Response: Terminal USA and JJ Chinois

I have to agree with what many of the other students have already said: I'm just not sure what we're meant to take from Terminal USA. While I appreciate the way it both attacks the model minority myth and other stereotypes about Asian Americans, as well as the way it lampooons suburban American life and the nuclear American family as a whole, it was so strange and over-the-top that I found it hard to take seriously as a social commentary and easy to cast aside as just some weird indie movie.

As for JJ Chinois, I found the whole concept very interesting. The video (along with the accompanying website) gave a queer perspective on Asian American masculinity (and also femininity) that you don't often see. The idea of embodying Bruce Lee, and very literally reforming his image and what it meant struck me as quite clever. Yet, I would have liked to have seen more. Is the character of JJ Chinois a one-hit wonder. Has he been in any other videos or media? How was this video distributed, anyway? Was it an online phenomenon or did it go to film festivals or something? Are there future plans for JJ Chinois? All of this remained unclear to me, even after having read the accompanying article and website. I'd be curious to learn more in class and to see what others thought.

Asian American Music: David Choi

I've been researching Asian American YouTube celebrities for my wiki, and so when Professor Lee asked us to post about an Asian American musician I couldn't resist posting about David Choi. Actually initially I was going to include him in my paper because my fiance is a huge fan, but I ended up deciding to just focus on the three most popular YouTube celebrities.

Anyway, David Choi is a Korean American musician currently living in California. In "real life" he is a staff producer/songwriter for Warner Chappell Music Publishing, but he regularly posts music videos on YouTube featuring him playing guitar and singing. Often they are covers of other people's songs, but there are several of his own original songs as well (they mostly fall into the pop genre).

David Choi gained notoreity in the YouTube community when he posted "YouTube (A Love Song)," a parody about how much he loves YouTube. Afterward Choi's videos became quite popular and he gained a sizeable fan base in the YouTube community (one that, just as an amusing aside, is constantly clamoring for him to smile in a video--something he has vowed never to do). He is currently YouTube's 13th most subscribed musician of all time, and what is perhaps his most popular original song "That Girl" (see video below) inspired a whole slew of covers posted in response (if you YouTube search "that girl choi cover" you'll see what I mean--there are almost 75 videos).

I'm not sure if there is anything particularly "Asian American" about David Choi's music, other than that he himself is Asian American; as I noted earlier, and as you can see for yourself, his music sounds a lot like mainstream pop. Yet, he does seem to have something of a following in the Asian American community (although I can't give any figures to support this, a large number of the people who posted covers of "That Girl" were Asian American, and most of the people I know who have heard of him are also Asian American). Moreover, he was featured in the 2007 Imprint media conference which took as its focus Asian American and urban culture (http://www.intertrend.com/imprint/imprint2007/). Personally, I'm not really sure what it means for music to be specifically "Asian American," but since David Choi is Asian American and so are many of his fans, I think he's worth discussing. Enjoy listening to "That Girl" (posted below) and let me know what you think.

For more information, or to hear more from David Choi, check out:
http://youtube.com/davidchoimusic
OR
http://www.myspace.com/davidchoimusic

Response: Sa-i-gu

First of all, I was very interested to view Sa-i-gu, as I had not heard a lot about the influence of the Watts riots on Korean Americans. However, while I found the personal interviews the three producers conducted interesting and engaging, I didn't feel that I had gained a broader understanding of how the riots affected Korean Americans as a whole. These narratives, while poignant, were highly personal and left me wondering to what extent I could generalize these women's impressions. In light of this, I worried that the effect of the film would merely be to elicit sympathy and not to inspire a deeper understanding.

That being said, I was impressed with the analysis of the situation offered by the women interviewed. I think it would be easy for the victims to misguidedly take this as an excuse to hate all black people, but none of the women interviewed seemed to do so. On the contrary, their reactions seemed to indicate a more complicated understanding, and hence a more interesting one.

Even so, in the end I'm still not sure what to make of this film, and I seemed to sense similar reactions from others. I look forward to discussing/reading what other people thought.

Response: Mississippi Masala

I really enjoyed watching Mississippi Masala this past weekend. I think it added something to the discussion of growing up Asian American portrayed in Better Luck Tomorrow and Monkey Dance. Whereas these two movies focused mainly on the relationships between and among young Asian Americans, Mississippi Masala shifted the emphasis to the relationships between and among the different racial groups, and thus was able to pick up on issues that had largely been left untreated. I found its depiction of the racial tensions among minority groups intriguing, as it is a topic I know very little about, and not one that receives much media attention. I also felt that this week's readings were very effective at placing the phenomena depicted within a historical context. Finally, being a member of an interracial relationship, I always find it gratifying to see them represented in the media. As such, I admit that I may be biased in my enjoyment of this film, but I thought it did a good thing by taking on an under-discussed topic and that it did so rather effectively.

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.

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).

Response: Chinese Restaurants

I was interested by issues of authenticity in Chinese cuisine around the world. While most of the restauranteurs had come from China, many of them had not undergone formal training in the cooking of Chinese cuisine. Moreover, even those who had often deviated from traditional dishes, experimenting with the fusing of local and Chinese cuisines. As such, could their dishes still be said to be authentically Chinese? What does that even mean? Yet they are certainly different from the native cuisines of the countries these restaurant owners have immigrated to. It seems then that the dishes have become something akin to the restaurant owner we met in Argentina: neither Chinese nor Argentinian, but something else...something international.

This question of what happens when Asian culture leaves Asia is an interesting one, and one that also came up when we viewed The Wedding Banquet. What does it mean to "assimilate"? Is this a bad thing? A good thing? When cultures come in contact I think it is unavoidable that they will rub off on each other in unforeseen ways, and while I think it is useful to examine how this occurs, I'm not sure that casting judgments on this process is. Who are we to say if someone is too assimilated or not assimilated enough? In the end people need to live their lives and do what makes them happy. I understand that not everybody may agree with this, however, and I would be interested to hear what others have to say.

On a side note, I was interested that both the documentary and one of the readings took a travelogue approach to talking about Chinese restaurants in disparate locations. While I find this approach very engaging, I found myself grappling with the problem of crafting a larger narrative from a small sample of individual interviews. Can these interviews be read as being representative? If not, then what can we take away from them? I'd be curious to see what other people think.

Response: Wedding Banquet

I sense that I am beginning to sound like a broken record, but (yet again) I both enjoyed and was troubled by this film. I enjoyed it because, like many other bloggers so far, I felt it was relatively progressive in its depiction of gay relationships, especially for its time period. Simon and Wai Tung's relationship is portrayed as tender and loving, and Wai Tung's mother's outbursts about Wai Tung's not being "normal" come off as ridiculous and misguided (rightly so). By taking on this subject matter, there is of course the danger of portraying Asian people as being backward in their views on homosexuality, but I think Ang Lee did a reasonably good job of tempering the mom's hysterics with the father's quiet acceptance and the mom's eventual begrudging tolerance if not whole-hearted approval.

I was disappointed, however, that Wai Tung's father decided not to mention that he knew Wai Tung was gay to any other members of the family, not even to Wai Tung. What use was there in lying to his son? While I can understand not wanting to upset his wife, in the end I think not coming clean with Wai Tung was akin to building a wall between them that did not need to be there. Had the father spoken to Wai Tung when his suspicions were first aroused, he could have saved everyone some pain and they could have all avoided a good deal of trauma in their relationships. Yet he doesn't choose to confide in Wai Tung, even at the film's conclusion, and so the secrets and lies that keep the family from being as close as they could be and that hearken back to the Western stereotype of the Asian as cunning trickster remain. Moreover, although everyone ends up happy in the end, I was frustrated that so much of this happiness was dependent on Wei Wei's deciding to have the baby. Although Wai Tung's father seems to accept Simon and Wai Tung's relationship, he admits at one point that he continued to lie because he wanted a grandchild. In other words, it wasn't enough for him that his son was happy. Because he wouldn't be satisfied unless he had an heir, Wai Tung's father propagates the view that Asian people are bigoted and somehow not "modern." Finally, I wished Wai Tung could have been more assertive about his identity and his desires throughout the movie. Even if guilt prevented him from being honest with his parents, he should not have cheated on Simon with Wei Wei. In my mind his actions reinforced the stereotype of the meek Asian man and (at least in my mind) lost him a lot of respect.

As such, while I think this film had many good points, in the end I don't think it went far enough and ended up propagating many of the stereotypes it aimed to attack.

Response: Enter the Dragon

First of all I, like many other posters, am really glad we got to watch this movie because it became clear to me how pervasive its influence has been. From the plot of Mortal Kombat (which is said to have been based on this film) to the villain in the cartoon series Inspector Gadget (an iron-clawed figure always shown stroking a white cat, much like the villain in Enter the Dragon) to the omnipresent shrieking noise (which--I agree with others who have said this--really did cheapen many of the action scenes), this film really seems to have left its mark on popular culture in ways that I was previously unaware of.

As to the film's portrayals of Asian people, I thought it was interesting that both the main bad guy and the main good guy were Asian, rendering Lee's defeat of the main villain free from racial power dynamics. Although we do see Bruce Lee kick some white people's butts (most notably that of Oharra), none of them are truly worthy opponents (Oharra fights unfairly and his death is seen as justifiable anyway because he is responsible for the death of Bruce Lee's character's sister). I can't help but feel that this is not just a coincidence. Would it have been taboo to have depicted Lee triumphing over a white opponent who was actually a real match for him? I for one would have been excited to see such a blatant overturning of racial power dynamics. Unfortunately Enter the Dragon chose not to "rock the boat," opting to take the safe route of pitting Lee against an Asian villain.

Moreover, Lee (as many others have noted) was desexualized in his portrayal. Although I was glad that, unlike the other men, he would not pick a woman from the harem to be his sex slave (soo sexist!), it did set him up as being different and somehow less of a man than Roper and Williams (the other two "good guys"). Even if Lee didn't pick a woman from the harem, I am so used to the heroes of action movies ending up with a beautiful woman that the fact the Lee had no love interest whatsoever seemed strange and reinforced this notion of the Asian man as asexual.

Even so, Bruce Lee's fighting was truly awe-inspiring--so graceful and yet so effective--and I found it gratifying to see such a powerful Asian man in a mainstream American movie. Granted, his fight scenes were made somewhat comic by the ridiculous shrieking noises that seemed to be dubbed in, but Bruce Lee was nonetheless quite a force to be reckoned with, and I have no trouble understanding why he is seen as an icon by many young Asian Americans (particularly boys).

My Chinese American fiance was certainly a fan, although perhaps not Lee's most devoted fan. He admits that he never really liked Lee's American films, feeling that he was always portrayed with more depth of character in the films he made in Hong Kong. He actually has a rather large collection of subtitled Asian movies and has always been more of a fan of the films of Stephen Chow, but I wonder how many other Asian Americans have had that exposure. I suspect that nowadays (owing to globalization, etc.) that number is relatively high, but in the 1970s Bruce Lee may have been one of the few Asian film stars young Asian Americans ever saw. Whether or not this is the case, he was and remains one of only a few Asian actors to make it big in American mainstream cinema, and so I cannot help but feel an affection for Enter the Dragon, even as I reject some of its more problematic elements.

Response: Flower Drum Song

I found Flower Drum Song enjoyable in the way most 1960s musicals are enjoyable: humorous and entertaining if you look past the implicit racism and sexism. Throughout the movie I felt conflicted. While I found it gratifying to see a predominantly Asian American cast, I worried that it served to isolate Asian Americans from mainstream America even more, casting them as perpetual foreigners who exist in their own little world apart from the rest of the nation. While I was glad to see that not all the Asian American characters were depicted as being "backward" and "foreign" (indeed, Sammy seemed more an American stereotype ala Guys and Dolls than an Asian American one), I was troubled by the way in which many characters were still overtly exotified (the father refuses to put his money in a bank and even goes so far as to push the alarm to test the bank's security; the father's sister's wife places a rather bizarre-sounding [at least to white American ears] grocery order; many characters still believe in arranged picture marriages; etc.). Furthermore, while I admired Linda Low as the liberated, "new" woman, I chafed at how the liberated woman could only exist in the form of someone who was also both manipulative and gold-digging, and I was frustrated by the way this film reinforced the lotus blossom/dragon lady dichotomy and offered no truly desirable roles for Asian American women to fill. Finally, while I am always a fan of a Hollywood happy ending in which everyone ends up with their true love, I found the romance between Wang Ta and Mei Li exceedingly hard to believe (Why does he so suddenly change his mind about her? Why does she so suddenly forgive him?). Their feelings for each other felt contrived, and I think this served to somewhat alienate them from the viewer. As such, while Flower Drum Song represents a huge step forward from Broken Blossoms, it is still in many ways inherently problematic and needs to be questioned and examined.

Asian American YouTube Celebrities

The growing popularity of the Internet in general and YouTube specifically have opened the door for a new generation of Asian Americans to become the producers of their own culture, enabling young Asian Americans with limited time, experience, and funds to distribute their content to viewers all over the world. The work of several such young Asian American YouTube video creators has become so popular that they have been catapulted into the role of "YouTube celebrities," boasting spots on the top of YouTube's all time most subscribed list and receiving recognition from fans and even the larger media community. These YouTube celebrities have used YouTube, blogs, and social networking websites to interact both with each other and with their fans, resulting in the forging of a larger online community. For many, including my fiancé (an avid fan), these young Asian Americans who have opted to represent themselves provide a refreshing break from the mass media's stereotypical and limited portrayals of Asian Americans and serve as role models for our generation.

Specific personalities that come to mind include (and I will refer to them by their YouTube account names) kevjumba, nigahiga, HappySlip, and davidchoimusic.

With over 100,000 subscribers, kevjumba, a Chinese American, is ranked number 3 on YouTube's all time most subscribed list and number 1 on its list of all time most subscribed comedians. kevjumba draws on his Chinese American heritage as well as on his everyday life for subject matter in his short comedy sketches.
http://youtube.com/user/kevjumba
http://www.kevjumba.com/

Also topping 100,000 subscribers, Japanese American nigahiga is ranked fourth on YouTube's all time most subscribed list (second for all time most subscribed comedians). nigahiga is famous for his parody sketches, such as his line of "how to" videos on topics such as "How to be Emo," "How to be Gangster," and "How to be a Ninja."
http://youtube.com/user/nigahiga
http://www.myspace.com/ryannigahiga

Not far behind at number 5 all time most subscribed (number 3 in all time most subscribed directors) is Filipino American HappySlip. Famous for her impersonations of her family and for her humorous parody renditions of popular songs, HappySlip is one of the few top users to edit, write, direct, star in, and produce all of her shorts. She is a big name in the community, and was even selected to be featured at the 2007 Imprint media conference focusing on Asian American and urban culture. In the true spirit of community, HappySlip frequently pairs up with real-life friend kevjumba in her videos.
http://www.youtube.com/user/HappySlip
http://www.happyslip.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Slip
http://www.intertrend.com/imprint/imprint2007/

Finally, at number 41 (number 10 most subscribed all time musicians) is Korean American davidchoimusic, a real-life music producer known for his renditions of popular songs (as well as a few of his own) on guitar and vocals. He is also famous for not smiling, a fact which had prompted much prodding by his fans, as well as a popular video with HappySlip in which she tries to get him to finally smile on camera (but to no avail). davidchoimusic was also invited to perform at the 2007 Imprint media conference, which is where he met HappySlip in the first place.
http://youtube.com/user/davidchoimusic
http://www.myspace.com/davidchoimusic
http://www.intertrend.com/imprint/imprint2007/

Together these young Asian American media makers (along with others) are helping to redefine Asian American culture and what it means to be Asian American.

Broken Blossoms: Response

I must admit that Broken Blossoms is not quite what I expected. Given its early production date (1919) and its connection with D.W. Griffith--the man responsible for the overtly racist The Birth of a Nation--I was expecting to see a grossly stereotyped portrayal of Asian people, and to a large extent this was the case. The character of Cheng Huan--as portrayed by the white actor who plays him--is depicted as being feminine, weak, and addicted to opium, not to mention the stereotypical way in which he carries himself and articulates his face. All this I was prepared for, although still deeply horrified by it.

What I was not expecting, however, was Griffith's decision to cast Cheng Huan as the hero of the story, and even to hint at a meaningful and caring interracial relationship. I cannot say that this is atypical for the time period; in Filming "Chinatown": Fake Visions, Bodily Transformations, Sabine Haenni argues that the fantasies of racial miscegenation were implicit in many early films about Chinatown, and certainly her desciption of The Deceived Slumming Party suggests that Asian characters were sometimes the heroes, or at least the characters who got the last laugh. Even so, I found Cheng Huan's gentleness and the way he was juxtaposed with the girl's brutish and completely unsympathetic father surprising. Additionally, I was impressed by several comments made in the titles that bordered on being progressive (when the titles observe that the one thing the girl's father can't stand is people who don't happen to be born in the same "great" country as him, for instance, seemed to be using sarcasm to make an argument against intolerance).

Even so, I felt that the film did not go far enough to be hailed as being ahead of its time. I was very conscious of the fact that Cheng Huan and the white girl never share so much as a kiss, and while his love for her is obvious, the nature of her feelings for him are never made clear. If Griffith really wanted to make a statement about racial equality, he could have had Cheng Huan and the girl run away together and live happily ever after, or even just have made it clear that his advances were welcome, but instead he made the girl's feelings ambiguous and then made it impossible for them to ever be together by killing her off (somewhat improbably). Moreover, it struck me that, while the movie featured several actual Asian faces, the main Asian character still had to be played by a white man, as if it would have been too controversial to have an actual person of Asian descent in such close proximity to a white woman. Finally, although Cheng Huan's gentleness was arguably one of his most attractive features (especially when compared to the girl's raging father), it also served to "sterilize" him for a white audience. If Cheng Huan is gentle and pure, then he is rendered harmless and fears of rape and racial miscegenation can be allayed. Furthermore, his gentleness--when seen in contradistinction to the rowdy and aggressive nature of white men pictured in the film--marks him as unmanly and as an "other" (I'm thinking here not just of the girl's father but of the sailors at the beginning of the film, whose fighting merits the title: "Just a sociable free fight for the Jackies, but the sensitive Yellow Man shrinks in horror"). As such, while I do admit that I was surprised at the way Broken Blossoms gestured toward being progressive, I think the deep-seated racism of the age was still present and explicit.

Chan is Missing: Response

Peter X Feng asserts with regard to Chan is Missing: "the real problem posed by the narrative is not 'Where is Chan Hung' but 'Who is Chan Hung?'" After interviewing many of Chan's friends and acquaintances, Jo finds that he knows even less about Chan than he thought he did in the first place. Everyone he talks to reads their own identity into their construction of Chan, and his real reasons for disappearing remain unknown. I agree with Feng when he argues that this works to destabilize notions of a Chinese American identity and (similarly to My America) demonstrates that that identity is fluid and that there is no such thing as a unified Chinese American (or presumably Asian American, although the film does not really deal with Asian Americans of non-Chinese descent) experience. I too believe that this is a worthy objective to undertake and can understand why so many people found the ideas expressed by this movie revolutionary. However, after watching My America and Chan is Missing and thinking about their similar perspectives on Asian American identity, I still can't help but wonder, if there is no unified Asian American experience, why use the term at all? If Asian Americans do not always share a common language or culture or background or perspectives, then what are the criteria for entry into the group? I guess what I'm asking is: we've seen what being Asian American isn't, but what is it? Are Asian Americans a group merely because they happen to be descended from people who lived on the same continent, or is there something more to it? Perhaps it has more to do with the similar ways in which they are treated by non-Asian Americans that has led many people of Asian descent to adopt this label? In that case, is being Asian American like being Chan Hung: never getting to define yourself, only being defined by others? Yet, just because Chan never gets to give his side of the story doesn't mean he doesn't have one, and just because so many people have their own conflicting narratives regarding Chan doesn't mean he doesn't have his own, consistent narrative of himself. Or does he? Maybe its just my "American" perspective getting in the way ("just the facts, m'am"), but I find myself wanting to know who Chan is, wanting to believe that there is some secret to his identity that makes his sudden disappearance make sense, but the movie leaves me without any resolution. I am confused but intrigued and fascinated by Wang's film and look forward to reading and hearing everyone elses viewpoints in class.

My America: Response

Like many of my classmates, I too was surprised by the two Filipino women who so unabashedly declared that they were white and had always been considered as such. It was such an interesting moment in the film, because I had just finished reading Galang's discussion of the history of racism Filipino people have encountered in this country and here were two women of Filipino descent claiming to never have been seen or considered themselves as anything but white. For me, it really reinforced the idea that there is no single or unified Asian American experience--an idea that seems to have been highlighted throughout the film as a whole, structured as it is as a series of interviews with Asian Americans from many different backgrounds with a diverse array of experiences.

That being said, I think that there were moments in the film where commonality could be seen in the experiences of Asian Americans from even the most dissimilar backgrounds. One thing I noticed, for instance, was the way several different people (including the Seoul Brothers and the recent Hmong immigrant) mentioned being called Chinese by ignorant white Americans not culturally sensitive enough to realize that China is just one nation in Asia. Not being of Asian descent myself, I had not realized how universal this experience seems to be for Asian Americans, even in this day and age. Moments like this in the film suggested that there are in fact some factors that unite Asian Americans, although many of these factors seemed to have more to do with the way Asian Americans have historically been treated as a group by white Americans than with cultural similarities.

Finally, and on an unrelated note, something that I got out of this film that I had not really been exposed to was a sense of the reality of what it meant to have put Japanese Americans in internment camps during WWII. Of course, I had heard about it growing up in history classes, and I had always found the idea of imprisoning American people in camps reprehensible, but something about hearing the Kochiyamas talk about how they met while he was a GI and she was living in an internment camp brought the reality of the internment camps home for me in a way it had never been before. I was horrified and I still can't help but wonder why this injustice has never received the attention in classrooms and in the mainstream media (at least in my experience) as slavery and the Holocaust and other atrocities have.