From ‘The Avengers’ to ‘The Umbrella Academy’: How Asians Are Erased in Hollywood
Films and shows keep missing opportunities to include AAPI characters
In The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Sam Wilson, Bucky Barnes, and Baron Helmut Zemo fly to Madripoor, which Bucky describes as “an island nation in the Indonesian archipelago.” This fictional island nation is like the fictional countries of Wakanda and Sokovia in that they don’t exist in the real world but are anchored by surrounding real-life countries and places.
With Wakanda located in Africa, Sokovia in Europe, and Madripoor in Southeast Asia, it would make sense to see Black people in Wakanda, white people in Sokovia, and Southeast Asians in Madripoor. The phenomenal movie Black Panther does indeed show Wakanda’s population consisting of Black people, with the groundbreaking cast and the movie’s creators drawing from numerous real African cultures and countries and their varying accents, languages, costumes, and customs to create the fictional Wakandan culture. Sokovia’s European population is played by white actors. Other than the Baron, notable Sokovians are the powerful twins Pietro and Wanda Maximoff, who have a tragic past.
Yet in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, there is a distinct lack of Southeast Asians in Madripoor; they…
