The characters made parols, or star-shaped lanterns that are a popular Christmastime decoration in the Philippines, and performed mano, a gesture that honors the elderly. Titled “From Our Family To Yours,” the three-minute, Christmas-themed animated short featured a distinctly Filipino family engaging in recognizably Filipiino traditions. Also disappointed that the film does not tell a story specific to one country, Sandy tweeted, “This movie represents no one in particular.”įor Sandy, who spoke to TIME ahead of the movie’s release, the disappointment stings more because Disney UK had released a video ad in November 2020 that spurred her imagination for what was possible. “Additional Voices,” which in this film include Filipino-American actors like Vincent Rodriguez III ( Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) and Liza Del Mundo ( W.I.T.C.H.), are typically characters in animation with no individual names specified and who contribute to group sounds. “When I looked at the cast, you do see Southeast Asian actors in the project but they’re only cast as Additional Voices,” Sandy, who prefers not to give her last name, tells TIME. “They basically put the whole region in a blender and hired so little south-east Asian actors for the roles,” wrote Sandy, a 25-year-old graphic designer who lives in Manila. On the day the full cast was announced, some took to Twitter to express their criticism. They include Awkwafina, who voices Sisu, Gemma Chan, Daniel Dae Kim, Benedict Wong and Sandra Oh. While the movie features a couple of other Southeast Asian voice actors aside from Tran-most notably the teen actors Izaac Wang and Thalia Tran, who voice the characters Boun and Noi, respectively-the majority of the top-billed actors are East Asian. While plenty of people shared their excitement around seeing their cultures represented onscreen as promotional materials for the film were released, others expressed concern, most notably about the lack of Southeast Asian actors in the cast as well as the approach of combining influences from multiple Southeast Asian countries into one story. But steps forward in Hollywood are rarely clear-cut.
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