yellowface: internet hate & the love of writing
- paigenherbooks
- May 10, 2024
- 7 min read
4/5
Yellowface was punchy. It was outstandingly funny and had me going “no way” and “oh my gosh girl” every five minuets. It also made me sit and reflect on so, so many things regarding diversity, inclusion, what that actually means, writing, reading, and the chronic topic that is online hate and conversations. R.F. Kuang is a fantastic writer and she absolutely knocked it out of the park with Yellowface. I listened to Yellowface and the girl who narrated it on Spotify truly made the book come to life, to where it felt like I was on a facetime call with the main character, listening as she unfolded her wildly inappropriate and sometimes appropriate commentary to me.
Phenomenal experience.
Synopsis: Yellowface follows white author June Hayward and her friend Athena Liu, a Chinese-American author who has been working on a book about Chinese laborers in World War I. Following Athena's untimely death, June steals her manuscript and attempts to build up her career through Athena's work.
Yellowface is basically a conversation on plagiarism, diversity, and inclusion. Racism and if reverse racism exists as well as how big of a piece of shit a character or quite frankly a person can truly be.
Our story follows one Juniper Song who decides to essentially steal an Asian women’s story and wasn’t expecting the truth to be leaked out. The results are disastrous in a lot of ways.
The topics and conversations that Kuang brings up within her novel are profound and extremely linked to today’s Twitter feeds & cancel culture. The question of “who can write what” and “is reverse racism a thing?”, “does it count if the person is also racist?” She constructs these questions and varying different answers through an extremely unlikable character, who happens to be a white woman. Within the novel we dive deep into Juniper’s own prejudices and racism, even when she’s trying to cover it up with being “interested” or “invested”. It sheds a light on the conversation of appropriation and appreciation, something I and I think a lot of people have had conversations about.
The story has its wild ups and downs and was engaging throughout, a vivacious audio book to listen to. Though for this review, as always, I’m not going to spend much time talking about what Juniper Song was doing, but more of the things she was thinking and the conversations and of course my own intellectual opinions surrounding them.
Welcome to the metaphorical lecture hall.
“Can you truly appreciate a culture if you are from outside of it?”
This question has been burning in my mind long before I read Yellowface but has continued since I finished it. I am someone who engages with Hispanic culture regularly. Like many I took Spanish in highschool, and maybe unlike many, I fell in love with it. Don Quiote is one of my favorite stories, I am obsessed with Reggaeton and adore the food. I have learned alot about Hispanic culture through classes at my University, reading, listening, and engaging with lot’s of people who identify as Latina/o. Though I have had many people question my engagement of this culture because I am a white girl. I have had people inside and outside the culture be absolutely pissed off when I ordered my drunk tacos in Spanish at the taqueria truck, or tell me that I was trying to hard or taking up space somewhere I wasn’t wanted because I wanted culture. Or be upset when I petition or educate myself on things such as the Gentrification of Puerto Rico or other issues dealing with minorities.
That begs the question, if someone is participating within a culture respectfully and intelligently why on earth are we damning them? They’ve done the research, they’ve spent the time, why are they not allowed to engage?
This is where R.F. Kuang get’s dirty. She presents the almost exact situation in some ways that I just explained but her main character is massively flawed, because Juniper Song doesn’t view Asian people as people. Now, she’s done the research, she’s outwardly mostly respectful, she takes the time to petition and bring up important topics regarding the Asian community, yet her inner monologue that we are privy to and the real reason’s behind what she’s doing is the issue.
I don’t educate myself on Latina/o struggles and shake my ass to Raggeton to make money, or profit off the culture I enjoy. I am interacting with it in a way that is truly respectful and out of a place of admiration of the culture itself and some of my really good friends (hi liz). Juniper Song is using Asian culture as a tool to propel herself further in her career and build a community that she didn’t have before. Therefore, even on the outside she looks like she is doing everything right, she is once again being the “colonizer” by utilizing and engaging in the culture for her own gain. Her inner monologue showcases this with ease, her common thoughts on the Asian community and diversity in general are at some times disgusting and most times the epitome of stupid.
Though when these issues amongst others are confronted and exposed (in sometimes a disgusting way) Juniper counts this as reverse racism. Now, I know everyone just rolled their eyes at reading that term, but at the core facts, it’s true. Racism is just racism, by putting “reverse” in front of it you are once again singling out a people group and telling them they cannot feel the same things or experience racism because of their skin color.
That is the almost text book definition of racism.
Where it continues to get interesting is that as you're reading the novel, you feel like Juniper deserves it. All of it. You’ve been in her head and understand her motives, so I was almost jumping for joy when these people started calling her out, even if they did just whittle her down to “another white woman”. That phrase though is the issue, and R.F.Kuang does a fucking fantastic job of driving this point home. That while we the readers really despise Juniper Song, we shouldn’t want people to be treated like this–to be degraded solely for their “culture” or skin color or identity.
It’s an endless cycle.
It’s a disgusting cycle.
and yet here we are championing it because we feel like she deserves it.
Interesting dive into human psychology there.
“Can white authors write about non-white characters?”
This question has actually been floating around recently with an interview of Leigh Bardugo going viral a few weeks ago. Her newest book The Familiar follows a non-white character (I haven’t read it yet so details are sparse) and someone at her book tour asked her how she felt taking up that space from someone of the community. There was also some other politically and cultural things talked about but at it’s essence this question of “can white authors write about non-white characters” is excessively interesting.
Why?
Well, our amazing author R.F.Kuang is an Asian woman writing about a white woman who also happens to be an actual complex piece of shit.
Anyone can write about anything.
That is my personal stance.
The fact that we are trying to dilute or section off who can write about what is insanely reminiscent of 1984, which I’m not sure if many “internet warriors” have actually read. The concept of banning or saying a certain people group can’t write about anything that isn’t their own is wrong. Everyone, respectfully or disrespectfully should have the freedom of speech to enact and engage with writing in any way they see fit—that doesn’t mean the majority are always going to like it and once it’s out there it is free to be shredded to pieces. This notion of “taking up space” is circumstantial. In this case, of Yellowface, Juniper stole Athena (her “friends”) writing and therefore was making profit off of adopting an ambiguous Asian-ish persona with her Asian centric novel.
Even then we have to ask, is she "taking up space" or is she simply existing in a space disrespectfully. Writers are the world’s storyteller’s if we start telling them they can and can’t write or bring attention to things that are outside of their “space” then what do we expect them to do? How many books would we not have if this would have been the case? How many books do we NOT have because of this? How many books do we not have by POC people, LGBTQ+ people, women, etc because someone somewhere told them they cannot write.
Connecting to that Yellowface also brings up a lot of very prevalent issues within the publishing world that aids to this racism on both sides. Pushing only minority stories or having “token” minority stories, rejecting those who aren’t “trending” and creating a cesspool of dislike and uncomfortability for all, is disgusting. Kuang goes into this world with Juniper Song and show cases every nook and cranny, she sheds light onto how the process works and the probable outcomes of corporations flying their “we love minority” banners, reminiscent of companies waving their rainbow flag during Pride month and only Pride month.
It was extremely educational and reminded me that while the book I'm reading is classified as fiction, the content matter is very, very real.
Yellowface dives deep into what it means to be human.
To be jealous, scared, awful, mean, stupid, and famous. It showcases this with wickedly vivacious prose and a plot line you simply can’t see coming. Kuang ensures that you’ll hate Juniper Song by the end of the novel yet you feel this human connection to her, you try and see her for the fucked up little girl she is.
Though I’ll admit it’s very, very hard.
You walk away from reading something like Yellowface a little disgusted in humanity, on all fronts. It’s a heavy book written in a light way that makes you eager to devour it, to see what stupid thing Juniper Song does next and how her story starts to unfold.
Yellowface is a rhetoric on race, the publishing industry, human interaction, and of course plagiarism. This novel is my second R.F. Kuang novel and just like Babel, she is absolutely magnificent. She earned every single one of those 4 stars.
An interview about Yellowface from the author herself:
xoxo,
paige
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