Orientalism, 'Cyberpunk 2077,' and Yellow Peril in Science Fiction

There is a long and deep Euro-American tradition of using Asian symbolism such as neon signs with Japanese and Chinese lettering to express those feelings about what the future holds, including globalization and the threat of a takeover from the East.Dylan Yeats, the author of Home Is Where the War Is: Techno-Orientalist Militarism on the Homefront, told me that he believes there are two strains of techno-orientalism, the European “Imperialist” strain and the American “Settler” strain.The former can be traced back to World War II, when powers like the United Kingdom, France, and the Netherlands were looking at the end of their globe-spanning empires, while simultaneously seeing the expansion of imperialism in countries like Japan. He added, “Techno-oriental fears are mapped as easily upon Japanese people as the Japanese cars: mass reproducible, intrusive, and overwhelming the more ‘human’ white man.”When you look at Cyberpunk 2077’s setting, setting, Night City, in the various trailers, the Asians that you see or meet are still “foreign” or the “other,” resting outside of some typical, white male norm. “It is no accident that California–the site of so much hope but also fear about the future–is the location for these movies and games,” said Yeats.Whit Pow, assistant professor of queer and transgender media studies at New York University, explained that the state contains incredibly rich, multigenerational communities of Asian people.They noted that the Asian America portrayed in Cyberpunk 2077 is in stark contrast to its real-life counterpart. The Asian American communities in the game are still defined by their foreignness, unlike real-world multi-ethnic Asian communities with long histories and roots in the United States today.Whit explained, “I think it’s important, when looking at the ways that Asian-ness is produced and referenced through objects like those in the clips of Cyberpunk 2077, to think about the way that this game is teaching us to think about race, and how these objects are presenting us with a particular view of Asian-ness that is spectacular, that is foreign.”You can see this particular foreignness in the Asian “Tyger Claws” gang in Cyberpunk 2077, complete with generic “Asian” accents and old-school katanas. Contrast that with Kai Leng, who on the other hand is stoic and unfeeling, which unfortunately are stereotypes of Asians.Rivera added, “Even when it isn’t as overt, or otherwise virulently racist, you can still find traces of racialization in characterization, narrative, and procedural rhetoric, even in the absence of phenotype.” Also, the fact that Kai Leng was written to fight with a katana in a sci-fi universe filled with advanced space travel technology, laser guns, and biotic superpowers is problematic at best.Regardless of all of this, it is possible to embrace the elements of cyberpunk that resonate with audiences without resorting to orientalist tropes.