Daredevil's Peter Shinkoda: Former Marvel TV boss said "nobody gives a sh*t" about Asian people

Entertainment Weekly

Shinkoda, who played the villainous Nobu Yoshioka on the Marvel Netflix series, made the allegation against former Marvel Television head Jeph Loeb during a panel for the virtual #SaveDaredevilCon over the weekend. Shinkoda alleges that Loeb, who exited last year because Marvel TV was being folded into Marvel Studios, told the Daredevil writers' room to scrap backstories for Shinkoda's Nobu and Wai Ching Ho's Madame Gao. Loeb was an executive producer on Daredevil. The Canadian-born Shinkoda is of Japanese descent while Ho hails from Hong Kong. "I'm kind of reluctant to say this, but...I'm going to take this moment, but I have to because — because I just have to. I'm not into really protecting certain things anymore," Shinkoda said during the Zoom livestream, according to EW. "Jeph Loeb told the writers' room not to write for Nobu and Gao — and this was reiterated many times by many of the writers and showrunners — that nobody cares about Chinese people and Asian people. There were three previous Marvel movies, a trilogy called Blade that was made where Wesley Snipes kills 200 Asians each movie. Nobody gives a sh*t, so don't write about Nobu and Gao, so they were forced to put their storyline down and drop it." Shinkoda alleges that Daredevil scrapped a story that would've explored Nobu's journey to America with Gao's help. As EW notes, this is not the first time Loeb and his Marvel TV division have come under fire for Asian representation. Marvel TV was criticized for furthering the "white savior" trope by having a white actor lead Iron Fist. Marvel and Loeb have yet to respond to Shinkoda's allegations.