Rogue One Subverts Asian Male Stereotypes — and That’s Important
Much has already been written about Rogue One: A Star Wars Story — how it has added new context to the existing Star Wars franchise, how it is a movie ultimately about war.
Rogue One is also a movie that features three men of Asian descent — two East Asian and one South Asian — and, far from relying on stereotypes of “Asian Masculinity,” in fact subverts those stereotypes in a way that feels revolutionary for Western media. (Needless to say: spoilers.)
Let’s start with Chirrut, played by Donnie Yen. When Chirrut first showed up in the movie, I had a sense of dread: “ah, here we go with the magical Asian stereotype .” After all, he was wearing robes, carried a staff, and offered some vague, mysterious platitudes about the kyber crystal necklace Jyn was wearing. He knew martial arts, and it looked like that was going to be his defining characteristic. But the more interactions we saw between Chirrut and the other characters, the more revolutionary he seemed as a character — while the TV Tropes page may technically list Chirrut as a “Magical Asian” (your mileage may vary, obviously), in many ways, he turned the stereotype on its head. After all, here was an Asian male character who was also Force-sensitive, religious, a badass, and disabled. He was wise, sure, but he was also impish and wry.
In a lesser movie, he’d have been the Mr. Miyagi or Pai-Mei of Rogue One, whose sole purpose was to offer bland mystic platitudes while teaching the white protagonist. But Chirrut didn’t just speak in platitudes or proverbs, even though his most memorable line is a prayer chant. He made jokes and cracked wise, most memorably when he asked “are you kidding me?” as Saw Gerrera’s rebels placed a black bag over his head. He also didn’t offer to teach any of the other characters (and what good would that have done, really, in the timeframe this movie takes place in?), and Jyn, the sole white protagonist, didn’t exceed his particular skills by virtue of being white and “special.”
