Disney/Pixar movie “Up” stars an Asian American character
Posted on | May 30, 2009 | 4 Comments
From Channel APA: The new Disney-Pixar animated feature, “Up,” stars an Asian American character, voiced by an Asian American kid.
The part of Russell, the young scout who gloms onto the grumpy old man Carl just as the two take off on a crazy adventure, is read by Jordan Nagai, a Japanese American young man who was 7 when the movie was made (see photo). How cool is that?
Not only that, but the Russell character itself was modeled on an Asian American animator at Pixar, Peter Sohn (you can see the resemblance from the photo below).
Here’s an excerpt of an interview from “In Contention” where the film’s director, Pete Docter, talks about the character:
There hasn’t been a lot of discussion in the media about the fact that Russell is an Asian-American, which is probably for the best. I know the character was based somewhat on Pixar’s Peter Sohn, but considering Disney has clearly pointed out that Tiana from “The Princess and the Frog” is the studio’s first African-American princess, I’m curious why the topic hasn’t come up.
“That’s interesting. Obviously Anglo characters have dominated most of media for a long time so it seemed to me, obviously there’s more diversity of people out there. Pete Sohn is such an entertaining character that we thought, let’s just try to grab him and figure out what he was like as a kid, so that’s kind of where that came from and just trying to be specific and different than things we’d done in the past. We talked early on about making some story point about that but I think by not dealing with it it’s more color blind or accepting or whatever, you just cast that character and move forward.”
We agree with Docter in a way, that not making a big deal about Russell’s ethnicity was the right thing to do.
But it would have been a more positive step for AAPIs in mainstream America if were some indication in the movie — his last name, for instance, is never mentioned or shown (even in the credit, he’s just “Russell”), or they could have had some passing reference to his cultural identity, like in anime, where the Japanese elements are simply there and taken for granted.
Oh well, that’s mere quibbling. At least the character didn’t speak with an accent, which is what old Hollywood would have done! We think it’s cool that Russell is AAPI, and this makes us want to see the movie that much more.
Here’s a Channel APA video of an interview with young Jordan Nagai:
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June 2nd, 2009 @ 12:17 pm
All right! That’s so great. More Asian males on the screen.
June 16th, 2009 @ 6:35 am
Disgusting, they talk about discrimination but they are the ones that encourage it. By making this kind of movies, “politically correct” movies, they encourage discrimination against minorities as they impose us foreing cultures. If you want to see an asiatic in a leading role got to japan or china, i dont want to go to the cinema to see a movie without being able to relate to any character, it seems like minorities are starting to discriminate “majorities”.
June 20th, 2009 @ 1:56 pm
[...] is Jordan Nagai, a japanese-american who was 7y.o. @ the time the movie was in production: Disney/Pixar movie “Up” stars an Asian American character : visualizAsian.com and now the trailer: __________________ "To love someone deeply gives you strength. Being [...]
November 18th, 2009 @ 6:57 pm
[...] latest animated venture that the kid in it was supposed to be Asian-American. He is voiced by Japanese-American actor, Jordan Nagai, but not typically rendered with slanting eyes or stilted speech. In fact, he’s as [...]