcolumbinakinnie6556 I’m Norwegian, so again I understand being frustrated when these things happen, but scandinavia shares most of its history so many aspects of our culture are the same, so thats why i said them being completely different is exaggerating
As someone outside the culture, I don't have much knowledge on South East Asian cultures so my main focus in watching the movie was the narrative, characters and plot. It just felt, lackluster? The message of trust wasn't delievered well considering Raya kept getting pushed into trusting the person who betrayed her in the first place and continued to hunt her down throughout the movie. Namaari never shows remorse for her actions (from my memory) and is constantly painted in a good light. She never apologizes, and is shown to be in the right, while Raya was supposibly in the wrong and she was the one who was stubborn and the root of discorse within the main group, according to the movie at least. It felt very manipulative. It felt like the original perpetrator was pushing the message "Just get along, stop rocking the boat" to the victim, and that just didn't sit right. Sisu also was meant to be the foil to Raya, her trust countering Raya's distrust. This could have played off well, they both could have learned and grown from each other, since they were both flawed in their own ways. Raya didn't open up to others, and Sisu was naive in her trust. Sisu's naivity was used against her in the movie, as she was tricked in Talon by blindly trusting a lady (can't remember all the details). But again, Sisu was the beacon of right in the narrative's eyes and it was only Raya the plot was pushing to change. The others' flaws were either not treated as flaws or were brushed off. Because of the character's roles in the story, Sisu feels as though she represents toxic positivity (though perhaps to lesser extent) and Namaari has an unwillingness to assess her own actions, where she doesn't see the fault in her own ways and blames the people around her for the conflicts errupting to the surface. Raya is the only one beaten into submission by the plot by the end of the movie. No one else changes or has to account for anything they've done and the narrative rewards them for it. It only explores Raya's flaws, when it could have done and been so much more.
I had a similar experience. Honestly, I think this movie would have been much better off narratively if instead of shoving all of the character development onto Raya (especially since, with it being only her, it felt rather forced at the end there in my opinion) it had been just as much a story about Namaari learning to be trustworthy as it was a story about Raya learning to be trusting. Heck, I'd say you could throw out Sisu as a main character alltogether if you wanted to help focus on the two of them, maybe make it a story about them through whatever circumstances being forced to work together to bring Sisu back, give Namaari the option to be trustworthy and have her choose that route BEFORE having Raya decide to really trust her again. I think that would offer more room for equal and more natural character growth. If they were to stick more closely to the original plot, though, at least have Sisu also grow into learning that maybe you can't blindly trust everyone with your whole heart, giving people a chance is good and all but having some amount of caution is just as important, have all three of them have the proper growth to overcome their character flaws.
i think 24 Frames of Nick, he also said that the message of this movie is a mess. Raya was betrayed because of her trust when she was a kid, now it's all her fault because she couldn't trust? wow disney, your multimillion movie project moral value is "trust someone blindly"??
As a Norwegian, I can relate. Frozen barely took some of the asethetics from old-timey Norway. Frozen was originally going to be based on the Snow Queen, which is a Danish story. In Frozen 2 they just took Sami culture, watered it down and put them in a forest. Frozen could have been so much better, our folklore has such a mystical and whimsical vibe, but they just used the standard fire, earth, water and air magic. At least they didn´t just do vikings though.
Well, these do take place in modern times, and I have an art of frozen book. They do water stuff down a bit because they're Disney, but Frozen and Encanto did a better job of showing the culture than the glittery and princess dresses from the past movies.
It is a Danish tale but I don't necessarily think it takes place in Denmark. Gerda takes a whole journey through Scandinavia with a Sami women and Finnish women being key side characters, and the Snow Queens palace is in Spitsbergen. In another tale by HCA called "The Ice-Maiden" (a prequel to SQ) it takes place in Switzerland, so the Snow Queen gets around. But I agree with what your saying, as a big fan of HCAs works Frozen just feels kinda plain compared to their previous Fairy Tale adaptions.
As a half Dane, I AM INSULTED WITH BEING REMINDED OF THIS WITH THIS COMMENT. HOW DARE THEY FORGET THE VIKINGS!!! That would make such a better story ughhh
Honestly, Raya taught me lessons in writing and fantasy worldbuilding, the don'ts, to be specific, especially in taking and using inspirations from other cultures as well as the moral lessons and themes.
Basically if you want to use inspiration from other culture, don't sell it as representation. Good example will be ATLA or Kung Fu Panda. And yes, moral lesson and theme is big thing in whole Asia.
@@mitacestalia7532 Yes this! Inspiration is just taking something and build it from there (add, improve or remove etc.) but if they said it as a representation then they need to make it as close as possible if not then it the same as mockery, might as well don't do it at all
I'm filipino, specifically Bisaya. I grew up in the philippines and watched the movie with my Filipino family. Watching the movie, I didn't really get the culture part. Because my own culture wasn't even given a shred of differentiation, I just felt indifferent. I didn't care. And when I saw someone say that Raya specifically was filipino, I felt obligated to clarify. No, she is not filipino, she is a fictional race of mixed south east Asian culture. And as much as we want it, i dont think we'll ever get proper filipino representation in animated Disney films. The thing that irked me the most was the plot. Oh my god. I could tell so obviously that they were trying to pull off an ATLA or SPOP or something somewhere along that line, and failed MISERABLY. I could go on but i'm on mobile and have a headache.
I'm a Filipino from Manila, and I have little to say about the movie because I find it a bit average like there's something important is missing. And I agree that Raya is not completely Filipino, despite using Arnis when she was kid and wearing a salakot hat. At least that's what I noticed cuz I watched this movie several months ago and I barely had any memory of it except for Sisu and the dubbed songs at the end
it was so nice to actually hear the thoughts of someone who the culture was suppose to be representing, and speaking from someone who isnt apart of that culture I can say that the movie just felt like, another movie that was terrible at conveying its story and lesson, and I was really disappointed at the lack of music in the film
FR. I'm tired of East Asians or any other non SEA who talk over us when putting their opinions on the movie, and completely disregarding everything we're saying. The movie treats under represented SEA countries as a monolith, despite how different our countries are.
@@marikostarkov Exactly they could’ve included every SEA cultures without mixing every outfit on one person and hairstyle and just put it on one individual people
@@hallooos7585 What they really should have done is make a different tribe a different country. Making a pan-Southeast asian world that doesn't make it seem like a monolith.
@@3HorsemenOfMovingPictures Raya would have had bomb songs in it, would probably have some SEA languages being sung as well.... if the SEA representation was actually good in Raya
I think I found it more frustrating that I found more representation from the Filipino grandma's scene from Spiderman No Way Home than a majority of Raja and the Last Dragon. The sad part is people in Southeast Asia and of Southeast Asian communities WANTED this movie to work so much than any other audience, but, like you said, it felt like we were watching from a tourist's perspective.
Thank god I didn't waste my time watching raya and just saw the comments and reviews. (I'm Filipino and the Filipino grandma got me and my sister giddy)
Even as a tourist you won't be seeing decent women have haircut like that, we have Bob, short but as the video said straight out of steampunk games looks edgy and rough that's never happen, ever, even women in military/police they doesn't have that kind of haircut unless they're fresh recruit. We have rules here for women haircut it's at least shoulder length long, to cut your hair so short probably only happen in pariah royalty DEFINITELY doesn't have that kind of haircut.
As a Vietnamese person, that one scene from Craig of the Creek where that one Vietnamese kid made Bánh Xèo made me feel more represented than the entirety of Raya
I'm SEA American, my family are refugees from the Vietnam War because our clans partook in the conflict on the US side. Suffice to say? My family put their trust in the empty promises of protecting our freedom and liberty. My Grandfather died from a stroke years before they finally gave him and fellow veterans recognition. My Great-uncle is still around kicking at least, it was fascinating to see the bullet wound scar through his body the first time-the round went straight through without tumbling luckily and didn't hit any major organs. This movie was not made for me nor SEAs in general, and frankly? I couldn't care less. But what rustles my fucking jimmies? The themes of *"trust"* are an absolute slap in the face of our people's sacrifices, literal children were sent into combat! I cannot trust this Government which also sends its own young men to die then forgets them once they return home. And Disney being this tone deaf to not register that? Absolutely bogus higher-ups that have no reason to be in their positions to begin with. I'm not mad that Raya is meh, I'm mad that Disney thinks this is good enough for us when it's not even for us.
@@theradioestofbois You're welcome. I picture Raya to be a Battlemaster Fighter, Shrimp Boy being a Bard, Thief baby being a...well a Thief Rogue, and The big guy being a Barbarian.
I wish Raya was created as a series instead of a movie so that they could really delve into the various Southeast Asian cultures rather than what they created. Doing that would've allowed the writers and animators to do their homework, introduce characters, give those characters motivations and allow the audience to get to know who they were and what the cultures were around them. If they had done that they could've made something truly special. What we got, instead, was something that I honestly couldn't say had to do with any real cultures, and as such I couldn't really recommend the movie to anyone.
I'm not sure it would've been any better ad a series, considering who they put in charge of writing and directing the movie 😔 they would need to get a writer who are actually familiar with the cultures or at least promote the two southeast asians who were already on the team
@@callimara Agreed, but at least the time they would have to put into the project might mean they try harder to really bring about more reference to the culture than what little we got with Raya. The very first thing any writer should do when they are bringing attention to any culture that is not their own is to research it, and with Disney's resources they can literally travel there, talk to the people, watch and enjoy the culture from first hand accounts, and get people who have grown up with that culture to be fonts of knowledge.
@@callimara about your comment on armor worn in Balinese dance, I don't think that looks like armor when I first saw it because it didn't give that impression. Of course real metal costume for dance will be uncomfortable but the fabric design just not like armor.
When I watched Raya, it never really occurred to me they were trying to represent something other than an eastern-inspired fantasy, where as I knew that Encanto was representing a different culture. I didn't actually know it was Columbian until afterwards, as I only picked up the details top realise it was a Spanish-speaking South American area.
same! i'm not southeast asian and when i watched the movie it didn't even occur to me that it was meant to be based on any specific region other than "asian"
As a half-vietnamese American, I agree with all of your points in this video. I especially agree with the idea that Disney should have focused on one country instead of shoving many countries into one mishmash. I also agree with the idea that the fashion is very lackluster in terms of representing our cultures, as I really couldn't tell what countries' clothes anyone was wearing.
As a Vietnamese person, this movie didn't make me feel represented in the slightest. Even if you take all the SEA elements out of this movie, literally nothing would change. If this movie's identity is so interchangeable with other cultures, it was never meant to represent anyone. I don't understand why they didn't just make a movie for each culture. Like wouldn't that have been free money for them?
@@shanicek5188 their reason for not doing that is because it would feel like they're saying "oh this country is bad, this one's good, and our hero is from this country"
During watching raya, my sister n I (Vietnamese Australians) felt so detached from what might’ve been our only chance of genuine representation in a big animated film for a long time :( we were rly excited upon first hearing about it, but man everything from making SEAsia into a fantasy monolith to the weird message that those who’ve traumatised you in the past deserve your forgiveness because you’re just as bad for not trusting them again is a little questionable? The worst crime is that they made a film about SEA cultures boring lmao 😭 Also your drawing came out so beautiful also! I guess I can just daydream abt a raya movie where u were behind the writing n design wheel haha
As a Vietnamese person, I was so excited upon hearing that there will be a Vietnamese/Southeast Asian princess (that's also inspired by Hai Bà Trưng according to what i heard?) Vietnamese culture is already so underrepresented in western media and every time there's a movie that centers around our country, that movie is almost guaranteed to be about the Vietnam war and that's basically the only thing most people know about us. I've seen people who genuinely think that we're all dirt poor rice farmers who live in trees and work on farms all day. And then when I actually watched this movie, I just felt...disappointed. The only thing related to my culture that I could vaguely recognize was some of the food and a random background character named Dang Hai. The characters all felt forgettable and unrelatable, the message was poorly executed and this movie didn't make me feel represented at all. It just didn't connect with me. This movie would've been the perfect opportunity to give SEAsians some needed representation, but instead it just felt like an attempt to make money from underrepresented SEAsians who just want to see themselves on screen by making SEA into a generic fantasy monolith and using SEA culture as an aesthetic and nothing more. At this point I'm gonna die of old age before I'm ever gonna see my culture being represented in popular media
@@whatever5401 absolutely agree! The writers probably tried to make it “relatable” to a larger variety of people but that inadvertently made it less relatable - they should’ve just focused on one SEA culture, because one is already so interesting and worthy enough for a movie!! Naturally, I would’ve been able to relate more since that culture could have been represented more authentically, even if it wasn’t vietnam. I’ve had to grow up my whole life just projecting myself onto East Asian characters (eg. mulan), so anything closer is already a bonus to me haha. The one viet thing I noticed that I relate to is raya calling her dad ‘ba’ and that was about it HAHA I’m lucky enough to have grown up with a big viet community so I’ve rarely faced stereotyping n racism here but I’m so sorry you had to deal w those ignorant people :(
I am not southeast Asian, but I relate to this a lot as a eastern European (FYI this will be long) . We are often viewed as something less than western Europeans, and most the representation we get is as Villans or criminals. Not only that but most people tend to think that eastern Europe is only slavic ... which is not. Yes the majority is (Russians, Ukrainians, Serbs, Montenegrins, etc.), but you also have Greeks, Turks (mostly from Istanbul)(also I am aware that they belong to southeast Europe, but they too get a bad press), Albanians, Hungarians, Romani (which most if not all of you know them as the derogatory term "Gypsy"), etc. As a person living in Germany, I am not going to say that all Germans think like this, because they don't . But I know Germans that use us as an example of "bad etiquette", because we don't say "Hallo" to every stranger we meet. We don't because we are mean, but because a 'hello' is not something you say casually to someone. A 'hello' to us can last for 5mins, because you are asking this person how they and their family is, that's why we use it only for family and friends. And yeah, we don't get that much of representation (at least not positive), and a few Western Europeans look down at us and use us as examples of bad behaviour. TL;DR as an Eastern European I relate to the struggles of Western, Central, Northern, Southern and South eastern Asians (sorry if I forgot to mention any). We are also seen as less educated, noisy, lazy, ugly even tho we are the most hard-working people in Western European societies.
And of course we have the colourist shit, that we are darker than them, and that makes us less European bullshit. And as I said we are seen as just Slavic or Russian, imagine if you called everyone in East Asian Chinese You'd be cancelled ,but saying eastern Europe is an extension of Russian is just eh whatever.
@@alyaperez1440 Like, more east than germany and Austria is considered eastern for us europeans and OP must be one of many east europeans who live in germany
@@jlinus7251 I wouldn't necessarily say it's a tragedy but It is definitely disappointing. Especially since Slavic people are all over the place in Europe and north America.
I'm a person from South America (Argentina to be more specific) and I've learned throughout the years that we should ask them to do better but to not seek approval from USA either. It may be a weird statement but as much as I liked Encanto, I didn't praise it that much or joined the hype train that came with it. They finally gave a chance to represent a SA culture outside of Mexico, yes, but I feel like that was a one timer, because at the end of the day, the company goes back and forth with the people they hire to write, produce or think of this movies and a company's main goal is the money nontheless. So I learned to appreciate but not idolize for that matter, maybe descendents from SA people in the USA see it as a win but I feel it shouldn't be groundbreaking to be careful and kind to the outside cultures you take inspiration from. Also and very important, I love your videos Calli 💝they are super entertaining and they help me to relax while working on my own art, so tysm :D ❤✨
Americans are kinda weird like that. Everyone born and raised here has learned to idolize the most basic and bare minimum stuff. I say this as an american, it's kinda aweful because a LOT of toxic and aweful stuff kinda followed it. [that I won't get into because it'd go off topic more than I already have]
Couldn't have said bit better myself. I've been trying to tell other people this but couldn't really word it right. I believe that my fellow Filipinos in particular tend to praise the West for doing the bare minimum -whether in representing our culture or other. It's good to appreciate it but going as far as glorifying them for it is a little much.
Yeah, as a fellow brazilian, I liked Encanto and it spoke to me in several ways, but I also don't think it goes too far from the whole Disney movie formula, since the entire movie could have swapped the location and not much would have changed, which is different from when I watched Coco, because it felt genuinely like a movie made by people who have Mexican heritage. (But it had the whole Disney trying to copyright Dia de Los Muertos, shitty af) Basically, we should stop praising Disney (and other companies) for the bare minimum and start supporting movies and other types of art created by the people from our countries.
As an Indonesian, It felt underwhelming after watching Raya. I couldn't relate to anything culturaly story wise (except for maybe background visuals??),. Each SEA country is soo much different to eachother, they're so rich in culture and they just put it in a melting pot of unrelated things. What a movie.
As you said, I don't know any folklore from South East Asia, but I WANT TO! Disney had an opportunity to spotlight stories and folklore that isn't normally given the spotlight but they didn't. I LOVE learning about other cultures, and would've enjoyed a story that took a basis from a folklore I don't know.
I feel like the movie lacked the time to introduce the tribes. It did felt like a vacation. It also felt too easy to collect all the pieces of the stone imo. I may be comparing it too much to ATLA but I really have no choice but to do so. I feel like this movie would have been better as a series where Raya gets to know people and develop better trust with others. I mean, isn't that the point of the movie? Raya can also get to understand the different cultures around Kumandra. It can change her mind to "hey, maybe we are better together. Not teared apart like this." Just my thoughts though :>
Im Filipino so yes, definitely south east asian, but also my country and people have very deep and convoluted ties to hispanic culture, like colombia we were conquered by spain for a while, so we have a lot of hispanic traditions and habits integrated very deeply in our culture. Speaking as one filipino, i can definitely say i felt more culturally connected to encanto than i ever did with raya. The only thing i saw that was remotely filipino in the movie was raya's zigzaggy sword and her large hat. It was a cool movie sure, great animation but i wasn't attached to it from a cultural perspective. Meanwhile with encanto every other minute or so i would go, "Hey that's like how filipinos do this and that" (bruno's knocking on wood thing was such a delight altho idk if that's smth hispanic in particular)
@@marygraceoyangorin8918 yeah it is, you knock on wood if something's mentioned that you wouldn't want to happen. If there's no wood around, i was told you knock on your head as substitute
Namaari and her mother are ancient Egyptian. Me: Ok, I believe you. The mother's dress looks like it's meant to be a lotus to me. But for real, if you showed me these two characters without context, and I didn't already know what movie they were from, I would legit think they would be ancient Egyptian or ancient Egyptian inspired, the clothing, jewelry, eye liner, and hell even the hairstyle very much screams it.
if Lin Manuel Miranda, a puerto rican, can make music with so much love and appreciation for Columbia, i think raya should at least have recognizable inspirations in their made up nations if theyre gonna claim she’s southeast asian.
I’m a white american and Raya and the last dragon was really underwelming. There was barely any time to get to know the characters because they kept introducing new ones. Seesu (I don’t know how to spell her name) was extremely annoying, and the setting seemed like it was just for aestetics and it could of taken place anywhere with barely any change to the story.
You should check out amphibia. The main character is Thai and despite her being on a different world for most of the show, they still incorporate her culture into the story some.
I'm not Maori or Tongan or really any native Polynesian cultures, but I live in New Zealand and grew up with Polynesian food and cultural performances. Watching Moana was quite relatable, really, and I loved finding the points I connected with. I'm not Southeast Asian so I didn't really notice any thing culturally wrong with Raya, but I just didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would. I did think that it was missing the songs and musical numbers I always enjoyed in Disney, so I fully agree with your remark about how it should have been an musical.
As an Indonesian girl (born and raised here) myself, I was EXCITED when Disney announced that they're gonna make Raya possibly based on my country. But the moment I laid my eyes on Sisu? All my interest in Raya disappeared like the morning fog. I knew they were gonna mess this up so when Raya finally came out, I didn't want to watch it at all. Until my cousin played the movie at the family gathering. Out of politeness, I try to watch it to the end but oh my god was it boring as hell (to me, personally). I don't even remember any of the side characters' names despite how badly they're trying to make them as distinctive as possible.
I know this isn't worth commenting but I am still gonna. this also somehow grew into a vent.... nothing serious I feel bad for being American because I am separated from both sides of my heritage apart from being told by my parents with the occasional research. Ethnic wise I am half southeast Asian (Laos) and Mexican. I feel like I am wiped from part of my heritage because I know more about folklore and culture from Mexico than I do about the folklore and culture of Laos. it's difficult for me because when people ask about my ethnic background they automatically assume I know everything. I don't. it's kinda stupid how people just assume that. I often also get called "white washed" by people who think I do things "too american". basically, I am constantly having a crisis over my heritage and being American.
I definitely relate to you as someone who's Hmong but was raised in America. Both pairs of my grandparents immigrated to America during the Vietnam war, and America is where my parents were born. I was also born in America. Being a part of such a small minority in this country left me with such little room to learn about my culture and history. Especially with the lack of information online. It's even worse since I don't know the language. My first language ended up being English instead of Hmong. Since we lived too far from a lot of family during most of my elementary years, the Hmong language was just something I never picked up. My relatives always talk to me about how Americanized I am. Always asking me, "When are you going to learn Hmong?". I have a lot of family I can't get close to because of these language barriers, and my parents always having to translate for us. I want to be included in family events. I want to be close with my family. But there's such a large disconnect that I can't seem to fix. Luckily my dad has a lot of connections! His Hmong Language and Culture teacher plans on creating a class for the younger generation to learn, so hopefully I'll be able to learn there! And I hope that one day you'll be able to find a way to get closer with your Laotian side! (Also also, sorry for the long message >
I'm tex-mex, white/mexican born and raised in texas and I feel like I don't fit in anywhere properly because I don't know your average white kid culture or mexican culture, my mom grew up christian and never liked mexican folklorish stuff so I never learned much of that side of mexican culture, so what feels like mexico to me from my experiences going to mexico and what I've learned from my mom will be different from those that celebrate the day of the dead or go to the top of the pyramids and hang with shamans
I relate so hard with this, I’m Vietnamese and like brooo I barely know that much about my culture … but talking with my dad helps? But it doesn’t even help because he left Vietnam at 18…
I relate to this so much dude 😭 Am half white half Guatemalan n I don’t even know Spanish or the culture that well, it’s hard to educate myself cause the internet doesn’t do show any smaller/not white tbh country well, n instead focuses on the violence that happens there I would love to know more but I can hardly find anything positive information about my culture :’) I really do feel wiped from my culture even though I really don’t want to be and have tried/given alot of effort not to be :’)
@@soxwithyourmon oh yeah, that's so true, even mexico is depicted as violent and poor but it still gets more cultural representation. I wonder if there's a way to find a nice Guatemalan community on the internet as a way to feel a part of it. Artists maybe? I always try to connect through art and books, which are hard to find from mexico, but there are thankfully a lot of modern latino artists for me to feel inspired from. Maybe you could find recipes online, and maybe even learning some simple amount of spanish at your own pace can help you feel more connected to it. Maybe someday you can go there, but for now it would definitely be nice to see lots of pictures. Maybe a google maps trip? I don't know. When I get older I definitely want to do so much to represent cultures and countries as they are, the beautiful and the "ugly" with love and respect.
oh my goodness I love how you mentioned 'Wonderland Indonesia' ♡♡♡♡♡ and I got chills listening to your pencak silat concept AHHH that could've been such a captivating scene, I love your ideas!!
something similar happened to Aladdin, which was supposed to be in Iraq but Disney just merged the cultural aspects of Turkey, Iraq and India, failing to represent any of these
@callimara I don't think that kind of representation isn't necessarily limited to Disney, though. How culturally accurate was DreamWorks' version of Sinbad's story?
I want a retelling of that one story where a woman and her son grow up poor and he runs away, coming back years later a successful man and he looks down on his mother. His mother then prays to the local god for retribution
Maling kundaaaaang haha! I'm from west Sumatra so I love that story! Also, funfact: You know the Malin kundang stone at Aia Manih (Air Manis) Beach? It was actually sculpted by my grandma's friend! They both went to an art school, and this friend of her excels in sculpting! So they went to the beach as a group and sculpted the Malin Kundang statue, ship and all! :)
Don't forget also that representation is the second in goals for a movie. The first is marketing, not much the movie, but the merchandise afterwards. So many Sisu plushes and Raya dolls...
As fellow Filipino 🇵🇭 I was offended in so many way the dragon design made want to cry I wish they kept the concept because it was so much cooler why they gave them anime eyes 😭?? And clothing your so right on that one we love detail clothes back in old days the simple clothes are have lot pattern and embroidery even accessories!! I wish this movie was musical as well the plp here love music 😔
This video made me watch Wonderland Indonesia and- just- WOW. You were so very right in referring to it as a love letter to Indonesia. I genuinely got emotional at some bits. And the music is just *chef's kiss* If you're Indonesian and haven't seen it, WATCH IT RIGHT NOW.
Whenever I think about this movie, I always go back to the fact that Steven Universe gave more authentic Filipino representation than Disney did. Like there are literally more Filipinos in Steven Universe's cast than there are *South East Asians* in Raya and the Last Dragon's. That thought makes me livid ngl
I'm Brazilian, not in any way related to anywhere in south east Asia, and.. it felt bland and icky, like something was wrong, i didn't really learn anything, in fact, i learned way more with videos like this. You guys deserve so much better
If they could make two whole movies that took place in one Hispanic country each and make it well written and accurate, then they can do the same for Indonesian countries. I've seen endless praise for Coco and Encanto about how spot on every detail is meanwhile being amazing movies with a good message. Raya and the Last Dragon can't do either of those, even though Disney has the full ability to do so and has proven such. Plain disappointing.
I'm a Malaysian animation student and we had this like.. programme that gives us an inside look into the idea and concept process of Raya before it was released.. I was so excited at first but when I saw the trailers they showed (I have not watched any trailors prior) I was so disappointed.. the first thing that came to mind was "Star Wars" , not "home" or "familiar".. I was really discoyraged but then they showed their pictures when they took trips around Bali, Melaka and Bangkok (if I'm not mistaken) I held hope.. they showed the first part of the movie where Raya was at home with her father and she was wearing clothing that loomed super similar to traditional thai wear and also had some headwear that looked somewhat like a cucuk sanggul and the songket (idk what else to call it cause that's what i'm familiar with) was there so I was like ok ok.. maybe this place is saved.. I thought Raya leaned towards Nusantara influence so I just assumed that her nation would be Nusantara inspired and the other nations would be more inspired by other countries in SEA.. but no, everyone just looked............ unrecognisable.. I was super disappointed :"/
Even as someone who is SE Asian (🇰🇭) but was born and grew up in America, I still felt like Raya was way off the mark. I especially agree with your point that it should have been a musical. There’s literally no SE Asian music represented in America I feel like, so I would have loved to see that
I think they could and should have done more research on the culture if they were making in a designed country,and from this,the laziness are in it,I do my research bc I am working on stories mostly and if a lazy bum like me can do that they can,that’s all,love ur art and Opinion ❤️
Honestly, just like all the criticism I have heard from this movie I agree that Raya would definitely work better as a series. One of Raya's strongpoints is the worldbuilding, from what I've heard and I think a better approach for the representation is showing all 10 different countries by separating them into regions, maybe? Because South East Asian countries are different from each other. It's the same problem that middle eastern and south asian countries and cultures faced, having their cultures mushed together and making people think they're all the same when they're really not. Representation for southeast Asians are few and far between, that's why I was so happy when the new Carmen Sandiego series dedicated one entire episode to Indonesia. Even if it's not much, I still quite liked it. And I remember being excited about Raya but then being confused on where it went because the promotion for it suddenly STOPPED- Tho, I do acknowledge that Disney did hire artists and consultants from the cultures they referenced, I still think they could've at least hired a southeast asian director, screenwriter, writer, etc.. I didn't even get into the message. The message isn't bad, but god. The execution of that message is just terrible. Raya isn't a bad movie, but I really do still think they could've done better. I do apologize on this long comment, it's just, as a Southeast Asian person from Indonesia I was kind of disappointed by Raya...
Disney sort of has a thing to take cultures incrediy mixed up. There was Aladin, Moana (yup, I've seen Polynesians critique the movie and one thing they all had in common was that Moana wasn't clear of whose culture was it. The only thing that the movie has it going for was a decent plot and it being a musical), El Dorado, and there's probably a lot more. It's just disappointing that the company seems to prioritise the 'relatability' of the script to the audiences rather than showing a legitimate movie instead. I can understand why they have to - But isn't is _so much better_ to accurately depict a culture instead? Just look at Kung Fu Panda, it's incredibly silly and childish for a concept yet they actually nailed the culture on the head that the Chinese government questioned how come they didn't come up with the movie. There's Coco - straightforwardly accurate. And that was even directed by people that didn't grow up with the culture. Although you know what those good movies have in common? They weren't directed by Disney. Disney can have some strong movies but it seems like most of them were in the past, while companies like Dreamworks and Pixar still seems to survive from all that consumerism influence. I mean, just look at how the dragon looks. Why is there hair? It's a god damned water dragon. You don't see any fishes with hair so why did a water dragon of all things develop a huge lump of hair??
@@TuesdaysArt Oh then that's my bad. Still, Dreamworks and Pixar have a lot more effort into their movies other than just appearances than Disney nowadays. Disney seems to be cranking up on the visual aesthetics rather than the actual plot, and the most damning evidence is how much CGI remakes they keep putting out.
@@Пинагод That's alright, it's easy to mix them up! DreamWorks is mostly known for its CG movies, after all. Disney is just leaning on whatever properties that they can absorb into their Capitalist Blob. That's why they're practically going through Marvel diarrhea at this point. There are four Marvel movies releasing this year (two of them already released two months apart from each other), it's getting ridiculous. It wouldn't surprise me if the animated movies are starting to become an after thought. Checking out what they're planning to release in the next few years, there's a lot of focus on the live action stuff...including making sequels to movies that were released decades ago. They don't have to make good content anymore, they can just wave a character in someone's face for 90 minutes and still make a profit.
I'm so glad you brought up Aladdin Aladdin is mix of perisa Egypt arabia and south asain all mixed and called here middle eastern representation this happens to South Eas west /east Asians alot
Great video as always, your art is so beautiful and calming to look at 💗✨ 18:56 I’m Middle-European and I’ve never seen a folk costume that plain, if anything it looks a little bit like Star Wars 27:40 Me neither, and until you mentioned that it should have been a musical I couldn’t quite put a finger on the reason, but here it is!
This might seem overproud and a bit annoying (also kinda offensive-), so please if you aren't here for that stuff just don't read. I just really wanna say that I'm happy that an Indonesian content creator can share our culture to other people. It might be that I just don't watch many TH-cam videos or use social media a lot, but it's so rare to find someone sharing our culture (and not just Bali). I recently felt and learned that Indonesia might be "the biggest invisible thing in the world." I know I'm not qualified enough to say this (considering I am still a minor and just got interested in geography and history) but Indonesia is overlooked way too much. Indonesia is the fourth most populous country, a country that has more than 13 000 to 17 000 islands, a country with one of the most endemic species in the world, yet we are somehow invisible to the world. News about Indonesia is barely there unless you are in Asia or specifically Southeast Asia. I think I can say for some people that people from certain regions, such as Eastern Europe, any other part of Asia that isn't East Asia, South America, and Africa as a whole, don't get much representation (at least from what I've seen). Even sometimes East Asia is stuck to common stereotypes on the internet. Going onto Southeast Asia, many countries there are not known in other countries, even if they know the countries there, it's probably not because of the culture, but relation through war/occupation and holiday destination. Sorry for this long rant- Have a good morning/afternoon/evening/night to you all who have read this God-awful long rant with horrible grammar.
I think more people from Southeast Asia should be on the team. Directors, writers, artists. Etc. The musical take is something I didn't expected, but after thinking for a while, I definitely agree. I like to be optimistic about this movie could be a small step for more southeast asians being able to tell their stories and show those stories.
Not gonna lie, even people from Disney should've make a team which specialize in country/messages/cultures stuff because whoever did this just went to Google or just asked a half southeast Asian for information (no shade to half southeast Asians)
I know Griselda Sastrawinata-Lemay, who is from Indonesia, worked on the concept art for Raya but don't know how much they actually used of her work since the "Raya" page on her website is still "coming soon"
Personally I disagree. It doesn’t matter who directs or writes it or whatever. It should be only based on skill, and knowledge. For an example Avatar the Last Air bender has Asian culture in it. A great cartoon, and gives good messages, and good characters. This was written by people who weren’t Asian . People are capable of creating something that’s not apart of their culture. It’s how they go about it that’s the issue.
19:30 Very interesting fact and I agree with you. I always felt that longer hair and beautiful colors were more intimidating than the whole short hair and plain look. Birds, poisonous frogs and large cats like lions and tigers are pretty good examples. When you look at a lion’s mane or a peacock’s feathers you can appreciate its beauty but it doesn’t make them any less dangerous when you get on their bad side.
Naamari : destroys Raya's trust more than once, gaslights her into it being her fault, is responsible for the litteral apocalypse, rubs it in, caused her trauma, kills Sisu, tries to flee first and helps when realizing she can't get away, is unfairly forgiven and her redemption arc is rushed Tumblr : "OH MY GOD THEY ARE WITTLE LESBIANS ;w; SO LESBIAN I LOVE THEM SHE IS QUEEN DID YOU SEE HOW LESBIAN SHE LOOKS? PUREST FORM OF LOVE"
i love a lesbian couple as much as the next guy, but Raya and Naamari did not make sense at all. i had an ex friend gush about them after watching it, and it felt they didn't even watch the same movie as me.
im so glad you pointed out the fashion and the plain-ness of the movie!! I'm not Indonesian, but i do happen to be Puerto Rican. In out culture theres so many colors and patters and it's full of life!! and that's the case for almost any culture outside of the US. in the cultures of my friends and my family we always see such beauty in the clothes and buildings and even in the enviornment!!! but that mmovie was so PLAIN!!!! it was drab and felt devoid of life and family and just CULTURE!!!!!!!!
Hello my Sundanese people! Really feel presented by this commentary. I really like your English. And I'm completely agree with all of the things you said there, well done!
Indo here, thanks for bringing this up. Amazing take! This just saddened me, really... it's like the creators just said "Is Southeast Asia the techy Asia, or the jungle Asia? Definitely not the curry Asia" it annoys me so much...
oh God I'm glad to hear this video. from one Indonesian to another (and as someone who's still living and studying, working, and has families here), this movie just, pisses me off the more I think about it. I feel like Disney didn't made this movie to make a movie, but rather a checkbox of "representation" that may or may not be good. that's how I feel when I see echanto as well, it feels like a checkbox being marked and that movie was lucky enough to be a great movie. Hell if anything, I feel like they feel ashamed of this movie because I can tell you I've never heard or even seen any promotional material for this right until the moment it was on theaters (is it on theaters? idk I just remembered it said coming soon) I didn't even know it was to represent MY culture, I didn't know what it was supposed to represent. Ig I shouldn't be mad and just be glad that at least some people on Disney acknowledge my existence but I just personally feels like as an Indonesian, no one from the western dominating culture of entertainment knew of my country's existence and not much of our local entertainment menage to break through and become popular world wide, and it's sucks because Indonesia has a lot of beautiful culture. it's not perfect, and the government here is kinda shitty, but the culture, the art of it is beautiful and diverse. shame that it seems the west doesn't seem to have that much interest on us other than maybe a 1 week vacation to Bali :' am I being harsh? yea probably, but that's just what the movies makes me feel, it's like that one meme where if a westerner puts Indonesia in the title, Indonesianers will flock on to their video but exploited to SEA as a whole, who doesn't get that much western representation either
17:09 I think it's valid to feel like that, i'm Vietnamese and i feel the exact same way too. I tried to look for scattered bits of representation of my culture, even reasoning with myself that "maybe i can't find much of anything because my culture is closer to East Asia?". Overall, RATLD was a disappointing experience. The plot, the music, the design and the characters are forgettable and disney failed at their biggest marketting point for this movie, South East Asian representation. Also, Namaari is walmart Vriska lol
Oh, i forgot to add this: Many people have pointed out that disney didn't represented each tribes as any specific culture because they don't want to implied that only the culture that the heart tribe represented was good but the result is they just muddled all of SEA cultures together and almost no one feel represented. I also think that some of the characters kind of amplify bad stereotypes (the thieving baby and monkeys, the greedy boat owner kid, the description of the tribes, etc.)
YOURE SO RIGHT ABT THE VRISKA PART :skull:. Also, I have a side character in my story [Khuyen Saleh / “The Conductor”] who’s Vietnamese and Pakistani- r there anything I should do and avoid with Vietnamese characters?
@@galacticgxts729 Hmm, i guess just the general avoid the stereotypes (greedy, thief, eating dog and cat, etc) and do some research if you want to write about their culture. Vietnamese cultures and foods can have a lot differences depended on the place your character lives or came from, their age group, their social class. I've seen lots of people mentioned phở as THE Viet food but if your character is from the working class then eating something like phở on a regular basis wouldn't make sense since it's a rather expensive dish. I think the only thing that you should absolutely NOT do is comparing or mistaking Vietnamese culture to Chinese or express negative opinion about Vietnamese historical heroes, just stay out of the touchy politic stuff. Good luck with writing your character, feel free to ask me if you have any question.
i remember literally sitting there, watching the movie, trying to find things that were distinctly vietnamese and thinking "maybe Namaari's mother's dress is ao dai? if you squint, cross your eyes, and ignore how it isnt ao dai." 😭
I’m thai myself and I was SO hyped when i heard we were getting a southeast asian disney princess but raya turned out to be such a huge letdown. It represented no one. They even got us southeast asians fighting over what ethnicity raya is bc she was like all these unique cultures put in a blender fused in one. and YES IT SHOULDVE BEEN A MUSICALLL omg we SEAsians have got all kinds of beautiful cultural music and i just wish they wouldve explored that. I envy encanto so much in the sense that they did so well in terms of representation while what we got over here is a movie about pony-like dragons with the message of ‘you have to trust everyone’ like 😭?? + please do correct me if im wrong but aren’t the dragon worshipping beliefs more east asian than southeast?? bc i feel like instead of dragons they shouldve gone with this lao mythical creature called naka instead (which is SUCH a missed opportunity bc naka is basically a snake-like aquatic dragon without wings and namari’s literally a water dragon)
Thai gangg. Yeah, I feel like its a massive blend of all things deemed "asian" yet its so misrepresented. Why tf is a Water creature fluffy? I swear its for selling sisu merch and not to represent actual culture.
They SHOULD have had more Danish references in Frozen, since it's a Danish story. But no, they needed mountains, which Denmark famously doesn't have, so they set it in Norway instead.
Disney does a pretty bad job of representing cultures in general. The messages that we're supposed to take away from the movies in general are often packed full of toxic positivity and things that would get you into more negative situations in life than positive ones. There is so much nuance in all of these countries that Disney chooses to overlook and replace with generic stories that you could find in the kid's section of a library. The clothing is often misrepresented and many important pieces of these cultures are often left out as well. When it comes to Disney, a lot of work is put into movies featuring mainly white characters, (For example, the 4 Cinderella movies) and then they turn around and do a half-assed job on movies featuring people from other cultures.
I don’t think it’s the fact that they aren’t putting as much effort into these movies with other cultures. They are putting in the same effort to make a movie just not a culturally accurate movie.
IMO Raya is done the most dirty by Disney. With the other princesses you can guess which part of the world they take inspiration from. Aladdin from the Arabs, Frozen from Scandinavia, Classic Disney from French/German countries, Pocahontas was Indigenous American. What about Raya? If Disney didn't keep mentioning SEA barely anyone would've known where she took inspiration from. "Somewhere in Asia, idk. Korea or China maybe?" would've been people's answer. And they wouldn't be wrong, the voice actors were most if not all East Asians.
Im german Indonesian and when I first heard about this movie I cautiously stayed my distance because I was already disappointed by other current Disney productions. It breaks my heart to see that my worries stand proven.
Not even halfway through the video and I'm truly sorry for what happened. I've heard lots of criticism about the movie even before watching it, and when I watched I could see why. A virtual hug to you and a middle finger to the underlying yet blunt racism.
Tbh, when I first saw the kingdom of Fang I honestly thought it was Atlantis, it looked so much like what I imagined Atlantis to look like and when we first saw it, I wondered if I was watching the same movie. I also thought the dragons were hideous. Not only were the dragons mammals but they also have the appearance of elephant Shrews with elongated bodies and horse head, that's what it looked to me, plus the dragons are not only very dumb, but the message they send to people clearly means that they aren't capable of actual rational thought process.
lmao when you said you had to play where's waldo just to point out a reference to your culture is too relatable-cause uh the only thing i was so sure of as a filipino reference was the partial Arnis Raya did when she was a kid, jfc. I was also kinda hoping i would see the leaders of each place do the Sandugo ritual (an ancient blood pact ritual filipinos do for sealing agreements etc.) at the start to add a lil more spice when they betray Raya's dad. Cause that would add to the whole distrust thing since that was a pretty big deal, and still is at some places here.
It felt like Raya could've given the characters more colorful costumes at least. I've seen traditional clothing look like they came from a fairytale, most SEA clothes also seem to be very colorful. Like in my country, pre colonial clothing and tribal wear would have more than one color.
Raya did get me interested in Indonesia culture through. I wouldn't mind learning about the actual culture. Also I'd like to know what the music sounds like.
I stumbled upon this video yesterday and have just watched Wonderland Indonesia 2 by Alffy Rev and tho i did not watch Raya i cant help but wish that Raya is made like Wonderland Indonesia 2
this video really resonated with me it really did felt like they just took random stuff from southeast asian culture and mashed it really weirdly AND OH MY GOD i really thought i was the only one who thought the fang royals looked really out of place it also resonates with me because i rarely see fellow sundanese speaking english here
This movie kind reminded me of Rio from BluSky. At the time it was one of the few windows into my culture but it felt kind blended together. Like Carnival is cool but Brasil has more holidays and the people care about other things. Idk. Love the video ❤️
Did the sequel movie change your opinions on it or enhance them? Rio was always a favorite movie of mine, but I’m white as bleach so I wasn’t focusing on/ aware of cultural accuracies in the movies.
@@aris1869 I'm also brazilian, and I'm not gonna lie. I 100% prefer the second movie. I see everyone in internet saying that the first Rio movie is a "love letter to Brazil" but honestly the movie feels like a tourist panflet. "Look at the colors, the Pão de Açúcar mountain, the Christ Redentor, the Carnaval, the African rythms". It really feels like is trying to convince you to go there instead of showing you how is there. The second movie is way better, Blue Sky weren't trying at all and even though the plot is more generic, the fact that they were going for basic makes the movie feels so much better. It feels better because is a story that happens to be centered in Brazil instead of just showcasing it to other people. The cultural parts are integrated better, like the new years eve at the beginning or the blue macaws having indigenous painting while singing Beautiful Creatures (also most brazilians are obsessed with this song). And the first movie do have some problematics, specially in the way that it treats black people.
@@wesleis.oliveira6103 I also liked that they made deforestation and illegal loggers the villain. Great way to highlight a genuine issue in South America
@@aris1869 Yes, the part of deforestation is really important. And one of the things that makes me appreciate the second movie is how much indigenous coded the blue macaws are. The Amazon Forest is the only part of the world with indigenous people that have never had contact with outside civilization and these people suffer alot with invaders trying to cut the threes. So it was interesting seeing this is in a movie, because latin media normally doesn't focus too much on this issue.
What I like most about this movie is the youtube videos by south east asians correcting things, pointing things out and generally talking about their culture to be honest. The film is okay (to a western european who does not know a lot about south east asia), but I do apprechiate it as a starting point for the wonderfully informative videos that have come from it. Thank you for your input aswell!
So I'm not South East Asian. I have had some exposure to South East Asian cultures as I have several family members from the Philippines and friends from Thai and Indonesian cultural backgrounds, I do want to note I am not South East Asian myself and I don't have as rich of an experience as I do with East Asian cultures like China and Japan (as I currently live in Japan). I will say thank you for speaking up because I like hearing from the South East Asian perspective! I will say from my perspective, it felt like going into an Asian restaurant in a non-Asian country (like America). Don't get me wrong, I love going to Asian restaurants. I am always happy to support businesses made by minority ethnicities because regardless of how authentic it is, normally the food tastes good and is the result of hard work that should be respected. However, while it's always enjoyable to taste food from another culture and experience the snippet of Asian aesthetics through the artwork and decor in the restaurant, because it's put into the middle of an American setting, the experience is just temporary and when I step outside of the restaurant, I've left that setting. Raya felt like that. Because the culture and the story aren't rich, while I may enjoy it in the moment, as soon as I step away of the movie, like stepping out of the restaurant, that experience is just over. I guess at the end of the day I liked Raya and all on a surface level. I have a few complaints about it's structure like I think it moved too fast and never had strong development of any one character because it had too many characters and not enough time. I also think if they wanted a whole ensemble of protagonists then they shouldn't have made Raya the main character and instead make the group of characters the main character. Also I agree I think the dragons should have stayed dead because it would have made it feel so much more like rich and dynamic of a story and made Sisu's sacrifice so much more meaningful and impactful. Also Sisu was kind of a let down because she tonally didn't fit and aesthetically she could have just been cooler if they had made her look more like other naga dragons. But regardless of all that, it was a fine movie, but it just made me want to go back to watching Muay Thai films like Yamada: The Samurai of Ayothaya or Ong Bak films. Which I think the new Mulan remake gave me that same energy. Well, minus the thinking it's fine, I didn't like that movie structurally or thematically at all which would be a whole novel to fully unpack so I won't go into it now, but Mulan 2020 just had the aesthetic of movies that I like better (such as movies like Jade Dynasty or Zhongkui) and that made me just want to watch those movies instead. I hope that comment made sense and sorry for it being long, but I guess I just had a lot of thoughts on the topic.
idea, what if they just, like, switched Raya and Namaaris hair? Cause Raya is on the run most of the movie, she probably doesn't have time to take much care of it, so it would make more sense for her hair to be shaved? Idk man, just a thought.
Hi there Calli! I'm actually Balinese myself, and i would just like to say that i agree a LOT with the facts that you said throughout the video. I especially liked your take on the fashion of the movie, where i honestly didn't think about it when i first watched it. In your section of the fashion part i silently thought to myself that if they were going with a more SEA look they should have added a LOT more gold to the clothing, and was very happy when you pointed that out later! Overall really liked the video, keep up the good work! 😄
You should redesign and rewrite the Raya and The Last Dragon characters/story! Edit: I write stories, and I may be white and writing a story about other cultures, but I do research, I talk to people from those cultures, and I actually put in effort! I'm only an amateur, and I could do better. Since you're actually Southeast Asian, I bet you'll do amazing!!!
Ngl the first time (and only lol) I watched Raya I didn’t even realize it was supposed to take place in Asia (i think I missed them saying where it took place but nothing screamed “Southeast Asian” to me) and I was actually genuinely shocked to find out that it was supposed to represent Southeast Asians
Reminder that Majapahit, while a very strong kingdom, did not reign over all their purported territory. _Mitreka satata_ is something more akin to the EU than a monolithic empire like China or India.
EDIT: I want to apologize for not using Xiran's correct pronouns. I didn't know they used They/Them. I also want to apologize for mixing up Agrabah with "Arabia." That was very silly of me because Arabia is the name of a real peninsula.
I think it's important to acknowledge that Disney did hire a lot of artists and consultants from the cultures they referenced to help build the world of Raya, and I genuinely think their contribution was the movie's saving grace. However, at the end of the day, they will not have the same amount of influence on the movie's tone, writing, or direction as the writers and directors. Hence, it is extremely dubious that Disney was not willing to put Southeast Asians or people who at least had ties with the culture in roles that had the MOST control over the movie.
❤
This is so true, there's so many things that require people of the culture attempted to follow to create correctly; at least in their eyes. If you are not then you may miss things, or only use surface details and not go in depth as to why they are there.
To be honest the problem with that movie is because the writing, the formula of Disney and they recycled some caracteristics on the characters
@@masterpinkqueenandthese3450 So true, Disney recycled the writing plot and Sisus's design is the worst.
Hey! Just letting you know that Xiran is actually Non-Binary using they/them (no harm done)
My main problem with Raya is the message. Now trusting people and having faith in others itself is not a bad message to have, however, the way is presented is God awful. First, she's betrayed as a child and it brought around the apocalypse and destroyed the lives of hundreds if not thousands of people including her entire tribe and father and then as an adult she's essentially gaslit into trusting the woman who has been hunting her down the entire movie, shot Sisu, and doesn't really feel much remorse that hundreds of people were practically dead because of her.
YEP. she has trust issues and for good reason, but it’s always played off as if she’s wrong to be mistrusting
@@ocinidolegna And again when they’re betrayed for the dragon gem AGAIN, the message isn’t don’t give your trust blindly it’s that you don’t trust enough.
Personally, with where the movie is going, instead of the ending we got, Namaari would run away with all the crystals and leaving everyone else stoned. I wonder how people would feel about this ending instead of the one we got.
@@missplayer30 Honestly, it would’ve been better for a redemption arc if they showed long before that Namaari feels genuine remorse for what the world has become and wants to make it right. However, she goes about doing this by trying to subjugate and conquer the other tribes for their gems and Raya continually stops this fueling their rivalry even more as Namaari sees this as Raya trying prevent peace from being returned
@@annieandelsieofarendelle3294 I think I didn't made it clear enough. The ending is supposed to take place during the fight with the Droons, where the five characters are surrounded by them and have to use their pieces of crystal to fend themselves. Then, they tried to go with the trust lesson and give their pieces to Namaari before turning to stone. However, that's where the story change. Instead of Namaari trying to reassemble the pieces together, she ran away with all of them, leaving them, including Raya, stoned. The rivalry cannot continue if Raya is stoned.
Do you understand?
The fact that they animated every piece of fur and researched how the fur worked for Zootopia/Zootropolis and then decided to just be lazy with Raya and the last dragon just baffles me!
They didn't even need fur... idk how dragons are in that specific region but dragons in Eastern Asia don't even have fur
South East Asian dragons are more like sea serpents with badass crowns on their heads, no fur at all. WTF was Disney thinking???
Disney hopped on the drama of Asian-hate when they've already made Zootopia. A great example of diversity and lesson for racism.
@@bluubandette8871 what how
>Zootopia
I think they know their priority and target audiences for that movie...
Imagine if Encanto had taken information from Colombia, Argentina, México, Chile and Brazil. The movie whole would have been a cultural mess.
From what I heard, Disney gathered up their Latino employees and had them all talk about their families and used that as inspiration for the characters in Encanto. My Professor who is an ex-DIsney animator says Isabella is the spitting image of Lorelay Bove, assistant production designer of Encanto.
I mean that’s kinda what they did with their first “Latina” princess lol. Kudos that they did better with Encanto at least?
Well, from Brazil they only take some of the animals
Nothing more :(
Disney hopped on the drama of Asian-hate when they've already made Zootopia. A great example of diversity and lesson for racism. Even Encanto already simple example of diversity
*Actual* Colombian here, that film was a disgusting attempt of cultural appropriation.
Every time I see Raya pop up I’m just like “oh right that kid’s movie which has the message that the victim should relentlessly trust and love their abuser”. Words cannot express how much I hate Namaari. I always go into any type of content prepared for a trauma trigger, but I never expected to be triggered THAT HARD when Namaari straight up started gaslighting Raya into making her believe that SHE was the one who killed her own friend and brought on the apocalypse, when it was ALL 100% Namaari’s actions. And then, THEN everyone trusts Namaari to save the world, and she STILL tries to run and only save herself, and ONLY when she realizes she can’t save herself by fleeing, does she put the pieces together. And THEN she is absorbed into the main group, and Raya, her victim who she hunted and betrayed and abused and deeply traumatized, is responsible for her healing. It is disgusting and I can never stop yelling about how this was shoved down the throats of children.
Okay I will watch the video now, just needed to vent about this for the hundredth time bc just seeing the name makes me so mad 😭
I agree with all of this except I don’t really think Nammari didn’t run because she realized she couldn’t or at least I didn’t see it that way. The scene made it seem like Namaari saw Raya’s face and realized she was wrong for running and decided to save them. Although I believe Namaari was a horrible friend I think she had a change of heart at that moment. I could be wrong because I didn’t watch the whole movie only a few minutes after the beginning to the end. I didn’t like the way the message was presented especially for little kids.
And then if you get vocal about it, those producers would blindly out you as a racist, or a bigot, or a minority oppressor, or something like that
What a world.
The worst part is when people considered her an "redimided character" like Zuko when the truth is that she doesn't shows any of the principal features of an actual redemtion arc, she never reconsidered her own actions and values or take the consequence of her actions but blame others for them, and then Raya and the other forgive her like nothing??? Idk, it's confusing.
I'm so glad someone feels the same way. I think my turning point to realising how horrible Namaari is was when she shot Sisu and then blamed it on Raya.
Like, no, she was attempting to stop you from shooting her. She just executed it wrong. Her arm was on the trigger ready to fire, so I don't understand how it's "Raya's fault".
I understand how the whole premise was MEANT to show that Raya was too distrustful but she honestly had a reasonable cause. Someone she thought a friend betrayed her and started an apocalyptic world where everyone struggled to survive.
She HAD trusted Namaari and she got repayed by losing her father (or at least temporarily which feels wrong to me. It just makes me feel like it was meant to be those kids movies with the shitty plot where no one faces consequences despite being in a highly dangerous world).
No wonder she doesn't trust her.
Although I do think Namaari did have the thought of survival on her mind at the ending, I don't think the action she took was out of convinience. She did not know that putting the pieces back together would do anything up until it worked, so I think her feeling of guilt was genuine there, but it seems out of character so I understand the conclusion.
Worse, people shipped them. I'm repulsed.
Yeah and the message was just so weird, along with the pop culture references, I legit wanted Raya to just punch Namari at some points, and I genuinely believe that the message should have been better if both Sisu and Raya learned from one another to thrust but to not do so blindly.
yes! there's also major victim blaming undertones ☠️
“Thrust”
Lol
@@evagarcia865 never thrust blindly
Don't forget the infamous "Dep la"
I can't believe Disney made Raya *thrust* Namari blindly without actually having her *thrust* her.
Did you know, in some of the oldest Raya concept art, the setting isn't even Southeast Asia. It was just post-apocalyptic scifi. The Southeast Asian elements really were just tacked on!
It's possible that Namaari and her mother's designs, especially her mother's dress, is a leftover from that early development phase, which just makes this whole thing even more insulting.
Yknow, as an Indonesian, I was like, "Where are the crowns??" when they showed all the kingdom leaders. How could they possibly overlook the opportunity to show off the various intricate SEA crowns?? It’s just laziness, pure and simple.
Yes! I even saw concept art of Namaari with a metal arm.
And right?! I cannot believe they made monarchs a thing in this world and didn't even give any of them crowns.
@@callimara so the movie isn't southeast asian representation ?
South East Asia is not monoculture its multicultural place where all sort of people meet
@@-chenlanying5818 not even close, first of all we doesn't have that much royalty and Royalty unlike what you see in European doesn't go full tyrant Royalty here actually mingle with commoners rituals and festivals is where you found this Royalty celebrating with people, heck I even get to attend the wedding of them so called Royalty, it's free to all citizens like those in Jogjakarta they actually open house and everyone is invited, royalty in Indonesia today doesn't have that much privilege they are symbol of people while they still being allowed to rule their own kingdom like in Jogjakarta it's more like they're Governor.
And about face and how people represented in the movies, South East Asia is melting pot of culture, next door village is different even with same island for example west Java is different with Jogjakarta, it's very different people because in Java there is several culture like Betawi ( Jakartanese) Javanese (Very broad term there is 5 major Javanese subculture for example having different clothing, festival and ritual)
You might question with such vast amount of differences how we form a nation? After all good example like those Balkans they never get along with each other, the answer is simple it's tolerance for the most part and the second most important part is curiosity it's always fun to learn what other do in Indonesia at least because often times this culture mingle with each other even in Borneo natives culture is named Dayak, but you could find in one community there is Sundanese, Javanese, Bugis, Toraja, Manadonese, Batak all living in harmony in single neighboring community.
Ethnically we can be different too skin color vary, we do have white, not pale white, you can say we just consider 2 color, another is bright another is dark wr also have reddish complexion but tall usually fell on dark categories bright categories is white, yellow and such.
@@gkagara no it is not simple. If it is then rebellions wouldn't happen, Timor wouldn't separate. Timor is like big middle finger to the so called unnegotiable unity
I don't get why people even think elegant and girly can't be portrayed as strong and badass. Like girly could be wearing a crown and punch the shit out of someone with it. I mean with the pointy ass crowns I see in alot of traditional SEA clothing...that shit could be a murder weapon
There are small weapons disguised as traditional hair ornaments in SEA, mostly for women to defend themselves. Our women are most definitely badass!
I totally agree with you
Girly doesn't mean weak
Coming from someone who has family members that did traditional Khmer dancing, yes, those crowns are very pointy and they’re kinda heavy too. I once got scratched by one when I tried to pin it to my hair.
They probably haven't seen badass women figure running while using skirt or in my country case, Indonesia, they probably haven't seen Nyi Roro Kidul
I've always enjoyed the fem fatale troupe or those fight scenes which began at a dinner so the woman has this sleek dress with slits to make kicks and always has one hidden knife under, it shows how a woman being femmine is badass and how they take advantage of that
I feel like the movie had a problem where they didnt focus on any of the southeastern countries? They tried to lump them into one... they literally had five regions that could've EASILY each represented a country
that is so true
@@callimara THIS!
It's funny because as a Filipino, I saw the movie's environments and thought to myself, "Wow. These just look like the crew went to just one tourist spot in one country."
Even funnier that my dad was watching the movie some time ago, and he told me "This isn't South East Asia, this is just Vietnam???"
So yeah. The crew went to MULTIPLE SEA countries. They could have had one country, one nation.
Hell, we could have even had different dragon species per nation (like how Philippines has the bakunawa and Singapore has the merlion as two examples).
YES.
Imo better if they just take the low hanging fruit, turn Nyi Loro Kidul into disney princess, or any other mythical deity from SEA region really.
@@callimaraI feel like there might be problems then with one of them being the hostile one (Avatar the Last Airbender was unpopular in Japan for that reason).
"Hey, you're probably watching this as background noise while you're drawing, right?"
I feel called out
Same
i legit got scared lol
same
same
Same I’m literally working on a drawing of an oc and suddenly I hear that 😭
If Disney decided to take on Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland as well as Norway as inspiration for Arendelle, I would be pissed. And that’s because I’m half danish. Not every country is the same. I went to Norway on my last trip to Denmark recently, and they are two completely different places. Same with Sweden. It would be upsetting. So I know how you feel Calli.
I was in Denmark and sweden before and they are very different
@@candie_diva410 ikr. They’re right next to each other, yet so different! That’s my whole point.
I feel like the nordic cultures and especially the scandinavian ones are almost pretty much the same though, so calling them two completely different places is maybe exaggerating a bit much but i get your point otherwise
@@hage17 Hi! Icelandic here. Can we not try to justify lumping a bunch of cultures together, even if we (incorrectly) believe them to be practically the same? Thanks
@@ogcolumbinakinnie6556 I’m Norwegian, so again I understand being frustrated when these things happen, but scandinavia shares most of its history so many aspects of our culture are the same, so thats why i said them being completely different is exaggerating
As someone outside the culture, I don't have much knowledge on South East Asian cultures so my main focus in watching the movie was the narrative, characters and plot. It just felt, lackluster? The message of trust wasn't delievered well considering Raya kept getting pushed into trusting the person who betrayed her in the first place and continued to hunt her down throughout the movie. Namaari never shows remorse for her actions (from my memory) and is constantly painted in a good light. She never apologizes, and is shown to be in the right, while Raya was supposibly in the wrong and she was the one who was stubborn and the root of discorse within the main group, according to the movie at least. It felt very manipulative. It felt like the original perpetrator was pushing the message "Just get along, stop rocking the boat" to the victim, and that just didn't sit right.
Sisu also was meant to be the foil to Raya, her trust countering Raya's distrust. This could have played off well, they both could have learned and grown from each other, since they were both flawed in their own ways. Raya didn't open up to others, and Sisu was naive in her trust. Sisu's naivity was used against her in the movie, as she was tricked in Talon by blindly trusting a lady (can't remember all the details). But again, Sisu was the beacon of right in the narrative's eyes and it was only Raya the plot was pushing to change. The others' flaws were either not treated as flaws or were brushed off.
Because of the character's roles in the story, Sisu feels as though she represents toxic positivity (though perhaps to lesser extent) and Namaari has an unwillingness to assess her own actions, where she doesn't see the fault in her own ways and blames the people around her for the conflicts errupting to the surface. Raya is the only one beaten into submission by the plot by the end of the movie. No one else changes or has to account for anything they've done and the narrative rewards them for it. It only explores Raya's flaws, when it could have done and been so much more.
I had a similar experience. Honestly, I think this movie would have been much better off narratively if instead of shoving all of the character development onto Raya (especially since, with it being only her, it felt rather forced at the end there in my opinion) it had been just as much a story about Namaari learning to be trustworthy as it was a story about Raya learning to be trusting. Heck, I'd say you could throw out Sisu as a main character alltogether if you wanted to help focus on the two of them, maybe make it a story about them through whatever circumstances being forced to work together to bring Sisu back, give Namaari the option to be trustworthy and have her choose that route BEFORE having Raya decide to really trust her again. I think that would offer more room for equal and more natural character growth.
If they were to stick more closely to the original plot, though, at least have Sisu also grow into learning that maybe you can't blindly trust everyone with your whole heart, giving people a chance is good and all but having some amount of caution is just as important, have all three of them have the proper growth to overcome their character flaws.
If this movie didn't have SEA elements, this movie wouldn't have received so much praise
i think 24 Frames of Nick, he also said that the message of this movie is a mess.
Raya was betrayed because of her trust when she was a kid, now it's all her fault because she couldn't trust?
wow disney, your multimillion movie project moral value is "trust someone blindly"??
Sisu was annoying, made more apparent by the actress who played her. I couldn't think of a better casting direction if I tried.
@@whatever5401 No, the movie's still bad, basic, banal, and bland.
As a Norwegian, I can relate. Frozen barely took some of the asethetics from old-timey Norway. Frozen was originally going to be based on the Snow Queen, which is a Danish story.
In Frozen 2 they just took Sami culture, watered it down and put them in a forest.
Frozen could have been so much better, our folklore has such a mystical and whimsical vibe, but they just used the standard fire, earth, water and air magic.
At least they didn´t just do vikings though.
Well, these do take place in modern times, and I have an art of frozen book. They do water stuff down a bit because they're Disney, but Frozen and Encanto did a better job of showing the culture than the glittery and princess dresses from the past movies.
At least the story of frozen is good entertainment, can't say the same here
It is a Danish tale but I don't necessarily think it takes place in Denmark. Gerda takes a whole journey through Scandinavia with a Sami women and Finnish women being key side characters, and the Snow Queens palace is in Spitsbergen. In another tale by HCA called "The Ice-Maiden" (a prequel to SQ) it takes place in Switzerland, so the Snow Queen gets around.
But I agree with what your saying, as a big fan of HCAs works Frozen just feels kinda plain compared to their previous Fairy Tale adaptions.
As a half Dane, I AM INSULTED WITH BEING REMINDED OF THIS WITH THIS COMMENT. HOW DARE THEY FORGET THE VIKINGS!!! That would make such a better story ughhh
@@tatsudragneel4761 good points.
Honestly, Raya taught me lessons in writing and fantasy worldbuilding, the don'ts, to be specific, especially in taking and using inspirations from other cultures as well as the moral lessons and themes.
same
Basically if you want to use inspiration from other culture, don't sell it as representation. Good example will be ATLA or Kung Fu Panda.
And yes, moral lesson and theme is big thing in whole Asia.
@@mitacestalia7532 Yes this! Inspiration is just taking something and build it from there (add, improve or remove etc.) but if they said it as a representation then they need to make it as close as possible if not then it the same as mockery, might as well don't do it at all
I'm filipino, specifically Bisaya. I grew up in the philippines and watched the movie with my Filipino family.
Watching the movie, I didn't really get the culture part. Because my own culture wasn't even given a shred of differentiation, I just felt indifferent. I didn't care. And when I saw someone say that Raya specifically was filipino, I felt obligated to clarify. No, she is not filipino, she is a fictional race of mixed south east Asian culture. And as much as we want it, i dont think we'll ever get proper filipino representation in animated Disney films.
The thing that irked me the most was the plot. Oh my god. I could tell so obviously that they were trying to pull off an ATLA or SPOP or something somewhere along that line, and failed MISERABLY. I could go on but i'm on mobile and have a headache.
You think they got inspiration from the bakunawa?
I'm a Filipino from Manila, and I have little to say about the movie because I find it a bit average like there's something important is missing.
And I agree that Raya is not completely Filipino, despite using Arnis when she was kid and wearing a salakot hat. At least that's what I noticed cuz I watched this movie several months ago and I barely had any memory of it except for Sisu and the dubbed songs at the end
@@uu2379 hmm your right!
@@princesserika9899 the only thing i liked in the movie was the animation istg
@@Annikalovetokeepmesafe Ditto, but the thing I liked most is the landscape designs ❤️
it was so nice to actually hear the thoughts of someone who the culture was suppose to be representing, and speaking from someone who isnt apart of that culture I can say that the movie just felt like, another movie that was terrible at conveying its story and lesson, and I was really disappointed at the lack of music in the film
FR. I'm tired of East Asians or any other non SEA who talk over us when putting their opinions on the movie, and completely disregarding everything we're saying. The movie treats under represented SEA countries as a monolith, despite how different our countries are.
@@marikostarkov Exactly they could’ve included every SEA cultures without mixing every outfit on one person and hairstyle and just put it on one individual people
@@hallooos7585 What they really should have done is make a different tribe a different country. Making a pan-Southeast asian world that doesn't make it seem like a monolith.
Same except for musical skits, i say im not a fan of it
@@3HorsemenOfMovingPictures Raya would have had bomb songs in it, would probably have some SEA languages being sung as well.... if the SEA representation was actually good in Raya
I think I found it more frustrating that I found more representation from the Filipino grandma's scene from Spiderman No Way Home than a majority of Raja and the Last Dragon.
The sad part is people in Southeast Asia and of Southeast Asian communities WANTED this movie to work so much than any other audience, but, like you said, it felt like we were watching from a tourist's perspective.
Thank god I didn't waste my time watching raya and just saw the comments and reviews.
(I'm Filipino and the Filipino grandma got me and my sister giddy)
Even as a tourist you won't be seeing decent women have haircut like that, we have Bob, short but as the video said straight out of steampunk games looks edgy and rough that's never happen, ever, even women in military/police they doesn't have that kind of haircut unless they're fresh recruit.
We have rules here for women haircut it's at least shoulder length long, to cut your hair so short probably only happen in pariah royalty DEFINITELY doesn't have that kind of haircut.
As a Vietnamese person, that one scene from Craig of the Creek where that one Vietnamese kid made Bánh Xèo made me feel more represented than the entirety of Raya
How about Ken Burns' Vietnam? Granted, that might be because it only had one out of eleven SEA countries to focus on.
I'm SEA American, my family are refugees from the Vietnam War because our clans partook in the conflict on the US side. Suffice to say? My family put their trust in the empty promises of protecting our freedom and liberty. My Grandfather died from a stroke years before they finally gave him and fellow veterans recognition. My Great-uncle is still around kicking at least, it was fascinating to see the bullet wound scar through his body the first time-the round went straight through without tumbling luckily and didn't hit any major organs.
This movie was not made for me nor SEAs in general, and frankly? I couldn't care less. But what rustles my fucking jimmies? The themes of *"trust"* are an absolute slap in the face of our people's sacrifices, literal children were sent into combat! I cannot trust this Government which also sends its own young men to die then forgets them once they return home. And Disney being this tone deaf to not register that? Absolutely bogus higher-ups that have no reason to be in their positions to begin with.
I'm not mad that Raya is meh, I'm mad that Disney thinks this is good enough for us when it's not even for us.
The movie was more of a DnD campaign than a movie
You've inspired me to try to rewrite the plot of Raya with different characters to sort of make a more DnD esque story
@@theradioestofbois You're welcome.
I picture Raya to be a Battlemaster Fighter, Shrimp Boy being a Bard, Thief baby being a...well a Thief Rogue, and The big guy being a Barbarian.
I wish Raya was created as a series instead of a movie so that they could really delve into the various Southeast Asian cultures rather than what they created. Doing that would've allowed the writers and animators to do their homework, introduce characters, give those characters motivations and allow the audience to get to know who they were and what the cultures were around them. If they had done that they could've made something truly special. What we got, instead, was something that I honestly couldn't say had to do with any real cultures, and as such I couldn't really recommend the movie to anyone.
I'm not sure it would've been any better ad a series, considering who they put in charge of writing and directing the movie 😔 they would need to get a writer who are actually familiar with the cultures or at least promote the two southeast asians who were already on the team
@@callimara Agreed, but at least the time they would have to put into the project might mean they try harder to really bring about more reference to the culture than what little we got with Raya. The very first thing any writer should do when they are bringing attention to any culture that is not their own is to research it, and with Disney's resources they can literally travel there, talk to the people, watch and enjoy the culture from first hand accounts, and get people who have grown up with that culture to be fonts of knowledge.
Something like atla?
@@peppito8408 Yeah, but with less elemental magic and more learning about the world.
@@callimara about your comment on armor worn in Balinese dance, I don't think that looks like armor when I first saw it because it didn't give that impression. Of course real metal costume for dance will be uncomfortable but the fabric design just not like armor.
I feel like this movie is trying to be a show but failing
Probably should've been a show. Would've been better imo
@@lizz-the-dragon2727 I know they should make a show about it there’s a lot more to work with then tangled
It really would've worked better as a show, especially because of the fast pacing and all the different locations.
This was my exact thought!! It should've been a show
When I watched Raya, it never really occurred to me they were trying to represent something other than an eastern-inspired fantasy, where as I knew that Encanto was representing a different culture. I didn't actually know it was Columbian until afterwards, as I only picked up the details top realise it was a Spanish-speaking South American area.
same! i'm not southeast asian and when i watched the movie it didn't even occur to me that it was meant to be based on any specific region other than "asian"
As a half-vietnamese American, I agree with all of your points in this video. I especially agree with the idea that Disney should have focused on one country instead of shoving many countries into one mishmash. I also agree with the idea that the fashion is very lackluster in terms of representing our cultures, as I really couldn't tell what countries' clothes anyone was wearing.
As a Vietnamese person, this movie didn't make me feel represented in the slightest. Even if you take all the SEA elements out of this movie, literally nothing would change. If this movie's identity is so interchangeable with other cultures, it was never meant to represent anyone. I don't understand why they didn't just make a movie for each culture. Like wouldn't that have been free money for them?
if they really wanted to mix countries, they should've focused on five specific countries and made each part of kumandra represent the country
@@shanicek5188 their reason for not doing that is because it would feel like they're saying "oh this country is bad, this one's good, and our hero is from this country"
During watching raya, my sister n I (Vietnamese Australians) felt so detached from what might’ve been our only chance of genuine representation in a big animated film for a long time :( we were rly excited upon first hearing about it, but man everything from making SEAsia into a fantasy monolith to the weird message that those who’ve traumatised you in the past deserve your forgiveness because you’re just as bad for not trusting them again is a little questionable? The worst crime is that they made a film about SEA cultures boring lmao 😭
Also your drawing came out so beautiful also! I guess I can just daydream abt a raya movie where u were behind the writing n design wheel haha
As a Vietnamese person, I was so excited upon hearing that there will be a Vietnamese/Southeast Asian princess (that's also inspired by Hai Bà Trưng according to what i heard?) Vietnamese culture is already so underrepresented in western media and every time there's a movie that centers around our country, that movie is almost guaranteed to be about the Vietnam war and that's basically the only thing most people know about us. I've seen people who genuinely think that we're all dirt poor rice farmers who live in trees and work on farms all day. And then when I actually watched this movie, I just felt...disappointed. The only thing related to my culture that I could vaguely recognize was some of the food and a random background character named Dang Hai. The characters all felt forgettable and unrelatable, the message was poorly executed and this movie didn't make me feel represented at all. It just didn't connect with me. This movie would've been the perfect opportunity to give SEAsians some needed representation, but instead it just felt like an attempt to make money from underrepresented SEAsians who just want to see themselves on screen by making SEA into a generic fantasy monolith and using SEA culture as an aesthetic and nothing more. At this point I'm gonna die of old age before I'm ever gonna see my culture being represented in popular media
@@whatever5401 absolutely agree! The writers probably tried to make it “relatable” to a larger variety of people but that inadvertently made it less relatable - they should’ve just focused on one SEA culture, because one is already so interesting and worthy enough for a movie!! Naturally, I would’ve been able to relate more since that culture could have been represented more authentically, even if it wasn’t vietnam. I’ve had to grow up my whole life just projecting myself onto East Asian characters (eg. mulan), so anything closer is already a bonus to me haha.
The one viet thing I noticed that I relate to is raya calling her dad ‘ba’ and that was about it HAHA I’m lucky enough to have grown up with a big viet community so I’ve rarely faced stereotyping n racism here but I’m so sorry you had to deal w those ignorant people :(
FINALLY, SOMEONE ELSE THINKS RAYA SHOULD HAVE BEEN A MUSICAL!
But not musicals are better. Look at Ghibli! They have no musicals, they need no musicals.
@@jeffreygao3956 yeah because they have better storytelling writing wise and visually!
I'm a South Asian living/raised in Southeast Asia, I MYSELF didn't even realize it's Southeast Asian 😐
I am not southeast Asian, but I relate to this a lot as a eastern European (FYI this will be long) . We are often viewed as something less than western Europeans, and most the representation we get is as Villans or criminals. Not only that but most people tend to think that eastern Europe is only slavic ... which is not. Yes the majority is (Russians, Ukrainians, Serbs, Montenegrins, etc.), but you also have Greeks, Turks (mostly from Istanbul)(also I am aware that they belong to southeast Europe, but they too get a bad press), Albanians, Hungarians, Romani (which most if not all of you know them as the derogatory term "Gypsy"), etc. As a person living in Germany, I am not going to say that all Germans think like this, because they don't . But I know Germans that use us as an example of "bad etiquette", because we don't say "Hallo" to every stranger we meet. We don't because we are mean, but because a 'hello' is not something you say casually to someone. A 'hello' to us can last for 5mins, because you are asking this person how they and their family is, that's why we use it only for family and friends. And yeah, we don't get that much of representation (at least not positive), and a few Western Europeans look down at us and use us as examples of bad behaviour.
TL;DR as an Eastern European I relate to the struggles of Western, Central, Northern, Southern and South eastern Asians (sorry if I forgot to mention any). We are also seen as less educated, noisy, lazy, ugly even tho we are the most hard-working people in Western European societies.
And of course we have the colourist shit, that we are darker than them, and that makes us less European bullshit. And as I said we are seen as just Slavic or Russian, imagine if you called everyone in East Asian Chinese
You'd be cancelled ,but saying eastern Europe is an extension of Russian is just eh whatever.
I thought Germans were Western European? Maybe Im wrong as they are technically in Central Europe Im so confused right now
@@alyaperez1440 Like, more east than germany and Austria is considered eastern for us europeans and OP must be one of many east europeans who live in germany
I feel sorry for you guys too. Witcher should have had Slavic actors. The fact that not even 1 actor or writer in that was Slavic was a true tragedy
@@jlinus7251 I wouldn't necessarily say it's a tragedy but It is definitely disappointing. Especially since Slavic people are all over the place in Europe and north America.
my red flag started flying when they specifically said they went to bali for research "ah i see, you're making an excuse for vacation"
I cried while watching raya only because she looks like me and my sisters.
We are white and Japanese and she was just so beautiful and looked like us.
Well, I'm glad at least someone got enjoyment out of this movie.
@@goofusdestroyerofworlds9504 upvote ^^
Same! She looks a lot like me and my siblings
Don't you know 🇯🇵 used coloni*lism, S. East Asian before??
Their crimes -> 🇩🇪 🤧🤧
I'm a person from South America (Argentina to be more specific) and I've learned throughout the years that we should ask them to do better but to not seek approval from USA either. It may be a weird statement but as much as I liked Encanto, I didn't praise it that much or joined the hype train that came with it. They finally gave a chance to represent a SA culture outside of Mexico, yes, but I feel like that was a one timer, because at the end of the day, the company goes back and forth with the people they hire to write, produce or think of this movies and a company's main goal is the money nontheless. So I learned to appreciate but not idolize for that matter, maybe descendents from SA people in the USA see it as a win but I feel it shouldn't be groundbreaking to be careful and kind to the outside cultures you take inspiration from.
Also and very important, I love your videos Calli 💝they are super entertaining and they help me to relax while working on my own art, so tysm :D ❤✨
Americans are kinda weird like that. Everyone born and raised here has learned to idolize the most basic and bare minimum stuff. I say this as an american, it's kinda aweful because a LOT of toxic and aweful stuff kinda followed it. [that I won't get into because it'd go off topic more than I already have]
Couldn't have said bit better myself. I've been trying to tell other people this but couldn't really word it right. I believe that my fellow Filipinos in particular tend to praise the West for doing the bare minimum -whether in representing our culture or other. It's good to appreciate it but going as far as glorifying them for it is a little much.
Yeah, as a fellow brazilian, I liked Encanto and it spoke to me in several ways, but I also don't think it goes too far from the whole Disney movie formula, since the entire movie could have swapped the location and not much would have changed, which is different from when I watched Coco, because it felt genuinely like a movie made by people who have Mexican heritage. (But it had the whole Disney trying to copyright Dia de Los Muertos, shitty af) Basically, we should stop praising Disney (and other companies) for the bare minimum and start supporting movies and other types of art created by the people from our countries.
🤝
@@cellest4461 Coco was based on Dia de los muertos-
As an Indonesian, It felt underwhelming after watching Raya. I couldn't relate to anything culturaly story wise (except for maybe background visuals??),. Each SEA country is soo much different to eachother, they're so rich in culture and they just put it in a melting pot of unrelated things. What a movie.
I first read the title as "Insomnia girl goes through mental crisis over Raya the Last Dragon" 💀✋
As you said, I don't know any folklore from South East Asia, but I WANT TO! Disney had an opportunity to spotlight stories and folklore that isn't normally given the spotlight but they didn't. I LOVE learning about other cultures, and would've enjoyed a story that took a basis from a folklore I don't know.
In Vietnamese folklore, we are literally the descendants of a dragon and a fairy. Disney missed the opportunity with that one
@@whatever5401 that's so COOL!! It would've been such a good base for the story but yeah, Disney missed the mark
Uuh, as Indonesia I think we skip. Our folklore can be extreme 😂
@@mitacestalia7532 hey, our folklore not just for horror stories (like Kuntilnak butchered Lingsir Wengi song)
I feel like the movie lacked the time to introduce the tribes. It did felt like a vacation. It also felt too easy to collect all the pieces of the stone imo. I may be comparing it too much to ATLA but I really have no choice but to do so. I feel like this movie would have been better as a series where Raya gets to know people and develop better trust with others. I mean, isn't that the point of the movie? Raya can also get to understand the different cultures around Kumandra. It can change her mind to "hey, maybe we are better together. Not teared apart like this." Just my thoughts though :>
Yeah
Im Filipino so yes, definitely south east asian, but also my country and people have very deep and convoluted ties to hispanic culture, like colombia we were conquered by spain for a while, so we have a lot of hispanic traditions and habits integrated very deeply in our culture. Speaking as one filipino, i can definitely say i felt more culturally connected to encanto than i ever did with raya. The only thing i saw that was remotely filipino in the movie was raya's zigzaggy sword and her large hat. It was a cool movie sure, great animation but i wasn't attached to it from a cultural perspective. Meanwhile with encanto every other minute or so i would go, "Hey that's like how filipinos do this and that" (bruno's knocking on wood thing was such a delight altho idk if that's smth hispanic in particular)
I believe the wood knocking is a superstition
@@marygraceoyangorin8918 yeah it is, you knock on wood if something's mentioned that you wouldn't want to happen. If there's no wood around, i was told you knock on your head as substitute
Namaari and her mother are ancient Egyptian.
Me: Ok, I believe you.
The mother's dress looks like it's meant to be a lotus to me. But for real, if you showed me these two characters without context, and I didn't already know what movie they were from, I would legit think they would be ancient Egyptian or ancient Egyptian inspired, the clothing, jewelry, eye liner, and hell even the hairstyle very much screams it.
As an Egyptian I thought of the lotus as well and that being more African than Asian.
I would think they were from a generic European-inspired cyberpunk series
*Our Culture and Traditions just keep getting left in the dark*
Sisus design made me wanna cry
you have described my feelings perfectly
She looks so white it made me tear up
if Lin Manuel Miranda, a puerto rican, can make music with so much love and appreciation for Columbia, i think raya should at least have recognizable inspirations in their made up nations if theyre gonna claim she’s southeast asian.
I’m a white american and Raya and the last dragon was really underwelming. There was barely any time to get to know the characters because they kept introducing new ones. Seesu (I don’t know how to spell her name) was extremely annoying, and the setting seemed like it was just for aestetics and it could of taken place anywhere with barely any change to the story.
Pretty sure it's Sisu (not sure)
You should check out amphibia. The main character is Thai and despite her being on a different world for most of the show, they still incorporate her culture into the story some.
I've watched amphibia and really enjoyed it! i really liked how they portrayed Anne
ngl if i had the money i would pay to see a musical version of raya, thatd be badass
same 🤧
I'm not Maori or Tongan or really any native Polynesian cultures, but I live in New Zealand and grew up with Polynesian food and cultural performances. Watching Moana was quite relatable, really, and I loved finding the points I connected with. I'm not Southeast Asian so I didn't really notice any thing culturally wrong with Raya, but I just didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would. I did think that it was missing the songs and musical numbers I always enjoyed in Disney, so I fully agree with your remark about how it should have been an musical.
technically there isn't anything wrong with Raya culturally, because Raya doesn't portray any culture- it's all supposed to be fantasy 🙂
@@callimara True. Thanks for your content!😀
As an Indonesian girl (born and raised here) myself, I was EXCITED when Disney announced that they're gonna make Raya possibly based on my country. But the moment I laid my eyes on Sisu? All my interest in Raya disappeared like the morning fog. I knew they were gonna mess this up so when Raya finally came out, I didn't want to watch it at all. Until my cousin played the movie at the family gathering. Out of politeness, I try to watch it to the end but oh my god was it boring as hell (to me, personally). I don't even remember any of the side characters' names despite how badly they're trying to make them as distinctive as possible.
I know this isn't worth commenting but I am still gonna. this also somehow grew into a vent.... nothing serious
I feel bad for being American because I am separated from both sides of my heritage apart from being told by my parents with the occasional research. Ethnic wise I am half southeast Asian (Laos) and Mexican. I feel like I am wiped from part of my heritage because I know more about folklore and culture from Mexico than I do about the folklore and culture of Laos. it's difficult for me because when people ask about my ethnic background they automatically assume I know everything. I don't. it's kinda stupid how people just assume that. I often also get called "white washed" by people who think I do things "too american". basically, I am constantly having a crisis over my heritage and being American.
I definitely relate to you as someone who's Hmong but was raised in America. Both pairs of my grandparents immigrated to America during the Vietnam war, and America is where my parents were born. I was also born in America. Being a part of such a small minority in this country left me with such little room to learn about my culture and history. Especially with the lack of information online. It's even worse since I don't know the language. My first language ended up being English instead of Hmong. Since we lived too far from a lot of family during most of my elementary years, the Hmong language was just something I never picked up. My relatives always talk to me about how Americanized I am. Always asking me, "When are you going to learn Hmong?". I have a lot of family I can't get close to because of these language barriers, and my parents always having to translate for us. I want to be included in family events. I want to be close with my family. But there's such a large disconnect that I can't seem to fix.
Luckily my dad has a lot of connections! His Hmong Language and Culture teacher plans on creating a class for the younger generation to learn, so hopefully I'll be able to learn there! And I hope that one day you'll be able to find a way to get closer with your Laotian side! (Also also, sorry for the long message >
I'm tex-mex, white/mexican born and raised in texas and I feel like I don't fit in anywhere properly because I don't know your average white kid culture or mexican culture, my mom grew up christian and never liked mexican folklorish stuff so I never learned much of that side of mexican culture, so what feels like mexico to me from my experiences going to mexico and what I've learned from my mom will be different from those that celebrate the day of the dead or go to the top of the pyramids and hang with shamans
I relate so hard with this, I’m Vietnamese and like brooo I barely know that much about my culture … but talking with my dad helps? But it doesn’t even help because he left Vietnam at 18…
I relate to this so much dude 😭
Am half white half Guatemalan n I don’t even know Spanish or the culture that well, it’s hard to educate myself cause the internet doesn’t do show any smaller/not white tbh country well, n instead focuses on the violence that happens there
I would love to know more but I can hardly find anything positive information about my culture :’)
I really do feel wiped from my culture even though I really don’t want to be and have tried/given alot of effort not to be :’)
@@soxwithyourmon oh yeah, that's so true, even mexico is depicted as violent and poor but it still gets more cultural representation. I wonder if there's a way to find a nice Guatemalan community on the internet as a way to feel a part of it. Artists maybe? I always try to connect through art and books, which are hard to find from mexico, but there are thankfully a lot of modern latino artists for me to feel inspired from. Maybe you could find recipes online, and maybe even learning some simple amount of spanish at your own pace can help you feel more connected to it. Maybe someday you can go there, but for now it would definitely be nice to see lots of pictures. Maybe a google maps trip? I don't know. When I get older I definitely want to do so much to represent cultures and countries as they are, the beautiful and the "ugly" with love and respect.
oh my goodness I love how you mentioned 'Wonderland Indonesia' ♡♡♡♡♡ and I got chills listening to your pencak silat concept AHHH
that could've been such a captivating scene, I love your ideas!!
I'm so glad someone Indonesian is doing a video about Raya, makasih buat videonya. semangat ngontennya kak :D
Aaaa makasih banyaaak!
something similar happened to Aladdin, which was supposed to be in Iraq but Disney just merged the cultural aspects of Turkey, Iraq and India, failing to represent any of these
disney seriously needs to do better
@callimara I don't think that kind of representation isn't necessarily limited to Disney, though. How culturally accurate was DreamWorks' version of Sinbad's story?
I want a retelling of that one story where a woman and her son grow up poor and he runs away, coming back years later a successful man and he looks down on his mother. His mother then prays to the local god for retribution
Malin Kundang yessss
Maling kundaaaaang haha! I'm from west Sumatra so I love that story!
Also, funfact:
You know the Malin kundang stone at Aia Manih (Air Manis) Beach? It was actually sculpted by my grandma's friend! They both went to an art school, and this friend of her excels in sculpting! So they went to the beach as a group and sculpted the Malin Kundang statue, ship and all! :)
@@kyliviie2903 That's so cool!
Don't forget also that representation is the second in goals for a movie. The first is marketing, not much the movie, but the merchandise afterwards. So many Sisu plushes and Raya dolls...
oh yeah, that's so true 😔
@@callimara maybe tho this could be an idea for a redesign, if you want to :)
As fellow Filipino 🇵🇭 I was offended in so many way the dragon design made want to cry I wish they kept the concept because it was so much cooler why they gave them anime eyes 😭?? And clothing your so right on that one we love detail clothes back in old days the simple clothes are have lot pattern and embroidery even accessories!! I wish this movie was musical as well the plp here love music 😔
This video made me watch Wonderland Indonesia and- just- WOW. You were so very right in referring to it as a love letter to Indonesia. I genuinely got emotional at some bits. And the music is just *chef's kiss* If you're Indonesian and haven't seen it, WATCH IT RIGHT NOW.
Whenever I think about this movie, I always go back to the fact that Steven Universe gave more authentic Filipino representation than Disney did. Like there are literally more Filipinos in Steven Universe's cast than there are *South East Asians* in Raya and the Last Dragon's. That thought makes me livid ngl
maybe if Raya had a better story that didn't contradict itself it would've been better 😔
I'm Brazilian, not in any way related to anywhere in south east Asia, and.. it felt bland and icky, like something was wrong, i didn't really learn anything, in fact, i learned way more with videos like this. You guys deserve so much better
If they could make two whole movies that took place in one Hispanic country each and make it well written and accurate, then they can do the same for Indonesian countries. I've seen endless praise for Coco and Encanto about how spot on every detail is meanwhile being amazing movies with a good message. Raya and the Last Dragon can't do either of those, even though Disney has the full ability to do so and has proven such. Plain disappointing.
Coz they couldn’t give less of a crap when it comes to SEA or just Asian countries in general most of the time
I'm a Malaysian animation student and we had this like.. programme that gives us an inside look into the idea and concept process of Raya before it was released.. I was so excited at first but when I saw the trailers they showed (I have not watched any trailors prior) I was so disappointed.. the first thing that came to mind was "Star Wars" , not "home" or "familiar".. I was really discoyraged but then they showed their pictures when they took trips around Bali, Melaka and Bangkok (if I'm not mistaken) I held hope.. they showed the first part of the movie where Raya was at home with her father and she was wearing clothing that loomed super similar to traditional thai wear and also had some headwear that looked somewhat like a cucuk sanggul and the songket (idk what else to call it cause that's what i'm familiar with) was there so I was like ok ok.. maybe this place is saved.. I thought Raya leaned towards Nusantara influence so I just assumed that her nation would be Nusantara inspired and the other nations would be more inspired by other countries in SEA.. but no, everyone just looked............ unrecognisable.. I was super disappointed :"/
Even as someone who is SE Asian (🇰🇭) but was born and grew up in America, I still felt like Raya was way off the mark. I especially agree with your point that it should have been a musical. There’s literally no SE Asian music represented in America I feel like, so I would have loved to see that
I think they could and should have done more research on the culture if they were making in a designed country,and from this,the laziness are in it,I do my research bc I am working on stories mostly and if a lazy bum like me can do that they can,that’s all,love ur art and Opinion ❤️
Honestly, just like all the criticism I have heard from this movie I agree that Raya would definitely work better as a series. One of Raya's strongpoints is the worldbuilding, from what I've heard and I think a better approach for the representation is showing all 10 different countries by separating them into regions, maybe? Because South East Asian countries are different from each other. It's the same problem that middle eastern and south asian countries and cultures faced, having their cultures mushed together and making people think they're all the same when they're really not.
Representation for southeast Asians are few and far between, that's why I was so happy when the new Carmen Sandiego series dedicated one entire episode to Indonesia. Even if it's not much, I still quite liked it. And I remember being excited about Raya but then being confused on where it went because the promotion for it suddenly STOPPED-
Tho, I do acknowledge that Disney did hire artists and consultants from the cultures they referenced, I still think they could've at least hired a southeast asian director, screenwriter, writer, etc..
I didn't even get into the message. The message isn't bad, but god. The execution of that message is just terrible. Raya isn't a bad movie, but I really do still think they could've done better.
I do apologize on this long comment, it's just, as a Southeast Asian person from Indonesia I was kind of disappointed by Raya...
That sounds like a dharr mann title
Indonesian girl rants on movie
Instantly regrets it
Disney sort of has a thing to take cultures incrediy mixed up. There was Aladin, Moana (yup, I've seen Polynesians critique the movie and one thing they all had in common was that Moana wasn't clear of whose culture was it. The only thing that the movie has it going for was a decent plot and it being a musical), El Dorado, and there's probably a lot more. It's just disappointing that the company seems to prioritise the 'relatability' of the script to the audiences rather than showing a legitimate movie instead. I can understand why they have to - But isn't is _so much better_ to accurately depict a culture instead? Just look at Kung Fu Panda, it's incredibly silly and childish for a concept yet they actually nailed the culture on the head that the Chinese government questioned how come they didn't come up with the movie. There's Coco - straightforwardly accurate. And that was even directed by people that didn't grow up with the culture.
Although you know what those good movies have in common? They weren't directed by Disney. Disney can have some strong movies but it seems like most of them were in the past, while companies like Dreamworks and Pixar still seems to survive from all that consumerism influence. I mean, just look at how the dragon looks. Why is there hair? It's a god damned water dragon. You don't see any fishes with hair so why did a water dragon of all things develop a huge lump of hair??
I think El Dorado was one of the few 2D animated films made by DreamWorks. They also made Prince of Egypt.
@@TuesdaysArt Oh then that's my bad. Still, Dreamworks and Pixar have a lot more effort into their movies other than just appearances than Disney nowadays. Disney seems to be cranking up on the visual aesthetics rather than the actual plot, and the most damning evidence is how much CGI remakes they keep putting out.
@@Пинагод That's alright, it's easy to mix them up! DreamWorks is mostly known for its CG movies, after all. Disney is just leaning on whatever properties that they can absorb into their Capitalist Blob. That's why they're practically going through Marvel diarrhea at this point. There are four Marvel movies releasing this year (two of them already released two months apart from each other), it's getting ridiculous. It wouldn't surprise me if the animated movies are starting to become an after thought. Checking out what they're planning to release in the next few years, there's a lot of focus on the live action stuff...including making sequels to movies that were released decades ago. They don't have to make good content anymore, they can just wave a character in someone's face for 90 minutes and still make a profit.
But what about encanto?
And even the princess and the frog was terrible representation for both Tiana AND naveen 😭😭 they’re literally ANIMALS for a good part of the film
I'm so glad you brought up Aladdin Aladdin is mix of perisa Egypt arabia and south asain all mixed and called here middle eastern representation this happens to South Eas west /east Asians alot
Great video as always, your art is so beautiful and calming to look at 💗✨
18:56 I’m Middle-European and I’ve never seen a folk costume that plain, if anything it looks a little bit like Star Wars
27:40 Me neither, and until you mentioned that it should have been a musical I couldn’t quite put a finger on the reason, but here it is!
@TheKitKatLizard True
This might seem overproud and a bit annoying (also kinda offensive-), so please if you aren't here for that stuff just don't read.
I just really wanna say that I'm happy that an Indonesian content creator can share our culture to other people. It might be that I just don't watch many TH-cam videos or use social media a lot, but it's so rare to find someone sharing our culture (and not just Bali).
I recently felt and learned that Indonesia might be "the biggest invisible thing in the world." I know I'm not qualified enough to say this (considering I am still a minor and just got interested in geography and history) but Indonesia is overlooked way too much.
Indonesia is the fourth most populous country, a country that has more than 13 000 to 17 000 islands, a country with one of the most endemic species in the world, yet we are somehow invisible to the world. News about Indonesia is barely there unless you are in Asia or specifically Southeast Asia.
I think I can say for some people that people from certain regions, such as Eastern Europe, any other part of Asia that isn't East Asia, South America, and Africa as a whole, don't get much representation (at least from what I've seen). Even sometimes East Asia is stuck to common stereotypes on the internet. Going onto Southeast Asia, many countries there are not known in other countries, even if they know the countries there, it's probably not because of the culture, but relation through war/occupation and holiday destination.
Sorry for this long rant-
Have a good morning/afternoon/evening/night to you all who have read this God-awful long rant with horrible grammar.
I think more people from Southeast Asia should be on the team.
Directors, writers, artists. Etc.
The musical take is something I didn't expected, but after thinking for a while, I definitely agree.
I like to be optimistic about this movie could be a small step for more southeast asians being able to tell their stories and show those stories.
yeah i enjoyed the musical take because when i sat down to watch it i kept waiting for them to start singing and they never did...
Not gonna lie, even people from Disney should've make a team which specialize in country/messages/cultures stuff because whoever did this just went to Google or just asked a half southeast Asian for information (no shade to half southeast Asians)
I know Griselda Sastrawinata-Lemay, who is from Indonesia, worked on the concept art for Raya but don't know how much they actually used of her work since the "Raya" page on her website is still "coming soon"
I'm SEA and I agree, it should've been a musical. Idk for other SEA countries but damn, my country absolutely loves singing and karaoke.
Personally I disagree. It doesn’t matter who directs or writes it or whatever. It should be only based on skill, and knowledge. For an example Avatar the Last Air bender has Asian culture in it. A great cartoon, and gives good messages, and good characters. This was written by people who weren’t Asian . People are capable of creating something that’s not apart of their culture. It’s how they go about it that’s the issue.
19:30 Very interesting fact and I agree with you. I always felt that longer hair and beautiful colors were more intimidating than the whole short hair and plain look. Birds, poisonous frogs and large cats like lions and tigers are pretty good examples. When you look at a lion’s mane or a peacock’s feathers you can appreciate its beauty but it doesn’t make them any less dangerous when you get on their bad side.
Naamari : destroys Raya's trust more than once, gaslights her into it being her fault, is responsible for the litteral apocalypse, rubs it in, caused her trauma, kills Sisu, tries to flee first and helps when realizing she can't get away, is unfairly forgiven and her redemption arc is rushed
Tumblr : "OH MY GOD THEY ARE WITTLE LESBIANS ;w; SO LESBIAN I LOVE THEM SHE IS QUEEN DID YOU SEE HOW LESBIAN SHE LOOKS? PUREST FORM OF LOVE"
I smell and see Catra x Adora vibes
@@PolishAxolotl OOOOOOF SO TRUE...
i love a lesbian couple as much as the next guy, but Raya and Naamari did not make sense at all. i had an ex friend gush about them after watching it, and it felt they didn't even watch the same movie as me.
@@sometransfish214 because that's all that matters to these people. Representation, even if toxic, while they would shit and cry if it were straight
im so glad you pointed out the fashion and the plain-ness of the movie!! I'm not Indonesian, but i do happen to be Puerto Rican. In out culture theres so many colors and patters and it's full of life!! and that's the case for almost any culture outside of the US. in the cultures of my friends and my family we always see such beauty in the clothes and buildings and even in the enviornment!!! but that mmovie was so PLAIN!!!! it was drab and felt devoid of life and family and just CULTURE!!!!!!!!
well that sure is a title
time to see how this goes-
Hello my Sundanese people! Really feel presented by this commentary. I really like your English. And I'm completely agree with all of the things you said there, well done!
Indo here, thanks for bringing this up. Amazing take!
This just saddened me, really... it's like the creators just said "Is Southeast Asia the techy Asia, or the jungle Asia? Definitely not the curry Asia" it annoys me so much...
oh God I'm glad to hear this video. from one Indonesian to another (and as someone who's still living and studying, working, and has families here), this movie just, pisses me off the more I think about it. I feel like Disney didn't made this movie to make a movie, but rather a checkbox of "representation" that may or may not be good. that's how I feel when I see echanto as well, it feels like a checkbox being marked and that movie was lucky enough to be a great movie. Hell if anything, I feel like they feel ashamed of this movie because I can tell you I've never heard or even seen any promotional material for this right until the moment it was on theaters (is it on theaters? idk I just remembered it said coming soon) I didn't even know it was to represent MY culture, I didn't know what it was supposed to represent. Ig I shouldn't be mad and just be glad that at least some people on Disney acknowledge my existence but I just personally feels like as an Indonesian, no one from the western dominating culture of entertainment knew of my country's existence and not much of our local entertainment menage to break through and become popular world wide, and it's sucks because Indonesia has a lot of beautiful culture. it's not perfect, and the government here is kinda shitty, but the culture, the art of it is beautiful and diverse. shame that it seems the west doesn't seem to have that much interest on us other than maybe a 1 week vacation to Bali :'
am I being harsh? yea probably, but that's just what the movies makes me feel, it's like that one meme where if a westerner puts Indonesia in the title, Indonesianers will flock on to their video but exploited to SEA as a whole, who doesn't get that much western representation either
17:09 I think it's valid to feel like that, i'm Vietnamese and i feel the exact same way too. I tried to look for scattered bits of representation of my culture, even reasoning with myself that "maybe i can't find much of anything because my culture is closer to East Asia?". Overall, RATLD was a disappointing experience. The plot, the music, the design and the characters are forgettable and disney failed at their biggest marketting point for this movie, South East Asian representation.
Also, Namaari is walmart Vriska lol
Oh, i forgot to add this: Many people have pointed out that disney didn't represented each tribes as any specific culture because they don't want to implied that only the culture that the heart tribe represented was good but the result is they just muddled all of SEA cultures together and almost no one feel represented. I also think that some of the characters kind of amplify bad stereotypes (the thieving baby and monkeys, the greedy boat owner kid, the description of the tribes, etc.)
YOURE SO RIGHT ABT THE VRISKA PART :skull:. Also, I have a side character in my story [Khuyen Saleh / “The Conductor”] who’s Vietnamese and Pakistani- r there anything I should do and avoid with Vietnamese characters?
@@galacticgxts729 Hmm, i guess just the general avoid the stereotypes (greedy, thief, eating dog and cat, etc) and do some research if you want to write about their culture. Vietnamese cultures and foods can have a lot differences depended on the place your character lives or came from, their age group, their social class.
I've seen lots of people mentioned phở as THE Viet food but if your character is from the working class then eating something like phở on a regular basis wouldn't make sense since it's a rather expensive dish.
I think the only thing that you should absolutely NOT do is comparing or mistaking Vietnamese culture to Chinese or express negative opinion about Vietnamese historical heroes, just stay out of the touchy politic stuff.
Good luck with writing your character, feel free to ask me if you have any question.
i remember literally sitting there, watching the movie, trying to find things that were distinctly vietnamese and thinking "maybe Namaari's mother's dress is ao dai? if you squint, cross your eyes, and ignore how it isnt ao dai." 😭
I’m thai myself and I was SO hyped when i heard we were getting a southeast asian disney princess but raya turned out to be such a huge letdown. It represented no one. They even got us southeast asians fighting over what ethnicity raya is bc she was like all these unique cultures put in a blender fused in one. and YES IT SHOULDVE BEEN A MUSICALLL omg we SEAsians have got all kinds of beautiful cultural music and i just wish they wouldve explored that. I envy encanto so much in the sense that they did so well in terms of representation while what we got over here is a movie about pony-like dragons with the message of ‘you have to trust everyone’ like 😭?? + please do correct me if im wrong but aren’t the dragon worshipping beliefs more east asian than southeast?? bc i feel like instead of dragons they shouldve gone with this lao mythical creature called naka instead (which is SUCH a missed opportunity bc naka is basically a snake-like aquatic dragon without wings and namari’s literally a water dragon)
Thai gangg. Yeah, I feel like its a massive blend of all things deemed "asian" yet its so misrepresented. Why tf is a Water creature fluffy? I swear its for selling sisu merch and not to represent actual culture.
They SHOULD have had more Danish references in Frozen, since it's a Danish story. But no, they needed mountains, which Denmark famously doesn't have, so they set it in Norway instead.
Disney does a pretty bad job of representing cultures in general. The messages that we're supposed to take away from the movies in general are often packed full of toxic positivity and things that would get you into more negative situations in life than positive ones. There is so much nuance in all of these countries that Disney chooses to overlook and replace with generic stories that you could find in the kid's section of a library. The clothing is often misrepresented and many important pieces of these cultures are often left out as well. When it comes to Disney, a lot of work is put into movies featuring mainly white characters, (For example, the 4 Cinderella movies) and then they turn around and do a half-assed job on movies featuring people from other cultures.
@TheKitKatLizard Good point, and thanks for giving me some more information on the topic
I don’t think it’s the fact that they aren’t putting as much effort into these movies with other cultures. They are putting in the same effort to make a movie just not a culturally accurate movie.
IMO Raya is done the most dirty by Disney. With the other princesses you can guess which part of the world they take inspiration from. Aladdin from the Arabs, Frozen from Scandinavia, Classic Disney from French/German countries, Pocahontas was Indigenous American.
What about Raya? If Disney didn't keep mentioning SEA barely anyone would've known where she took inspiration from. "Somewhere in Asia, idk. Korea or China maybe?" would've been people's answer. And they wouldn't be wrong, the voice actors were most if not all East Asians.
I straight up agree with you, No dances and music. Like where the heck????
Im german Indonesian and when I first heard about this movie I cautiously stayed my distance because I was already disappointed by other current Disney productions.
It breaks my heart to see that my worries stand proven.
As a Filipina the Indonesian traditional outfit looks so beautiful 😍!
thank you so much 💕
Huh. This video actually got me kinda interested in Indonesian culture, thanks!
Not even halfway through the video and I'm truly sorry for what happened. I've heard lots of criticism about the movie even before watching it, and when I watched I could see why. A virtual hug to you and a middle finger to the underlying yet blunt racism.
I think the most amount of joy I got out of Raya was seeing her do tari pendet in the end credits
Tbh, when I first saw the kingdom of Fang I honestly thought it was Atlantis, it looked so much like what I imagined Atlantis to look like and when we first saw it, I wondered if I was watching the same movie.
I also thought the dragons were hideous. Not only were the dragons mammals but they also have the appearance of elephant Shrews with elongated bodies and horse head, that's what it looked to me, plus the dragons are not only very dumb, but the message they send to people clearly means that they aren't capable of actual rational thought process.
@TheKitKatLizard exactly, it was just so weird to me.
lmao when you said you had to play where's waldo just to point out a reference to your culture is too relatable-cause uh the only thing i was so sure of as a filipino reference was the partial Arnis Raya did when she was a kid, jfc. I was also kinda hoping i would see the leaders of each place do the Sandugo ritual (an ancient blood pact ritual filipinos do for sealing agreements etc.) at the start to add a lil more spice when they betray Raya's dad. Cause that would add to the whole distrust thing since that was a pretty big deal, and still is at some places here.
Bro that sounds fucking badass ong
@@galacticgxts729 do you mean the Sandugo ritual?
@@marygraceoyangorin8918 the entire scene they suggested! ^_^
It felt like Raya could've given the characters more colorful costumes at least. I've seen traditional clothing look like they came from a fairytale, most SEA clothes also seem to be very colorful.
Like in my country, pre colonial clothing and tribal wear would have more than one color.
Raya did get me interested in Indonesia culture through. I wouldn't mind learning about the actual culture. Also I'd like to know what the music sounds like.
I stumbled upon this video yesterday and have just watched Wonderland Indonesia 2 by Alffy Rev and tho i did not watch Raya i cant help but wish that Raya is made like Wonderland Indonesia 2
LITERALLY SAME
@@callimara i mean the least is the Dragon should be as good (and not Dragon Elsa 😭)
this video really resonated with me it really did felt like they just took random stuff from southeast asian culture and mashed it really weirdly AND OH MY GOD i really thought i was the only one who thought the fang royals looked really out of place
it also resonates with me because i rarely see fellow sundanese speaking english here
This movie kind reminded me of Rio from BluSky. At the time it was one of the few windows into my culture but it felt kind blended together. Like Carnival is cool but Brasil has more holidays and the people care about other things. Idk. Love the video ❤️
Did the sequel movie change your opinions on it or enhance them? Rio was always a favorite movie of mine, but I’m white as bleach so I wasn’t focusing on/ aware of cultural accuracies in the movies.
@@aris1869 I'm also brazilian, and I'm not gonna lie. I 100% prefer the second movie. I see everyone in internet saying that the first Rio movie is a "love letter to Brazil" but honestly the movie feels like a tourist panflet. "Look at the colors, the Pão de Açúcar mountain, the Christ Redentor, the Carnaval, the African rythms". It really feels like is trying to convince you to go there instead of showing you how is there.
The second movie is way better, Blue Sky weren't trying at all and even though the plot is more generic, the fact that they were going for basic makes the movie feels so much better. It feels better because is a story that happens to be centered in Brazil instead of just showcasing it to other people. The cultural parts are integrated better, like the new years eve at the beginning or the blue macaws having indigenous painting while singing Beautiful Creatures (also most brazilians are obsessed with this song). And the first movie do have some problematics, specially in the way that it treats black people.
@@wesleis.oliveira6103 I also liked that they made deforestation and illegal loggers the villain. Great way to highlight a genuine issue in South America
@@wesleis.oliveira6103 also, I LOVE Beautiful creatures
@@aris1869 Yes, the part of deforestation is really important. And one of the things that makes me appreciate the second movie is how much indigenous coded the blue macaws are. The Amazon Forest is the only part of the world with indigenous people that have never had contact with outside civilization and these people suffer alot with invaders trying to cut the threes. So it was interesting seeing this is in a movie, because latin media normally doesn't focus too much on this issue.
What I like most about this movie is the youtube videos by south east asians correcting things, pointing things out and generally talking about their culture to be honest. The film is okay (to a western european who does not know a lot about south east asia), but I do apprechiate it as a starting point for the wonderfully informative videos that have come from it. Thank you for your input aswell!
So I'm not South East Asian. I have had some exposure to South East Asian cultures as I have several family members from the Philippines and friends from Thai and Indonesian cultural backgrounds, I do want to note I am not South East Asian myself and I don't have as rich of an experience as I do with East Asian cultures like China and Japan (as I currently live in Japan). I will say thank you for speaking up because I like hearing from the South East Asian perspective!
I will say from my perspective, it felt like going into an Asian restaurant in a non-Asian country (like America). Don't get me wrong, I love going to Asian restaurants. I am always happy to support businesses made by minority ethnicities because regardless of how authentic it is, normally the food tastes good and is the result of hard work that should be respected. However, while it's always enjoyable to taste food from another culture and experience the snippet of Asian aesthetics through the artwork and decor in the restaurant, because it's put into the middle of an American setting, the experience is just temporary and when I step outside of the restaurant, I've left that setting. Raya felt like that. Because the culture and the story aren't rich, while I may enjoy it in the moment, as soon as I step away of the movie, like stepping out of the restaurant, that experience is just over.
I guess at the end of the day I liked Raya and all on a surface level. I have a few complaints about it's structure like I think it moved too fast and never had strong development of any one character because it had too many characters and not enough time. I also think if they wanted a whole ensemble of protagonists then they shouldn't have made Raya the main character and instead make the group of characters the main character. Also I agree I think the dragons should have stayed dead because it would have made it feel so much more like rich and dynamic of a story and made Sisu's sacrifice so much more meaningful and impactful. Also Sisu was kind of a let down because she tonally didn't fit and aesthetically she could have just been cooler if they had made her look more like other naga dragons.
But regardless of all that, it was a fine movie, but it just made me want to go back to watching Muay Thai films like Yamada: The Samurai of Ayothaya or Ong Bak films. Which I think the new Mulan remake gave me that same energy. Well, minus the thinking it's fine, I didn't like that movie structurally or thematically at all which would be a whole novel to fully unpack so I won't go into it now, but Mulan 2020 just had the aesthetic of movies that I like better (such as movies like Jade Dynasty or Zhongkui) and that made me just want to watch those movies instead.
I hope that comment made sense and sorry for it being long, but I guess I just had a lot of thoughts on the topic.
idea, what if they just, like, switched Raya and Namaaris hair? Cause Raya is on the run most of the movie, she probably doesn't have time to take much care of it, so it would make more sense for her hair to be shaved? Idk man, just a thought.
Tbh as a Malaysian I would’ve rather have an Indonesian/Vietnamese/Thai princess than what we got with Raya
Hi there Calli! I'm actually Balinese myself, and i would just like to say that i agree a LOT with the facts that you said throughout the video. I especially liked your take on the fashion of the movie, where i honestly didn't think about it when i first watched it. In your section of the fashion part i silently thought to myself that if they were going with a more SEA look they should have added a LOT more gold to the clothing, and was very happy when you pointed that out later! Overall really liked the video, keep up the good work! 😄
You should redesign and rewrite the Raya and The Last Dragon characters/story!
Edit: I write stories, and I may be white and writing a story about other cultures, but I do research, I talk to people from those cultures, and I actually put in effort! I'm only an amateur, and I could do better. Since you're actually Southeast Asian, I bet you'll do amazing!!!
Ngl the first time (and only lol) I watched Raya I didn’t even realize it was supposed to take place in Asia (i think I missed them saying where it took place but nothing screamed “Southeast Asian” to me) and I was actually genuinely shocked to find out that it was supposed to represent Southeast Asians
"you must be using this video as aground noise while you draw"
Me: *drawing rn* HOW'D YOU KNOW?!?!?!?!?
caught red handed!
Reminder that Majapahit, while a very strong kingdom, did not reign over all their purported territory. _Mitreka satata_ is something more akin to the EU than a monolithic empire like China or India.
3:05 didn't have to be so on point I-
12:42 literal goosebumps! (in a good way)