Should The Mandarin become Shang-Chi's arch-enemy in the comics?

[Agent Z]

people think that because he's asian. the yellow peril stereotype is of an effeminate mastermind type who operates from the shadows. the Mandarin is a far more physical character with little connection to any chinese value system. he's a spoiled rotten rich kid who used his wealth to acquire a power base and the best martial arts instruction that money could buy (a la bruce wayne). he happened upon the rings. they weren't some ancient chinese secret or something. he's as yellow peril as doctor doom is, imo.

Being effeminate is not the only qualification to being a yellow peril stereotype.

Everything from the Mandarin's name to how he dresses is very obviously supposed to invoke a Chinese value system. Or at least a westerner's interpretation of it.

was it? it was definitely a middle finger to ignorant westerners who had preconcieved notions about who and what the Mandarin should be. but, ultimately, it just gave us a pretender with zero connection to the actual Mandarin. it was just some geek-to-chic poseur with a dragon tattoo.

People genuinely believed Sir Ben Kingsley - a British man of Indian descent - was going to pass for a character who is of Chinese origin. The people who wanted the real Mandarin never questioned why a guy with a name of Chinese significance was being played by a British Indian man supposedly hiding in a cave in the Middle East and using Al Qaeda-style terrorist tactics. The clues that this guy was not legit were right there.

Question for Agent Z: Do you think Mr. Negative is a yellow peril racist character just for being an Asian villain?

He has some of the trappings but ultimately he isn't framed in the same way the Mandarin is.

The PS4 game added some depth by making him a victim of Osborn.

[MichaelC]

Being effeminate is not the only qualification to being a yellow peril stereotype.

The key defining feature of a "yellow peril" villain is that they want to lead the "yellow man" to overthrow the "white man". That is literally the origin of the word yellow peril, the belief that the white world was in peril because of a conspiracy by the yellow world.

The Mandarin has never been portrayed as being part of a racial conspiracy. In fact, he seems largely indifferent to race, with his motivations owing more to Blofeld and other James Bond villains. His actual stated motivations in his dialogue owe more to social darwinism, Ayn Rand thinking, monarchism, and sheer nihilistic hunger for dominance. Calling him yellow peril when he literally eschews the motivation that originated the word is a stretch.

[Blind Wedjat]

None of those things change the fact that the Mandarin has looked like a Yellow Peril villain before. The long ornamental robes, the long hair and beard and the long fingernails are all hallmarks of a Yellow Peril villain and the Mandarin has looked like that before. Plus, his freakin codename/alias is The Mandarin for crying out loud. It's already offensive to suggest a Chinese language should be associated with evil deeds.

[Blind Wedjat]

I should also add that saying the Mandarin is hypermasculine doesn't make things any better either, because that is another offensive stereotype from the Yellow Peril view: that Asian men were overly sexual, hypermasculine beasts that would steal, rape and taint the white woman. In fact, this entire racist view of them is why we have the effeminate parody in the Fu Manchu stereotype: it was meant to counter that view. To make Asian men seem less threatening and something to laugh at.

[Desmark]

You might as well complain about red skull being a offensive stereotypical character calling all Africans slaves and a lesser race through his deriding Black Panther as well or Deadpool being a raving lunatic being a offensive depiction of Canadians or Ice Man as a self hating closet homophobic American character who pretends to be something he is not due to being terrified of being deried as being unmanly or unnatural aberration thus denying being gay himself to fit in with the Western mentality of being degenerates or culturally bankrupt shallow losers who are always ready to put out and engage in meaningless macho games. The characters have been designed with some characteristics that are offensive but they can't be toned down otherwise you may as well get rid of them permanently.

[H-E-D]

I don't get how somebody could think that a character named the Mandarin isn't a Yellow Peril villain.

[Blind Wedjat]

You might as well complain about red skull being a offensive stereotypical character calling all Africans slaves and a lesser race through his deriding Black Panther as well or Deadpool being a raving lunatic being a offensive depiction of Canadians or Ice Man as a self hating closet homophobic American character who pretends to be something he is not due to being terrified of being deried as being unmanly or unnatural aberration thus denying being gay himself to fit in with the Western mentality of being degenerates or culturally bankrupt shallow losers who are always ready to put out and engage in meaningless macho games. The characters have been designed with some characteristics that are offensive but they can't be toned down otherwise you may as well get rid of them permanently.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, and I mean that honestly.

Red Skull is a Nazi. He's a bigot, and he's a Red Scare (I'll advise you google that) kind of villain the same way The Mandarin is Yellow Peril. I don't understand how your other examples are even comparable to that. Deadpool is an intentional parody, and while there are stereotypes of Canadians, he doesn't embody any widely racist or offensive ones used as political propaganda, which is what characters like Red Skull and the Mandarin have been used as. Likewise Iceman being in the closet doesn't make him a negative stereotype of gay people. That's a very relatable issue in the LGBTQ+ community.

Characters being designed with certain traits doesn't mean those traits can't be offensive or purposely done to spread propaganda or be racist.

[Blind Wedjat]

I don't get how somebody could think that a character named the Mandarin isn't a Yellow Peril villain.

Yea, it is a bit ridiculous. Using a common Chinese language to sound ominous and evil is no different to how the Fu Manchu name even came about. The creator of that character just thought of the term Fu Manchu, said it means "The war-like Manchu" (Manchu people are an ethnic group in China) even though he couldn't speak any Chinese dialect and it means nothing. He just used it because it sounded evil in his head. That's no different from the Mandarin at all.

[DrNewGod]

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, and I mean that honestly.

Red Skull is a Nazi. He's a bigot, and he's a Red Scare (I'll advise you google that) kind of villain the same way The Mandarin is Yellow Peril. I don't understand how your other examples are even comparable to that. Deadpool is an intentional parody, and while there are stereotypes of Canadians, he doesn't embody any widely racist or offensive ones used as political propaganda, which is what characters like Red Skull and the Mandarin have been used as. Likewise Iceman being in the closet doesn't make him a negative stereotype of gay people. That's a very relatable issue in the LGBTQ+ community.

Characters being designed with certain traits doesn't mean those traits can't be offensive or purposely done to spread propaganda or be racist.

From a character standpoint, The Mandarin is not a representative of any people but himself. He could be spun as something utterly antithetical to the Chinese people and culture; an insidious throwback conquistador intent on regressing the entire world (including his native land) to a feudal state under his thumb. In that sense, he's no more a racial statement than Professor Moriarity or Dr. Doom.

That said, I agree that one can't expect a viewing audience to accept a character without considering the associations that attach to the character in the real world. The name and the trappings are problematic. There's going to be no getting around that for enough people that The Mandarin's never going to be an easy character to present.

I will also say that I can see why some push back against the fear of offending the PRC. It doesn't make racist tropes right, but I assure you that the Chinese government has absolutely no interest in what offends the rest of the world, and every intent of imposing their will on every sector of the world into which they can insert their influence. So there may be a degree to which The Mandarin (from a character standpoint) is a fitting representative of the PRC.

[Michael Watkins]

I don't get how somebody could think that a character named the Mandarin isn't a Yellow Peril villain.

He lacks the history and goals of that kind of character. He isn't full blooded Chinese. He's not a nationalist. He hasn't worn robes since the early 90s. His being Asian shouldn't be more of an issue than Doom being Roma. The latter is a hyper masculine magic using liar and thief afterall.

[Desmark]

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, and I mean that honestly.

Red Skull is a Nazi. He's a bigot, and he's a Red Scare (I'll advise you google that) kind of villain the same way The Mandarin is Yellow Peril. I don't understand how your other examples are even comparable to that. Deadpool is an intentional parody, and while there are stereotypes of Canadians, he doesn't embody any widely racist or offensive ones used as political propaganda, which is what characters like Red Skull and the Mandarin have been used as. Likewise Iceman being in the closet doesn't make him a negative stereotype of gay people. That's a very relatable issue in the LGBTQ+ community.

Characters being designed with certain traits doesn't mean those traits can't be offensive or purposely done to spread propaganda or be racist.

What I am saying is that these characters are from the reactionary and unenlightened eras and it's natural that they will have viewpoints and characteristics associated with the eras in which they were spawned which many wiill find offensive and unpalatable today but ultimately they are villains so no one is going to seriously consider the fictional characters as being used to propagate some agenda which is silly and absurd and a viewpoint no one is going to take seriously. No one is going to seriously consider the red skull whose thinking is that the Africans are a slave race whose sole purpose for their pathetic existence is to serve the noble aryan race as a offensive stereotypical depiction of all Germans of that particular period. He is a product of his era similar to how the Mandarin is and no one least of all the Chinese are going to get hot under collar to find a character from that era having such reactionary views or being portrayed in such manner just like no German is going to consider the red skull as a offensive stereotype because it is a fictionalized character from that era who is bound to have offensive and uncomfortable associations and who won't be reading bedtime stories to children but is likely to cause mass killings but you can't say that you will stop depicting Nazis in fiction just like you can't stop depicting fuedal Chinese warlords or dishpot tyrants otherwise you will get safe vanilla villains who are politically correct but essentially bland.

[Agent Z]

What I am saying is that these characters are from the reactionary and unenlightened eras and it's natural that they will have viewpoints and characteristics associated with the eras in which they were spawned which many wiill find offensive and unpalatable today but ultimately they are villains so no one is going to seriously consider the fictional characters as being used to propagate some agenda which is silly and absurd and a viewpoint no one is going to take seriously.

Except for Marvel/Disney who saw fit to not use him in IM3 and haven’t used him in comics since 2012 and even before that year his appearances in comics were rather limited once Marvel entered the 21st Century.

No one is going to seriously consider the red skull whose thinking is that the Africans are a slave race whose sole purpose for their pathetic existence is to serve the noble aryan race as a offensive stereotypical depiction of all Germans of that particular period.

The Red Skull is not part of a racial minority that has a long history of getting crapped on by the west in their media.

He is a product of his era similar to how the Mandarin is and no one least of all the Chinese are going to get hot under collar to find a character from that era having such reactionary views or being portrayed in such manner just like no German is going to consider the red skull as a offensive stereotype because it is a fictionalized character from that era who is bound to have offensive and uncomfortable associations and who won't be reading bedtime stories to children but is likely to cause mass killings but you can't say that you will stop depicting Nazis in fiction just like you can't stop depicting fuedal Chinese warlords or dishpot tyrants otherwise you will get safe vanilla villains who are politically correct but essentially bland.

I wasn't aware making your character a warlord or tyrant was the only way to make your villains interesting.

No one is saying you can’t have tyrants as your villains. That’s a leap worthy of the Incredible Hulk. The Mandarin being a villain is not what makes him an offensive character. It’s the way he’s drawn and written that does that.

[MichaelC]

It’s the way he’s drawn and written that does that.

If looking like that is offensive, sign me up for looking offensive.

[616MarvelYear is LeapYear]

Why not? Kingpin can be a Daredevil and a Spider-Man villain.

Good point! Mandarin can be a War Machine, X-Men(Wolverine, Psylocke and Jubilee) and Shang-Chi villain.

[Toxin45]

I definitely think so. Iron man has a better archnemesis in stane anyway

Stane is long dead and his son took over