The “wondrous” controversies surrounding “Wandering Earth” (Spoilers)

The Wandering Earth is a Chinese made science fiction film directed by Frant Gwo and was originally released on February 5th, 2019. The film has made over 4 billion RMB since its release and at the same time raised controversies. A specific controversy regarding the film’s plot is the fact that the protagonists are of Chinese nationality.

The summary of the film’s story is about how the sun is dying and humans developed technology to move planet earth throughout space in search for a new star. The film presents the audience with a hypothetical simulation of what would happen if Earth were to move away from the sun. While the Earth is moving, a gravity spike occurs that sends the world into impending doom. Then the protagonists have to save the planet and carry humanity into the future.

Some audiences are complaining that it shouldn’t have been the Chinese characters who saved the world. However, some of the audience do not acknowledge that people of various ethnicities are represented within the film. To make matters more interesting, the audiences who are complaining are mostly Chinese themselves.

It is as if the Chinese audiences thought that their own race are incapable of accomplishing something as grand as “saving the world”. Some comments even go as far as to say that the film is great but the only caveat is that it should’ve been the Americans who saved the planet. This is a example of racism towards one’s own race.

What is wrong with Chinese saving the world? Human beings are created to be equals, race or nationality doesn’t make one person superior to another. Sure, the skin colour of people of different races may be different, but that should not influence whether or not this person can be a hero.

In almost all stories, regarding modern nationalities, the hero of the story will be of the same nationality or culture of the author or the targeted audience. That seems to be perfectly normal, even though in reality such things probably won’t always be the case.

Personally speaking, when I first watched the action films such as Transformers or Avengers in cinemas, something that always bothered me about these epic films is that when there is a world ending threat it always occurs in the United States or is always related to the United States. Same goes for the protagonists of these films. Heck, Why do space alien robots or gods all speak English? How did they learn it? Why did they not learn Chinese or other prominent languages of the Earth? Why are these films so culturally biased?

Would I preferred if the main cast of “Wandering Earth” consists of people from all over the world? Perhaps. But I have no problem that they are all of Chinese origin. Then again, does it even matter? Fictional films such as these are meant to entertain their audience. The most important part of a story is not the race or nationality of the characters. Controversies like such are just a sign of stupidity and ignorance.