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Awkwafina (Shang-Chi) is being accused of cultural appropriation by some, for previous use of a “blaccent” while she was rising to fame

Cheesebu

Cheesebu

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https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.re.../17/22629230/black-twitter-awkwafina-blaccent


"Awkwafina, a successful Asian American actress who is starring in an upcoming Marvel film, was slammed on social media for her previous use of "blaccent."

In a previous interview with VICE, the Shang-Chi and The Legend of the 10 Rings actress spoke about being against using an Asian accent to portray an Asian character. "I refuse to do accents," she reportedly said. "I'm not OK with someone writing the Asian experience for an Asian character. I make it very clear, I don't ever go out for auditions where I feel like I'm making a minstrel out of our people."

The quote went viral on Twitter on Monday (Aug. 16) and garnered a few responses from people who recalled when Awkwafina used to speak in a "blaccent" and use African American Vernacular English (AAVE) to become famous."
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I don't feel educated enough on this subject to say a lot. I always figured her accent was from where she grew up (that seems to be disputed in one of these tweets) but I don't really follow her, I honestly know her more from late night talk shows than acting gigs.

Some people clearly feel that before finding some fame she was using a "blaccent" and black vernacular to gain attention. Some Marvel fans are claiming they will boycott Shang-Chi because of the hypocrisy of stating she won't use Asian accents.

I'm curious what era has to say.
 

Deleted member 19626

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Is some marvel fans a handful on Twitter? I hate these things, someone is clearly trying to be a positive force for a marginalized group in media and people, I usually read these with fake intentions, want to try and discredit them for something else.
 
Hilarious_Bearious

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Maximus Odinson said:
I thought it was sort of generally accepted that she was a culture vulture.
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Haha, "culture vulture", what an amazing term. How am I only learning this now?!

I don't really know much about her. I had heard a few of her songs, but didn't know she was of Asian descent until Raya and the Last Dragon. I thought it was Maya Rudolph doing the voice of Sisu until I Googled it.
 
Valkerion

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Oct 29, 2017
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This comes up every time shes in something. I guess it will continue too as people have their first exposure to her/her way of speaking.
 
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Cheesebu

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Sorry, I didn't know this was old news. I saw it on a Disney fan site and googled to find a different article that wasn't theme park related.
 
Advance.Wars.Sgt.

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Mr. Snuffleupagus said:
Guys guys, we can't have an Asian woman doing too well now, let's just bash each other so as to ensure no-one is advancing!
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Pointing out the hypocritical gulf between her words vs her actions isn't "bashing" TF.

Do y'all know what the word "criticism" means? And yes, before I even get asked the people wanting to boycott the movie are on the extreme side, but that's not everyone.
 

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Mr. Snuffleupagus said:
Guys guys, we can't have an Asian woman doing too well now, let's just bash each other so as to ensure no-one is advancing!
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lol Im sorry what?

People have been talking that blaccent shit for a long time now. Has nothing to do with her advancing or whatever. It's a shit accent that she willingly does. A force for good? Don't make me laugh.
 
Helix

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I just thought this was how she always spoke. it's embarrassing if she is actually appropriating a blaccent
 
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Era Uma Vez

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Yeah, it's lame. It's something a lot of non-black celebs are guilty of, tbh...
Ariana Grande, Olivia Rodrigo recently too. I watched a clip of her on a IG live, and I got 2nd hand embarassment.
 
RastaMentality

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The blaccent is embarrassing but it's so funny how people are acting like she legit shot a black person. Social media chooses a town witch to act like extremely over dramatic over every year. Meanwhile others are skating by using the same blaccents
 
Mr. Snuffleupagus

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Advance.Wars.Sgt. said:
Pointing out the hypocritical gulf between her words vs her actions isn't "bashing" TF.

Do y'all know what the word "criticism" means? And yes, before I even get asked the people wanting to boycott the movie are on the extreme side, but that's not everyone.
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Yep, boycotting is super extreme IMO and in this case, it's just the timing that makes it all feel sus. Her prior actions vs her words are indeed something but just feel like if she didn't have a movie out now, this would just be another grumble on social media that doesn't pick up steam.

jrush64 said:
lol Im sorry what?

People have been talking that blaccent shit for a long time now. Has nothing to do with her advancing or whatever. It's a shit accent that she willingly does. A force for good? Don't make me laugh.
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Didn't say it was a force for good, don't put words in my mouth. All I'm saying is: blaccent = not good AND the timing is just to coincide with the movie and hence just feels like a issue raised now in order to stir shit.

I don't know if she still does this though or has prior apologised, so I'm open to learning more of course.
 

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RastaMentality said:
The blaccent is embarrassing but it's so funny how people are acting like she legit shot a black person. Social media chooses a town witch to act like extremely over dramatic over every year. Meanwhile others are skating by using the same blaccents
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It's her blatant hypocrisy. Using an Asian accent is crossing the line for her, but also a blaccent is A ok for her.
 
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Cheesebu

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RastaMentality said:
ok but like how materially bad is this. I get being annoyed or not liking her but the tweets make me feel insane like she's done something far worse than what we've heard about
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The tweets I linked are pretty straight forward and very obviously about this exact situation. They aren't extreme at all. Are you talking about different tweets?
 
Scrooge McDuck

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Mr. Snuffleupagus said:
Yep, boycotting is super extreme IMO and in this case, it's just the timing that makes it all feel sus.
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People have been criticizing her for appropriating "black accents" for quite a while. Bear in mind that the social media slamming didn't really happen when she was first announced for the movie. It didn't happen when the first trailer dropped. It didn't happen when the second trailer dropped.

It happened specifically in response to her VICE interview, where she claimed that she refuses to do accents without addressing the "blaccent" controversy. Isn't it natural that people would call her out?
 

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Cocamantis said:
We live in the dumbest timeline of the Multiverse.
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Lord help me I despise stans.

TarpitCarnivore said:
Hasn't this been a constant criticism of her, and Eddie Huang, for some time now?
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Yup. Google it and you will find articles about it.
 
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Cheesebu

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Unspeakable Evil said:
How is this news now? She's been accused of this her whole career? Lol
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It seems to be because she said in an interview that she refuses to do Asian accents or do auditions that make her feel like she is "making a minstrel out of our people".

The hypocrisy is bad enough, but using the word minstrel of all things seems pretty on the nose.
 
HiLife

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I remember seeing her for the first time in Neighbors 2 and wasn't sure if she actually spoke that way, because she continued to do it in future roles.

I had the whole "wait what?" moment when I saw an interview revealing how she actually speaks, and now all I think whenever I see her is how she blew up in popularity off that gimmick. Lol.
 
JayCB64

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Cheesebu said:
It seems to be because she said in an interview that she refuses to do Asian accents or do auditions that make her feel like she is "making a minstrel out of our people".
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The interview is from 2017 though.

edit - just to clarify, because ya know how people can be, I'm not saying its not justified for people to be mad at this stuff or anything, this is purely as a follow-up the the whole 'Why now?' point.
 
Era Uma Vez

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SolidSnakex said:
The title of the video is "Twitter users drag..." but the end of the video is the same damn person tweeting to her over and over.
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Yeah, but that's just twitter in general. Twitter drags = 3 or 4 people
Although, in their defense, I remember the tweet that I saw had like 10k likes, so a lot of people were on it.
 
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Cheesebu

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JayCB said:
The interview is from 2017 though.

edit - just to clarify, because ya know how people can be, I'm not saying its not justified for people to be mad at this stuff or anything, this is purely as a follow-up the the whole 'Why now?' point.
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Oh my bad, I didn't catch that, I thought it was new.
 
BLEEN

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HiLife said:
I remember seeing her for the first time in Neighbors 2 and wasn't sure if she actually spoke that way, because she continued to do it in future roles.
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That's called type-casting. I can't fault her 100% if that's the case.

She can of course refuse the roles but not many would.
 
ZeoVGM

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Era Uma Vez said:
I randomly found it on twitter while scrolling, I didnt save it, but let's see if i can find it again.

EDIT:
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Yeah, no. This is gross.

And I don't mean Olivia. I mean trying the person who tried to ruin a 17-year-old girl with an unfairly edited video.

They edited down a nearly hour and a half video to literally 30 seconds, picking and choosing minor changes in her voice to accuse her of trying to "sound black." Even worse, the very last clip they show is deceptively edited to make it sound like she might be saying, "Did anyone else feel really black?"

But as someone in the YouTube comments points out and links to, she actually is trying to say "bad" and trips over her words so it comes out "blab." But the person cut it off before she corrects herself.
 
Kuribo’s Shoe

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I don't know. There are true monsters in the world, walking among us, full of hate. Awkwafina seems generally good. She picked up an affectation as a young rapper, as do so many people. I don't think she is a problem.
 
SolidSnakex

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ZeoVGM said:
Yeah, no. This is gross.

And I don't mean Olivia. I mean trying the person who tried to ruin a 17-year-old girl with an unfairly edited video.

They edited down a nearly hour and a half video to literally 30 seconds, picking and choosing minor changes in her voice to accuse her of trying to "sound black." Even worse, the very last clip they show is deceptively edited to make it sound like she might be saying, "Did anyone else feel really black?"

But as someone in the YouTube comments points out and links to, she actually is trying to say "bad" and trips over her words so it comes out "blab." But the person cut it off before she corrects herself.
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Some on social media have a real obsession when trying to tear down kids. I remember a story from 2018 where some people were taking photos of Millie Bobby Brown and photoshopping her saying homophobic stuff. She ended up deleting her Twitter account over it because people kept harassing her over stuff she'd never said.
 
chefbags

chefbags

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SolidSnakex said:
Some on social media have a real obsession when trying to tear down kids. I remember a story from 2018 where some people were taking photos of Millie Bobby Brown and photoshopping her saying homophobic stuff. She ended up deleting her Twitter account over it because people kept harassing her over stuff she'd never said.
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Yeah social media feels extra fucked up these last few years. Some people trying to tear down others for the sake of clout.
 
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