Is Talons of Weng-Chiang Racist?

Racist? I can't be racist, I own a colour TV, FFS!

https://twitter.com/SamLapis/status/10323395683164446722

No. But PC Nazis are the biggest bigots of all, and batshit crazy, if not downright evil, to boot.

Its not really racist. Basically they were on a shoestring budget and they couldn't be arsed tracking down a Chinese actor to play the role.

So they just did up a British actor. Its thoughtless and a bit insensitive, but there's nothing in the story that is actively racist. If anything the character is portrayed as a very complex, and interesting villain who even gets quite a moving death scene.

Its not like Class where they actively sneer at white people and go on about everything always working out for them.

Its funny how the PC brigade always go on about Talons but not The Web of Fear. Now I like the Web of Fear, and its not racist either, but going by their standards then its amazing that they don't see it as racist. There is a Welsh character who aside from being portrayed as a goofy, snaggle toothed idiot, is regularly called "a gibbering Welsh imbecile" by many characters including the Doctor himself!

Funny how nobody ever calls that racist though? If it were you gibbering black imbecile, you gibbering chinky imbecile etc, I can imagine cucks like Richard H Cooper complaining about how racist it was. Remember this is a man who said a Matt Smith episode with a black character who was a crook was racist. Seriously!

My best friend at school leant me Talons, and he's black: it was his favourite Who story. So I can't quite get on board with this theory...

The concept of racism is far less meaningful than society now makes it out to be. It's just another from of in-tribe/out-tribe conflict the likes of which we all express, and it's no more rationally 'evil' than any other form.

Yet when the term is thrown about in a context where the supposed 'racist' action is entirely harmless - it takes little to realise that this is not a serious debate, in good nature, of what is rationally moral: but is instead a battle to establish a comforting impression of superiority through a morality of their own synthesis.

Hearing these kind of debates enthuses me towards impacting my skull about some hard surface.

It enthuses me toward impacting their skulls toward some hard surface.

Talons is not only not racist, it's clever with its deconstructions.

Li Hsen Chan changes how he speaks from "me speakee johnny" to oxbridge with a slight accent depending who he talks to; the Doctor's "little yellow men" thing is descriptive and far from hostile; the "outsider" chinese is treated like any other well off man by the WHITE prostitute with not a suggestion of race based rejection... And on and on.

This hypersensitivity and das raycisss shit the SJW scum try and foist on everyone has a sinister agenda and it's got nothing to do with race. It's all about the new puritans trying to control us all.

Gonna upset the applecart here, but Talons IS racist, Robert Holmes had a deep ingrained sneery and snobby colonial attitude towards the Chinese, it creeps out in some of his other scripts too - however it IS also a cracking good yarn, full of rich characterisation and dialogue and has some excellent production values for the time it was made too.

Talons is somewhat insensitive, but not actively racist. TruWho occasionally reflects some of the unfortunate social attitudes of its time, but so does most fiction. It was at worst occasionally ignorant and insensitive; never actively, deliberately hateful. It never maliciously sought to demean and attack innocent people on the basis of involuntary birth characteristics. There's only one iteration of the show which can reasonably be accused of that, and it's NuWho from 2015 to the present.

Evaluating whether something is 'racist' is such a boring thing to do.

Everybody is racist, it's part of the preference everyone has for people like themselves and like those they grew up with - and a dis-preference to the others.

You might then create a new genre for the modern autophobe.

At its basal minor level it isn't even a problem. There are a million other ways in which people unjustly discriminate against others - from the same source: you're never going to eliminate that.

The most rational-moral way to approach it is if it's harmful in an explicit way - it should be eliminated.

Most western people aren't racist to that extent. The only particularly worrying unjust hate insofar as westerners at the moment is based on political opinion imo.

But back to the question - Talons is not 'racist' in the meaningful immoral sense.

Apparently I've already answered this but whatever, this is slightly different.

I really don't care. It's of its time.
It's no more racist than casting Christopher Lee as Fu Manchu.

Why can't they just enjoy the cracking story being told?

Kate Orman - and therefore presumably the great Jon Blum - says it is:

http://www.eruditorumpress.com/blog/one-of-us-is-yellow-doctor-fu-manchu-and-the-talons-of-weng-chiang-guest-post-by-kate-orman/

I enjoy it for it being a great Tom Baker story. The villains are just villains in a story. The fact they are chinese does not influence my attitude to real Chinese people who i may meet. I am more influenced that, them being chinese, i assume they can all do Kung Fu and probably beat the crap out of me if i offended them.

It ware a rittre bit lacist....

I actually got one of those Chinese doorbells in the post this morning. It goes Ching-Chong.

Well, if Orman and Blum - the great Gods of intellectual Who fandom - say so it must be true.


Either that or they're just a pair of libturd wankers who should never have been allowed in this fandom in the first place.
Pick one.

To label it as overtly racist is plainly untrue, and a clear oversimplification of Chang’s characterisation. The character isn’t portrayed as a caricature in any way, and possesses many nuances as outlined be The Time Traveller. And I can’t for the fucking life of me understand why the line “I understand we all look the same” is interpreted as racist- he’s blatantly using delicious irony in that statement, and it ultimately deconstructs racist attitudes itself. YouTuber Diamanda Hagan (a decent channel beyond this caveat) described the story as “Doctor Who’s Birth of a Nation”, which I have to say is a misleading description drenched in hyperbole (though I suppose the comparison works when one considers the objective quality of both works) - when does the story showcase and glorify the deaths of multiple characters of a particular race?

Yes, it’s a British actor in yellowface, which could be seen by some as insensitive as alluded to by ClockworkOcean, but the story features far more in the way of literary influence to discuss. It’s a superb story anyway, and of its time as Ronnie says, and I don’t allow such superficial aspects to hinder my view of it. It can be seen as occasionally dodgy, but it’s hardly hateful, and much of what is said about it is overplayed.

I really can't stand racists especially the ones on the Mercedes team.

So bored of this stick being used by people to try and make themselves look good. No, you just look like a virtue signalling cunt, dear. And we're all bored of listening to your putrid horseshit now, so fuck off.

"Talons" IS racist, but you know what? So too is "Love Thy Neighbour" yet it's oddly quite compelling entertainment viewing too.

I can't justify the racist content within nor indeed can be arsed to try, but I can recommend it as being entertaining if you can endure some of the fascinating misconceptions of another era.

Stupid to get hung up over the colonial starchiness and self-entitled bigotry of another era over 4 decades away anyway, it just throws everything completely out of context. It's not like such content has just been produced yesterday or anything.

Captain WE Johns is a massive racist, but I still loved reading Biggles books.

Agatha Christie is an outright racist too, but I also loved her books.

Enid Blyton was a HUGE racist too, her books were utter shite however.

Context is everything.

@ElSandifer
Things I’d not noticed before: the fact that Noah talks about the way Nerva Beacon’s “genetic pool has been balanced” and the fact that the crew is all white.

https://twitter.com/ElSandifer/status/1239673913870819333

Sorry, but that just made me laugh.

@ElSandifer I mean it raises the very real possibility that this is just an Ark full of nazis.

She is trying way too hard

FFS, it was the 1970s. That's how things were. Obviously it wouldn't happen like that now, but it was 43 years ago for crying out loud.
There's enough real life racism these days to shout about and protest against, without worrying about a fictional TV story from a bygone age.
Sense of perspective failure.

This one is a personal bugbare of mine.

I refuse to be forced to apologize for the perceived sins of the past viewed through the lens of today's ultra woke, ultra PC society.
Talons was a masterpiece when made and remains a masterpiece today.

It's not racist in the slightest. Something is only racist if at the time it was intended to be racist.

"yellow face" acting at a time when the British acting community had very few actors of Chinese descent was unavoidable, if you wanted to portray "oriental" characters. Also John Bennett's performance was mighty.
As for the "stereotypical" portrayal of tongs and evil orientals, they are in the tradition of Sax Romer and Conan Doyle who once again were men of the time they lived in - 80 years before 1976.

Unless Philip Hinchcliffe & Robert Holmes rubbed their hands together with glee and revelled in creating something racist on purpose which they didn't Talons is not racist.

I always think of Christopher Lee playing Fu Manchu. I love those films.

BritBox adds trigger warning to Talons:

https://www.radiotimes.com/news/on-demand/2020-03-13/britbox-adds-trigger-warnings-to-1977-doctor-who-episodes/