u/ofhousefernandes

As we know, media like movies, TV shows, and video games are insanely expensive to make. They need huge amounts of money, manpower, and resources, things that are usually only available to big corporations or wealthy elites.

But if you look at countries like Japan, Korea, and China, their soft power didn’t really begin with expensive media. It started with things that were far more accessible: novels and comics.

Japan led the way with manga, and once that industry exploded, they transitioned into anime and eventually games. Korea became globally famous through music (K-pop) and then K-dramas, but it also has a massive manhwa industry (Solo Leveling). China did what China does best, COPY successful ideas at scale, and make them cheaper. Now we have mass-produced slop manhua and donghua, but also some genuinely good works like Reverend Insanity, Lord of the Mysteries, To Be Hero X, and games like Black Myth: Wukong, Gujian, and Sword and Fairy.

The common factor is that all three countries built strong comic and novel industries. Yes, publishers and platforms help, but at the core, writing and drawing are things ordinary people can start doing on their own and put online. The barrier to entry is far lower than filmmaking or game development. And the audience has always been there people love reading.

So the real question is: why doesn’t India have a strong comic or novel culture despite having 1.5 billion people?

We have films, sure, but that shouldn’t be the only creative outlet. Comics and novels are far more accessible to create. If people are tired of the same recycled Bollywood garbage, then be the change you want to see.

It's literally the first and easiest step towards soft power which doesn't even need a lot of investment.

https://preview.redd.it/sx46hl3mfw0h1.png?width=422&format=png&auto=webp&s=d50ef5c5d4c1a7447a3a24daec8d64ec3b79510d

For the people who don't know, the main lead from Wuthering Heights a very famous English novel is supposed to be a Lascar (British Indian sailor) or a descendant of Lascars. But guess what they did? they made him a white guy and no one is talking about it. When they race swapped The Little Mermaid to Black which doesn't even make sense considering Mermaids/Sirens are mythical creatures and they can't be assigned a race so them white or black doesn't matter, all the people were outraged because mermaids are supposedly "white" and crying diversity, etc.

What are your thoughts? I for one think it was done on purpose to keep South Asian men down.

So I was recently playing Death Stranding 2 and was surprised with a cameo of Rajamouli, the famous Indian director. Now the representation itself was neither positive or negative but it was a nice easter egg for people already aware of Rajamouli.

Kojima the creator of Death Stranding is Japanese, and as we know the Japanese seem to have a neutral to slightly positive view of India. Don't let the larpers and expats on X in Japan fool you. They are xenophobic, but they don't and won't single out races like Americans and Canadians do.

Then we have HouseMarque, a Finnish(Not Anglo) development studio who chose an Indian as an MC for their AAA Game. A positive representation despite Finland having no visible population of Indians.

Now on to, Americans, Canadians and Anglos in generals. They have always had a disdain for dark skin, after slavery was abolished and racism against black people was taken seriously. They moved on the next darkest group, Indians and Arabs. Indians however, unlike Arabs are not rich, they don't got that oil money and Arabs weren't enslaved and colonized for centuries so their psyche doesn't have an inbuilt servile inferiority complex like Indians do. Not to mention Arabs are more "confrontational". Hell, more Indians were/are targeted and hate crimed against after being misidentified as Arabs.

https://preview.redd.it/m1girqa7430h1.jpg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fdde1dccd7fed02d842127d733faab3ae22db8a5

So the Arabs were a no go, which means the Anglos had to choose the Indians, emasculating the men and fetishizing the women like they do with every race, projecting and assigning their own negative stereotypes on other races. With Indians they started with the nerdy stereotype, harmless but desexualized. This was when there were very few Indians in NA. When the population grew, the stereotypes become more harmful, rapists, invaders, poop eating demon worshippers, etc.

Now do you really think, a people who have an inherent dislike for dark skin, and a history of subjugating them and now is forced to tolerate one of them(Black people) would make the same mistake with Indians? hell no! Anglos have Schadenfreude built into their systems, they need someone to look down on. Like a toy which is abused for pleasure by a child or a child who is picked on by everyone in class. So they went on to dehumanize Indians as much as possible with the end goal of turning us into a global bottom caste, a global punching bag, they do this by killing any and all empathy felt for all, men, women or children. And as a fail safe mechanism they created "concern trolling" justifications to be used in case they were called out. Justifications like the caste system, Indians being misogynist, etc. We are already seeing this right now, the people all around the world who have never interacted with an Indian joining in to hate on us, liberals and social justice warriors being quiet? and sometimes even joining in? why? because we are not sympathizable? they don't see us as humans, they feel more empathy for animals than they do for us. They don't get virtue signaling points for defending us, and it doesn't satisfy their messiah complex.

So yeah, even though it is the Anglo right wing that has made the world hate us, the left is equally to blame for staying silent and being complacent. When one side hates you, and the other is indifferent leaning towards dislike, don't expect positive representation from them.

We can only hope for positive representation from non Anglo countries, or create our softpower. On the bright side, the future looks good from what I understand Indian media houses are trying to cater to a global audience, Punjabi music is becoming popular, etc.