 The Marvel universe and Netflix is expanding. We started with the Daredevil in 2015, which made waves as Netflix's best show at the time. Then Jessica Jones depicted a complex story about an abuse survivor that accepts, rejects, and comes to tentative terms with her superheroine status. Luke Cage followed and was no less important, the story of a black man that can't be shot, trying to find his place in the cultural hub of Harlem. It's been a great, albeit bumpy ride so far, and we're finally getting to the fourth Marvel hero to complete the Defenders, Iron Fist. Iron Fist is a pretty beloved superhero. He's also a rich, wise savior propped up by generic Oriental culture to become a mystical master of kung fu. Yeah, we need to talk. His real name is Danny Rand, and he's one of the finest warriors in the entire Marvel universe. He's the sole survivor of a plane crash that killed his wealthy parents in the Himalayas. Since then, he's spent 15 years training with the monks of Kunlun to become the immortal Iron Fist. With the power to summon superhuman strength, speed, and agility, and a powerful glowing fist, he returns to New York to save it from an evil mystical ninja clan known as the Hand. Weird, right? Maybe even a little familiar? What rules your body? My mind! So what we have here is a web of pseudo-Asian mystical martial arts, ninja enemies, and a handful of white men ready to save the day. This is a trope, or an accepted convention in storytelling. But why? Let's break it down. First, there's the issue of Orientalism. Orientalism in fiction means depicting characters of East Asian or Arabic descent as exaggerated and exotic others, as compared to the white counterparts. You old fool has taught you in our ways. So, if you see Asian men and women in robes talking a lot about honor and karma, or if they're solely there as ninjas or martial arts experts, then the show is reinforcing Orientalist stereotypes. Filmmakers get away with this because of the presumed ignorance of the audience. Martial arts are obviously real. Himalayan temples actually exist, but they really do adhere to mystical belief systems all over the world. The problem comes in assuming those ideas can sum up whole groups of people. Even worse, those ideas are usually meant to empower white heroes. If you study in the Himalayan mountains, you will gain mystical magic powers to affect the universe. If you're blind and study under a blind sensei, you can basically regain your sight and become a ninja. And if you study enough kung fu, your fist will glow with the power of an immortal dragon. This is especially problematic when characters of this stripe are often the only roles people of Asian or Pacific Islander descent can get in film or TV. And spoiler, casting a white person to this poorly developed kind of role does not solve the issue. It makes it worse. The second problem is the idea of a white savior. White saviors are white people, usually men, who enter an exotic society and come out as the chosen one figure. They've absorbed the stereotype culture and have emerged as the best person among those people. But this marginalizes people who don't often get a chance to see themselves as the main character, while also subtly implying that all the people from these fictive cultures can't defend themselves because they need saving. Thankfully, this white person showed up to study and use their culture to save the day. So what's Marvel to do? A lot of the problem comes from adapting source material from the 1970s with baked-in racism that refuses to go away. Characters like Iron Fist and his early forebear Shang-Chi capitalize on the kung fu craze of the era. Back then, the characteristics of martial arts films were arguably empowering for marginalized audiences, featuring a long-suffering non-white protagonist on a righteous quest against a foe that was amoral, colonial, and sometimes white. But by 1972, efforts like kung fu helped co-opt the genre for white America. Even though characters like Iron Fist and Doctor Strange have come a long way, their origin stories are steeped in some pretty offensive ideas. The film version of Doctor Strange, for instance, tried to sidestep the problem by casting Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One. But that gave fans the impression that Marvel was whitewashing the character. For Iron Fist, which appears relatively faithful to the source material, it might just be laziness. A vocal group of Marvel fans protested the casting choices of Iron Fist, explaining how an Asian-American Danny Rand could benefit the story. It was smart criticism that showed how far we've come since the 70s. It's a genre problem nearly 50 years in the making, and we're sadly still struggling with it to this day. Food for thought during your next Netflix binge. So there's been some Twitter drama surrounding the show, of course. Actor Finn Jones, who plays Iron Fist, tweeted out a link to actor Reza Ahmed's talk about the importance of representation in film. Jones was quickly struck down by fans, given the irony of his statement. In retaliation, he deleted his Twitter account. He's back now.