jayakumar2

What's your take on the accusation that this series perpetuates the Hollywood use of Asian female characters in excessive fetishization/sexualization roles, and without depth in their portrayal?

For example, the Washington Post said in reviewing Marco Polo:

"Unless, of course, you’re here for the young, naked Asian women. They’re everywhere in “Marco Polo,” to an almost pervy degree, which makes watching the show feel like that time you accidentally glimpsed your father-in-law’s browser history. "

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/tv/netflixs-marco-polo-is-so-plodding-that-its-practically-binge-proof/2014/12/11/3e0753dc-7fed-11e4-81fd-8c4814dfa9d7_story.html

For example, what was the purpose of scenes like this (obviously nsfw, shows naked woman upside down seen from well, uhm, awkward angle):

http://www.egotastic.com/2014/12/are-you-watching-all-the-topless-asian-hotties-on-marco-polo-on-netflix-yet/olivia-cheng-nekkid-in-marco-polo-ep-2-03/

Did you find that degrading? Do you know if any mainstream "American" actress have been asked to do similar scenes and whether they did so with/without body doubles ?

Hmm. Just curious - are your Asian friends...Malaysian? Or Asians staying in the US.

Understood. Mostly Malaysian and Malaysians staying in the US. Thanks for your reply.

As an Asian male I have no problem with Asian females being portrayed as sexy

I have not watched the whole series so I can't judge whether "sexy" was the portrayal that comes across. But Asian friends who have watched were upset, and the phrase "it seemed degrading" seems common which seems consistent with the WashingtonPost review ("father-in-law's browser history") and several other similar reviews. Can we assume you disagree with these assessments? ie: your opinion is that these scenes were not degrading and instrumental to the plot/character definition?

Game Of Thrones

I have watched this series. I think the amount of nudity for the main characters was limited and even then, body doubles were used. Also, as is well documented, the directors chose to use actual porn stars for some roles, hence perhaps those individuals were comfortable with the manner in which they were instructed to act. That's why I limited the question to "mainstream American" and asked whether body doubles were used. What's your take on this?