How "Raya and the Last Dragon" Failed at Southeast Asian Representation

When the movie Raya and the Last Dragon was announced, it immediately excited Disney-lovers all around the globe. Raya is the first Asian Disney princess since Mulan, and the first Southeast Asian Disney princess ever. Not only is she Southeast Asian, but she is fiercely independent, and an inspiring female warrior. So, hearing of her upcoming debut sparked hope in many: Hope for a princess that would represent their culture, and represent it well.

There is no denying that this movie is a work of art. With beautiful animation and a powerful plotline and characters, it immediately draws the attention and love of all kinds of viewers. The story of Raya and the Last Dragon is vivid and full of lighthearted humor entwined with heavy and mature themes of trust and honor. But did Disney respectfully portray the Southeast Asians it aimed to represent?

A reminder as to why representation matters: seeing people who look like you in the media proves to your subconscious that you can accomplish the same feats. Often, children of color don’t believe they can be successful or the main characters of their story, because they never see it happen for people like them in the books or movies they take in growing up. Furthermore, in a country of immigrants, it’s important to have an accurate depiction of what people are really like. Not everyone is straight and white. Every type of person deserves to be represented fairly and equally.

Disney princess movies are usually based on some sort of old fairytale or myth from a specific country or culture that Disney then puts its own twist on to make it more entertaining and family-friendly. Some of our favorite princesses have stories based in Germany, like Rapunzel and Snow White; France, like Belle; Denmark, like Ariel; or even somewhere in America, like Pocahontas and Tiana. Princess Merida is from Scotland, and Anna and Elsa are from Norway. What country, exactly, is Raya from?

Well, that’s the problem. That question is impossible to answer. While Disney has made many movies representing the stories of various individual European countries, for Raya and the Last Dragon, Disney combined different Southeast Asian cultures into one fictional world, rather than focusing on a single country and diving deep into its customs. Arguably, Disney did this just to check “Southeast Asian representation” off their list. This makes it extremely difficult to pick one culture apart from the others while watching the movie. Raya may be wearing one garment from the Philippines and another from Indonesia or Thailand, but it takes work, effort, and research for the viewer to find these things out. Children watching the movie might see people who look like them, but they wouldn’t be able to relate to much else. If your culture isn’t explicitly represented, is it even represented at all? A huge part of the importance of representation is giving people things they can relate to, and Raya is missing a large part of that.

Representation is also missing in the actors who voiced the Southeast Asian characters. Although most of the voice actors are Asian, a huge number of them are East Asian, not Southeast Asian. If you did not know, East Asia contains the countries China, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, and more, while Southeast Asia contains Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia, among others. Although East Asian representation is extremely important, just as important as any other representation, East Asian representation is often the only thing we get when Asian representation is asked for. China, Japan, and North Korea frequently end up overshadowing other Asian countries in the mainstream media, and it would have been nice to see more Southeast Asian voice actors get a turn in the spotlight.

Raya and the Last Dragon failed at representation for the LGBTQ+ community as well. Raya and Namaari were both queer-coded characters, but they were never actually confirmed to be LGBTQ+. This is a common way the media avoids clearly depicting gay characters and does not count toward good LGBTQ+ representation.

It’s entirely possible that Raya and the Last Dragon failed in other ways as well. Though it was an excellent movie, it could use some work, and we can only hope that Disney does better next time.