Better Luck Tomorrow (playing a little catch up, sorry)

Better Luck Tomorrow seems to both challenge and reaffirm the stereotype of the model minority. Ben, Virgil, Daric, and Han are bright students exhausting all of their energies in ensuring that they’ll get into good colleges. Ben’s methods are particularly formulaic (his repetitions of SAT vocabulary definitions, for example), while Daric fills the role of the ubiquitous extra-curricular overachiever. The four friends are also members of the academic decathlon team, a clear symbol of nerd status in any high school story. Of course, the foursome deviates from this stereotype in rather extreme ways. The film ostensibly reveals what Asian-Americans are really like; yet the fact that it preserves these nerdy and somewhat mechanical characteristics seems to me like an affirmation this part of the stereotype holds true. It’s as if the film says, “We may be awkward, sexually inexperienced, and geeky, but we can be just as reckless as the next teenager”-- not an terribly comforting tagline.

That said, Ben is certainly a far cry from Sixteen Candles’ Long Duk Dong. He’s a well-rounded and believable character. The simple fact that he is the protagonist rather than a source of comic relief or some other kind of typified background character is a significant step away from other stock Asian characters.

However, as was the case in Flower Drum Song, there are few non-Asian characters in Better Luck Tomorrow. It’s interesting to consider how the film would have been different if Stephanie or her boyfriend had been white. I think the image of a group of Asians brutally murdering a white man would probably have been too offensive for MTV-- it would perpetuate the image of the savage, dangerous yellowman. And if Stephanie had been white? In Sixteen Candles, the Long Duk Dong’s crush on Molly Ringwald’s character is a source of comic relief-- as if scoring a white girl is some kind of absurd dream, some prize elevated above the rest.

Really, it’s unfortunate that the different races that Stephanie could have been would signify pretty different implications. If she were white, Ben’s pining may have suggested that whiteness is valued above other races. If she were black or hispanic, the film would have been about multi-cultural relations within the minority community, about third-world solidarity. An Asian Stephanie perhaps suggests that Asian is the only spectrum that Ben can conquer. I can imagine that, if I were the filmmaker, these radically different significances would become frustrating to me. After all, I think Stephanie is supposed to fill the standard role of the female love object in a typical (read: white-led) high school movie-- she is a cheerleader, after all. But in order to create an Asian equivalent of a white high school movie, it seems as if the director has had to create a new Asian universe within which the narrative can operate. As an Asian-American that didn’t grow up in New York or California, I’d like to see more Asian-American films that showcase more provocative interactions between Asians and whites-- something more true to my own experiences.

Fighting Youth Norms

Monkey Dance and Better Luck Tomorrow both challenge the “normal” experience of the Asian American teenager. By adding other voices to Asian American experience, these films expand the way that their viewers think of Asian American teens, which is usually confined to grade-grubbing math and science nerds with poor fashion sense and absent social lives.

The SAT words throughout the movie add an entertaining commentary on the actions/mindsets of the teenagers. In one of the opening scenes of the film, Ben is memorizing the word punctilious: strict attention to norms of action or conduct. The movie challenges the norms of expression for Asian American teens. As a teenager who grew up in suburbia I connected to the experiences of the teens in BLT (Bacon Lettuce Tomato). In high school I also found it thrilling to beat the system and break the mold that I had been place into. I prided myself in high school on being that student who was a varsity athlete, a straight-A-student, an Eagle Scout, and still managed to drink and smoke pot every weekend. While I wasn’t quite a gun-toting gangster in high school or an organized crime lord, I was happy to “have my cake and eat it too.” I just couldn’t see why being smart and college-bound restricted me to such a rigid and boring social life. It don’t know if I resented my parents for placing such high expectations on me or if I was trying to rebel against their expectations, if anything I resented my other friends (both Asian Am and not) in my AP and Honors classes who felt like constrained by the expectations placed upon them and thought partying on the weekends would decrease their chances of getting into a good college.

For the most part my parents were completely oblivious of it all. The few times that they caught me, I would point to my good grades and they usually left me alone. By maintaining my good grades and college aspirations, I was able to create a niche to engage in reckless behavior without consequence. I know very well that buzz of the BLT teens got from their mischief that buzz is wonderful. Is their/our experience a common Asian American experience? I don’t really know. Based on the friends I knew growing up, I don’t think this is a common Asian American experience, but maybe my viewpoint is definitely affected by those same perceived social norms. The Asian American youth in Monkey Dance seemed much less resentful towards what was expected of them. Was this a product of them being recent immigrants or were the experiences of mine and the BLT teens a product of being a little bored growing up in suburbia? For me the take home point of these movies is not whether or not my experience or the experience of either groups of teens is considered a normal experience, but we challenge the concept of a “normal” experience for Asian American youth and provide other AA youth with an alternative life trajectory.

Better Luck Tomorrow, Harold

One of the aspects of the movie that struck me was the importance of the characters being Asian American to the movie varied. At some points it seemed crucial and at others, it was if they could have been played by actors of any other ethnicity. For example, the newspaper article on Ben or the confrontation at the party with the other “jocks” centered on the characters being Asian. However, the whole winter formal sequence with Ben and Stephanie could be any sequence from a movie about a boy and his unrequited love. Moreover, the movie has been discussed as a response to the model minority stereotype of Asian Americans. May I suggest a different reading, that of teenagers in the suburbs. The characters act more out of boredom and selfishness rather than trying to shed any model minority status. I admit that they are trying to shed an image but not one of model minority but one of “the good kid.” There is a scene during which Virgil and Ben TP a house; Ben’s voice over informs us that it is their straight A’s that give them a free pass. Admittedly, the model minority could be implied throughout the film but reading model minority in the film could easily be read as middle-class suburban teenagers acting out of boredom, which prompted me to recall the movie Bully (though Better Luck Tomorrow definitely had less violence). Furthermore, I responded to the characters less as representation of Asian Americans and more as “real” people. That is to say, I hated Daric because of his selfishness, etc. Nevertheless, the actors being Asian American does affect how the film is viewed (which in itself a concern…) as well as that there are important parts in the film that are intertwined with the ethnic identities of the characters. What I am left asking, then, is by having Asian American actors, does the added layers of meaning enrich the film or are they superfluous or somewhere in between.

Stephanie's innocence and "Asianness"

As the only significant female (and adopted) character in “Better Luck Tomorrow”, Stephanie is an especially interesting source of discussion. She is the cheerleader with a solid academic record (3 honors classes and a 3.8 GPA), who dates the rich-kid Steve and is Ben’s secret object of affection. Though Stephanie associates closely with Ben and Steve and certainly knows the other main characters, she remains relatively oblivious to their dealings. Her struggles do not extend to ruthless overachieving, a cocaine habit, and violent crimes, as Ben and his Asian American friends experience (perhaps a result of the pressure-cooker environment in which they perceive themselves to live).

If we look at these themes, it is easy to discount her as comparably worry-free. Some have even commented that her being adopted by non-Asian parents is the cause; Stephanie has not been subject to the same expectations and omnipresence of Asian parents. Upon looking closer at Stephanie’s character, however, it is apparent that she has her own very legitimate problems that simply don’t get camera time. The mention of her seeing a therapist is an indicator that her life includes difficulties. Her story is just a different one for a different movie.

Regarding Stephanie’s potentially being “less Asian”, I think it’s important to look at BLT as a whole. Any of these characters could really be of a different color—none of them dwell specifically on the struggles associated with Asian American life. One could say that their actions are a function of their backgrounds—I do agree that the overachieving aspects are often more associated with Asian Americans than other minority groups—but it doesn’t say anything about Stephanie and why her character is the way she is. Though non-Asian parents raised Stephanie, it doesn’t necessarily make her a well-assimilated member of American high school culture. It is clear that she is attempting to define herself, but aren’t all high school students trying to do the same? At the same time, she says that she is confused about her identity as a daughter, which might apply for anyone in the same position, regardless of race.

In the same way Ben, Virgil, Darik, Han and Steve’s fates are not absolutely tied to their being Asian (they could just as well be white and find themselves in a gang together, making the same choices), there is not a specific mold that Stephanie must fit in order to be truly “Asian”. The adoption does not make her any more or less Asian, she just happens not to go down the same paths as the other characters.

Better Luck Tomorrow: Character Websites

For any of you who are interested, if you go to the official Better Luck Tomorrow website and click on "Who do you want to be?" you can access a series of websites designed as the personal websites of the various protagonists. I thought it was neat to see what the filmmakers thought each character would choose to broadcast about him or herself.

Better luck next film

I should first fully disclose that this is not the kind of film I enjoy at all, and so--predictably--I did not like this film, though I WILL give that it did do a few things well and a few things in interesting ways.

Anyway, the good (as pretty much everyone has already said): it peels the skin off of the "model minority" facade, shows what's lurking underneath, and spins it all as if the Asians were the ones in control... by which I mean it gave Asians guns. Okay, I see that I really have nothing more to add about the GOOD points of this film (people who actually liked it seemed to have covered those points pretty well), so I'll just move onto my critique.

As Melissa mentioned, the plot was nothing new--it's already been done in other suburbia-gone-bad films about white teens. In fact, it seemed merely like one of those overdone bad teenaged suburbia movies with Asians as the main characters and the model minority issue foregrounded... it didn't seem to go anywhere else, and that's what disappointed me the most. Sure, it ends on a semi-poignant comment that these kids are still KIDS and they don't know what the heck they're doing even though they can work the system so well... but they already made this point when Virgil cried in the car, so the ending, for me, brought nothing but a depressing sense that these guys are really, really damaged and nothing in their environment will fix them.

...Which is actually not TOTALLY removed from the truth. A professor of mine (in the education department) is always talking about how the "model minority" image is covering up severe problems in some Asian-American youths that don't show until it's already too late to fix (she usually cites Asian-American students who hate their parents and move across the country for college). The way these students were raised and the environment in which they were raised are always big contributing factors to the problem. This film illustrates an off-the-charts worst-case-scenario of that idea.

However, I think the film can be taken in a VERY wrong way, especially now after incidents like Virginia Tech. The film does not really stop the audience from imagining that ALL privileged, smart Asian students are capable of doing such horrific deeds, since the liberal use of stereotypes and the endearing internal monologue from Ben make these teens seem like your normal, average Asian-American honor student... when they are NOT. Despite what popular movies portray, what the boys did was HIGHLY abnormal of teens of ANY race. There is something seriously wrong with EACH of the main Asian male characters and they definitely needed punishment or serious therapy at the end. Yet, there doesn't seem to be any end in sight... the boys are just left in a lawless, parent-less Lord of the Flies scenario that won't do squat to help them.

So what does the film do for Asian-Americans? Well, it shows that we, like our white counterparts, can ALSO be seriously damaged people. Okay, that's a good point but where does it go from there? Does it offer a non-destructive solution to the main characters' dilemma? Does it show the ROOT CAUSE(S) of or REASON(S) for all the violence and crime the boys commit? Does it give any preventative role to the community, parents, teachers, or other authority figures? ...I guess we need another film to fill in those gaping voids between this film and reality.

Response to Better Luck Tomorrow

I find Better Luck Tomorrow brilliant. It does an excellent job of portraying characters--whose mischievous/criminal actions are masked underneath their model minority facade--by knowingly using stereotypical images to surprise the audience. Who would have thought after watching the first scene that Ben and Virgil, two Asian students talking about college admissions, are the murderers the person underneath the backyard lawn? Only after watching the rest of the movie do we come to believe that Ben and his model student friends did commit this crime. The framework of the movie is effective--just as other characters in the movie are fooled by Ben's model student facade, the audience does not suspect him to be the murderer (until almost the end) because he appears to be a stereotypical model student.

The movie unearths the true life of Ben underneath his facade: his drug use, his use of prostitutes, and his constant supply of cheat sheets. As Ben says himself, "Straight As were our alibis...as long as the grades were there, we were trusted." Ben and his friends exploit the fact that other people identify them with the stereotypical image, an image that comes with an expectation. Most people expect them to be academic overachievers and nothing else. When Ben is on the basketball team, people don't expect him to be a great player. But this stereotypical expectation allows Ben and his friends to get away with so many things, as long as they prolong that public image.

In one of the most memorable scenes, Ben and his friends hire a prostitute and enjoy themselves until Virgil pulls the gun out. Virgil then points the gun at Han, his cousin and a fellow model student, leading to an ugly fracas. The morning after, they win the Academic Decathlon championship, so their vices are buried underneath this achievement. It seems like the stereotypical image is something to fall back on. 

On a final note, I want to briefly talk about why the audience tend to like Ben. Despite his crimes, the audience cares about Ben because we recognize that he, along with Virgil and Han, carries a sense of morality. He knows that what he is doing is wrong, although the pleasure derived from his vices often makes him forget about the immorality of certain acts until afterwards. The fact that he contemplates confessing of his killing of Steve gives the audience the hope that Ben is still a good man at heart.

We Need More Than Better Luck Tomorrow

I found Better Luck Tomorrow to be a really interesting movie because the types of characters embodied by Virgil, Ben, Daric and Han were the very type of male characters I encountered among Asians around my age in New York City, where I grew up. Each of them, in trying to fit into society in America, revealed some of the limitations on Asian American identity that exist in America. The four Asian male characters in the movie represent the main Asian male identities I was familiar with growing up: the straight arrow Asian, studying hard and following rules towards a widely respected ideal of success; the somewhat "whitewashed" and manipulative Asian, who does what is needed to push for his own goals, embodied by Daric; the "cool" Asian, silent, strong, with a hidden temper and a willingness to break rules, embodied by Han; and the smart Asian who wants respect and to be cool, embodied by Virgil.

Characters like Ben for the most part accept the model minority stereotype, and try to find success in their lives by walking the paved road. Daric too tries to find success through education and overachieving, but he does so through different means; he does so by accumulating leadership positions in "white" clubs, like the newspaper, the environmental club, and quiz bowl. In taking up positions usually occupied by white leadership, Daric is also trying to reach success by means largely defined by white society, just like Ben. Han however, lives his life largely in rejection of white standards, and is successful I think, by not fulfilling the expectations of white society; he is an academic delinquent, commits scams, cheats, but at the same time, as an Asian, I can't help but respect Han, because he is independent of the burden of "white" success. Finally, there is Virgil, who is cut largely from the same cloth as Ben is, but also wants to break away from a strictly white society paved life and stereotype, evidenced by his affinity for his cousin Han.

It is Virgil with whom I sympathize most in the movie, because I think his ongoing struggle to be both academically successful, which is associated with whiteness, and be thuggish rebel at the same time, represents a struggle that many contemporary Asian males go through. To be too devoted to classes, grades, and exams is to fit into a white society defined stereotype. To aspire for high positions in clubs and for leadership positions seems too much like trying to be white. At the same time, it is also hard to be the delinquent rebel, who is respected, but at the cost of deliberately forgoing a fulfilling of one's full potential. In the end, Virgil doesn't seem to garner much respect from either side, because he is always seen as being a poser on both sides, yet these "sides" shouldn't have to exist in the first place, as they are both responses to white society defined roles for Asians. I think it says a lot that Virgil ended up being the one that tried to kill himself, because unlike the other characters, Virgil did not have his own crowd to return to after their Chinese gang basically broke down, when in reality, there is no reason why he had to belong to a specific crowd to be respected. The lesson I learned from watching Virgil is that Asian Americans should value themselves as individuals, not in response to the model minority stereotype, because as it is, the vicious cycle of trying to fit into or to vehemently fight stereotypes only leaves the ones who refuse to choose, as outsiders, when in fact, the independent individuals are the ones that one could say most embody the ideas which form the very fabric of American society, such as the ideal of the self made men.

Better Luck Tomorrow

Better Luck Tomorrow, though employing a rather cliche premise ("nerdy" kids plotting to overthrow the system), seems as fresh and shocking as the blood spatters on Daric's face after Ben bludgeons Steve with a baseball bat. That is to say, I liked the movie, despite (because of?) the gratuitous drugs/sex/debauchery.

To me, this is very clearly a teenage movie, even a coming-of-age movie, if you will. The characters seem much older than most high schoolers I know, but their experiences with cheating, drugs, parties, and the opposite sex are common in suburbia, as is the disillusionment they all seem to have. I really liked that the film focused more on the characters' lives outside of school; I think that this created more complexity. I'm not sure if it was intentional on the part of the director or not, but I feel that some of the characters, Daric and Steve in particular, came across as very cold and jaded. Stephanie, the cute cheerleader, seems to be the only innocent -- she wasn't really in a porno, and is always portrayed with a sort of chaste naivete (despite her oh-so-badass theft of a "Music to Hump To" CD). Is she meant to be 'tragically whitewashed'?

All in all, I enjoyed this film -- it's rare to see a cast of young Asian actors in American films, especially Asian actors who aren't Long Duck Dong-types.

Better Luck Tomorrow Response

One aspect of this movie I found the most interesting was the role of females, specifically Stephanie, in terms of her background and her relationship with the other males in the movie. I thought it was an interesting decision by the filmmaker to cast the only Asian American female as being adopted by a white family. It somehow excused her from acting the way the other Asian Americans act in the movie, as they, as Ben says, can get away with anything as long as their grades show otherwise. I felt that her background inherently kept her from getting involved in ways to rebel against the system, as it seemed as if she did not feel the same pressures that the other characters in the movie felt. While all the other male characters in the movie get involved in drugs, cheating, and a “suburban gangster” lifestyle, she remains oblivious to these doings. Her removal from these actions links race to parentage, which raises the issue of the ever-present relationship between child and parent seen in the movie. Although there are no parents present at all, their presence in the movie is overpowering, as it seems to be the impetus behind Ben and his friends’ desires to construct a pristine college application, while at the same time driving them to commit crimes in order to feel a sense of power in their lives.

On a different note, I found the scene in which Han is driving next to actual gangsters while they flash their guns to be very interesting. The fact that it happens right after Derek pulls out a gun at a party serves to emphasize that, as notorious as they are for getting involved in drugs, partying, and having guns, they are still middle-class kids from suburbia. There is obvious tension in the car (except for Virgil) when Han notices the gangsters driving next to them, putting their “gangster” lifestyle into context of the world outside of suburban, gated communities. At the same time, Virgil blinks back tears when he wonders what his dad would do if he found out about Virgil’s actions, further emphasizing that the characters are just high school kids who are indulging in this lifestyle more for fun than for necessity. As Ben says, it isn’t about making money, but is more out of boredom due to living in the suburbs of L.A. Overall, I enjoyed this movie a lot, as it provides a story that takes the “model minority” and spins it around to show a darker side. It draws upon Asian American experience that is more recent and familiar and brings it out into the media.

Response: Better Luck Tomorrow

After hearing many people discuss how Better Luck Tomorrow was the first time they had seen Asian Americans portrayed in the media in a multidimensional way, I must admit I was kind of surprised when I finally saw the film myself. It's true that there was more depth of character to the protagonists of Better Luck Tomorrow, but it still seemed to me that many of the same stereotypes so often seen in media representations of Asian Americans were still present, if not reinforced. Most notably, although the protagonists engaged in violent crimes and so could not be said to be representing the "model minority" in the way it is typically represented, yet the movie did nothing to combat the notion that all Asian Americans are academically brilliant and hard-working. Every Asian American pictured fit those criteria; in fact, the only reason they were able to get away with everything they got away with was because their grades remained high and they remained involved in all of their various extracurricular activities. Granted, the stereotype has in some ways been subverted and it has clearly been complicated, but it has not gone away entirely.

On another note, while this film operated on one level to combat the stereotype of Asian Americans as meek and submissive, I felt that at several points it undermined this endeavor. Specifically I am thinking about the moments when the Asian American protagonists are juxtaposed with members of other racial/ethnic minority groups. For example, right on the heels of their so boldly confronting (and even pulling a gun on) a white student who makes fun of them, the protagonists are shown shying away from a confrontation with a car full of young Latinos who constitute a more dangerous opponent. Scenes like this suggest that our young protagonists are not so tough as they want to believe they are.

Yet, in hindsight, it seems to me that the choice not to completely override these sterotypes but to complicate them serves a greater purpose. A complete reversal of these stereotypes would result in a cast of hot-blooded, braindead slackers who are exceedingly difficult for the average teenager (who does care about getting into college and doesn't go around drawing guns on people) to relate to. Instead, Better Luck Tomorrow provides us with a cast of characters who many young people can identify with (at least to a certain extent--I must admit I liked Ben a lot until he starting sleeping with prostitues and bashing people's heads in). Although these characters share some stereotypically Asian American traits, yet they have transcended a definition on the basis of these traits alone.

In closing, one thing I noticed about this movie was that the basic premise (bright young teenagers turn to self-destructive behavior [crime, violence, drugs, etc.]) was not particularly innovative. After watching it, I vaguely felt like I had seen a number of movies with similar plots before. The only difference was that the only movies I could remember dealt with white teenagers. For me then, Better Luck Tomorrow's greatest achievement lied in taking a recognizable genre and inserting an Asian American cast, and in so doing making the point that Asian American youth are no different from youth of any other color or ethnicity (except perhaps in the racialized nature of the expectations they face).

Questions

An interesting snippet from an interview with Justin Lin, director of Better Luck Tomorrow, with the Orange County Weekly:

"I was actually intrigued that the ethnicities of the characters didn’t matter. Do you think the fact that they are Asians did matter or not?

It matters a lot in that it’s their experience; that’s the perspective audiences are going to share with the film. But at the same time, I made a conscious effort that I didn’t want them to have to explain why they need to exist onscreen. I think cinema is very backward. Every time you see an Asian face, or Asian American face, or even a Latino face or a gay face, they always have to be there for that reason.

You see a Native American, okay, it must be something spiritual. It’s film language, and it’s very backward. I don’t feel I have to explain myself every second of my life, and I don’t feel these characters need to either. I think by doing that, part of it was I wanted to stay very true to the teenagers, to the characters. A lot of times, I feel like you see teenagers onscreen, they’re like 'movie' teenagers. And this time, I tried very hard to portray and stay true to real characters, real people."

I think this excerpt gets at the difficulty of studying contemporary Asian American media representations. Are we supposed to read the character of Ben Manibag as the meek, emasculated Asian male? Or is it safe to assume that Ben is simply a character played by Asian actor Parry Shen and could easily have been played by a Caucasian, African-American, or Latino actor? As Justin Lin says, perhaps in Better Luck Tomorrow, there is no "reason" for the cast to be Asian. (Parry Shen has said: "People came up to me and said, 'After the first five minutes, I totally forgot you guys were Asian,' " he said. " 'Cause it has nothing to do with being Asian, it's universal stuff about ... kids. Not necessarily that they're bad or evil, [just] that they sometimes make wrong decisions.")

If we can assume the second, is Better Luck Tomorrow still an Asian American film? Is it, in a sense, more Asian American because the characters are represented without stigma (or at least, attempted to be represented in that manner)?

One must wonder: would this film have done as well in the box-office, received as much acclaim, and been picked up by MTV films if it were made with a cast of unknown white actors? Is this line of questioning even fair? Or is it as silly as writing, "Would Brokeback Mountain have been as successful had it been a heterosexual love story?"