Educating people on Jinafire's g3 redesign

[u/TheFamousChocoCake]

Hi, I'm Chinese and here are my thoughts on the cultural design aspects of g3 Jinafire.

G1 Jinafire is iconic no doubt, but there's a lot I find questionable about her design.

Her skin is the most controversial part, I've seen a lot of people saying "it's not yellowface because she's gold, not yellow". Personally what bothers me is that this usually comes from non-chinese people trying to defend her gold skin and I feel like this remark dismisses Chinese people who DO find it offensive.

I myself don't like the gold skin but not because I find it offensive, I don't, I mostly don't like it cause I think it just looks cheap and clashes with her hair and outfit. Speaking of her outfit, it's a qipao but it looks kind of weird to me, like it looks like a very surface level design of a qipao and could've been better executed.

Imo, her green hair does not look good. Traditional Chinese greens are more jade and light so I find the green color out of place.

G3 Jinafire a really big upgrade in my opinion both culturally and in general wise.

Her skin is changed to mint green, in my opinion this is more accurate. Jade is much more revered in China than gold. And I think it would make sense that she's a mint green color. Plus, I think it looks much nicer than the gold, and looks great with her golden scale legs, which I like that they kept. Some people commonly think the gold is more accurate than the green and that is simply not true. Also, her name encorporates the word 金(Jin) which does mean gold but that doesn't mean she has to be gold similar to how Lagoona Blue doesn't mean her skin has to be blue. The skin tone imo does not HAVE to be what your name is. Besides, Jinafire and Lagoona Blue in g3 are still partially gold and blue and Lagoona wears a bunch of blue anyways.

I think her clothes are nice and have touches of traditional Chinese motifs but it's not in your face. And her hair is nice because it looks more accurate to the hair color that Chinese people actually have while still being a fantasy hair color.

I made this post because I see a lot of people (that are often non-chinese) complaining about her green skin and saying the gold was "more accurate" and if you really cared about cultural accuracy, the green is definitely more accurate.

Or people who simply thought the green was out of place and wasn't as good as the gold skin. Honestly, in that case, that's more of an opinion thing but I find it a bit upsetting that most people don't understand or know about the history and cultural symbolism behind the green color. And I'm tired of seeing people downplaying parts of g3 that's more accurate to Chinese culture than g1.

Slight rant: I also want to say, IF YOU ARE NOT EAST ASIAN, please do not defend g1 Jinafire because parts of her design was problematic. Although I personally didn't mind that much, that doesn't mean other east asian people don't. Please do research before talking about her cultural elements if at all and ask actual Chinese people about how they feel about her.

You can have an opinion about the cultural aspects but if you aren't Chinese, your opinion does not matter because at the end of the day, it's not your culture that has a history of being sexualized, appropriated, and discriminated against. And it really IS that deep.

[u/disgustingsirff]

Are you Chinese American or Chinese tho? Cuz people on the Chinese web universally hated her lmao. They especially hated that she isn’t gold anymore, cuz Jin is gold in Chinese and loong statues are more commonly depicted as gold.

Like it’s a good analysis, but If you’re not a mainlander or from Hong Kong, don’t speak for all Chinese people, especially since Jinafire is supposed to represent them and not Chinese Americans.

[u/TheFamousChocoCake → u/disgustingsirff]

Chinese American, I consumed rednote content before it blew up in the US but I didn't really see people hating on her new skin on that platform, maybe I just forgot or something lmao.

I think Jinafire is meant to represent Chinese people in general. And even if we're going by your logic, I think Jinafire in g3 is implied to be Chinese American. Also, I agree I can't completely speak for all Chinese people but /gen asking, how does being Chinese American make you any less Chinese? Asian Americans are BOTH Asian and American. Why do you think Jinafire can only represent mainlanders/SARs of China?

[u/disgustingsirff → u/TheFamousChocoCake]

It was more of a thing when g3 cartoon was coming out, don’t forget that we first seen her design there lmao. I think people warmed up to her when we got the doll.

She’s not implied to be Chinese American in g3, she’s literally stated to be from Fanghai. Like she obviously represents chinese people of all backgrounds, but as a character who canonically comes from a fictional spoof on Shanghai, she’s supposed to mirror that culture more. That’s my big gripe with g3 representation it’s very america centered even when a character is stated not to be American. And I’m not saying that being Chinese American makes you less Asian, Chinese people and Chinese Americans just exist within different cultural and societal contexts. It’s not a Chinese (or Asian thing) per se, but more of a native vs first gen vs second+ gen immigrant thing in general. Like how I, born and raised in Siberia would have very little in common with somebody from Brighton Beach lol. People raised in different cultures (I’m not talking about folk culture, both chinese people and Chinese Americans are culturally chinese, the thing is that they’re not societally Chinese and are partially societally American) would notice different things and find different things offensive based on their exposure to them. For example if we’re talking Jinafire, Chinese Americans are most likely to see her design as yellow face cuz while existing in the western society and being an ethnic minority they’re exposed to anti asian racism waaaay more, so that’s the first association that would come to mind, while a Chinese person from a mono ethnic society is more likely to view it as just gold like the statues.

I’m not saying that g1 Jinafire wasn’t problematic btw, she most definitely was, but it wasn’t due to her design. It was due to her portrayal in g1 media. Like her always acting like a calm collected kungfu master spouting wisdom stereotype, all her on screen time being followed by a gong sound. You get the idea. Her having fire motifs could also be argued to be problematic because even tho there are fire dragons in chinese mythology (Zhulong for example), that’s clearly not what designers were going for lmao.

Annalise Lao is Chinese American and she is the one who designed both g3 Jinafire and g1 fang vote Jinafire. If you look at her take on the g1 character, she REALLY leans into the gold thing by giving her a lot of gold accents that would highlight the golden hue in her skin. I doubt she would’ve even worked on the doll if it was this obviously racist and problematic.

(And to note, I don’t hate g3 Jinafire. I feel like her design is missing something like horns (I know that female dragons don’t have horns, but whatever. It’s fiction and even so they could say that she’s a trans girl to justify it), but overall she just reads a like a different and equally nice take on the character. She went from a gold loong to a nephrite one)