Terminal USA

I did not react well to Terminal USA. I thought it managed the impressive feat of being preposterous yet somehow still pretentious. And I wonder if my initial reaction to the film is due to the fact that this campy-John-Waterseqsue movie has an Asian cast. What does it mean to take this genre and give it an Asian/Asian American twist?

As a viewer (an Asian American in an Asian American media class), I felt forced into asking the question, "What is Jon Moritsugu saying about Asian-America?" I wasn't enjoying the movie because I felt like I had to read into every moment. I think that is the pitfall of any highly stylized (down to the lighting) highly exaggerated film--every decision is called into question. Without realism to fall back on, the filmmaker seems more responsible for the choices he/she makes.

I wonder if this is horribly unfair of me--I believe it is. Should I view this as I had viewed "Better Luck Tomorrow" or "The Wedding Banquet?" Just as a story that happens to involve Asian/Asian-Americans? Or am I justified in feeling like this movie puts too much emphasis on being "Asian?"

The Jimi Hendrix of the Ukulele

Jake Shimabukuro is a renowned fifth-generation Japanese American musician who has reshaped the public perception of the ukulele. Originating from Hawaii, Jake's music never remains confined to one specific musical category. He successfully plays jazz, funk, blues, classical, bluegrass, folk, flamenco and rock, all on a ukulele. As a musician, Jake serves as an iconoclast to the stereotypical Asian American image publicized in American pop culture.

Aside from several Hawaiian music awards, Jake has been an active promoter of US-Japan relations having served as an official promoter for Hawaii Tourism Japan (HTJ). He has also received an official commendation from the Japanese Foreign Minister for his grassroots work aimed at fostering ties between the American and Japanese people.

Jake has appeared on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and has toured with famous musicians such as Diana Kroll, Fiona Apple, Bobby McFerrin, Jamie Cullum and Blues Traveler. The energetic ukulele star was also featured on Ziggy Marley's album Love is My Religion.

Here are some music clips of Jake:

"Let's Dance" (Flamenco influenced track)

"While My Guitar Gently Weeps" (Homage to George Harrison)

"Dragon"

You can find more of his music and clips on his personal website and YouTube.

http://www.jakeshimabukuro.com

YouTube Search

P.S. Since Jake Shimabukuro payed respect to The Beatles with "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", here is another YouTube treat featuring perhaps a future music star.

"Hey Jude"

Enjoy!

Sa-I-Gu: A Piece Of A Larger Picture

Sa-I-Gu successfully voices the frustration of Korean women who were directly affected by the LA riots.  However, amidst the anger and emotion expressed via film, I became increasingly frustrated with the director's zealous focus on the personal grief of the Korean women as objective and contextual information was never provided as supplementary material.  Despite the valid argument that the sole purpose of the film was to highlight the perspective of Korean women in LA at the time, their perspectives are representative of only one affected segment of the LA population.

From the perspective of the Korean women interviewed for Sa-I-Gu, the United States was no longer a perfect country.  The general sentiment of victimization as scapegoats for African American anger towards Caucasians, abandonment by the LAPD and indifference from city government overall echoed by all the women quickly shattered any preexisting notion of the United States as a great and prosperous nation.  Words infused with anger and pain evoked racist feelings towards the African American community as well as the Caucasian community revealed the high level of tension regarding race relations in Los Angeles and the United States as a whole.  However, Christine Choy did not attempt to expand on this topic and only added a minor addendum after the film ends to very briefly discuss the statements of the Korean women.  There was no additional research material revealed or interviews with academics and others who may have added to a greater understanding of how events spiraled out of control.

The statements in Sa-I-Gu raise questions about how different ethnicities perceive each other and what role the media has to play in the discussion.  Viewpoints tend to vary by generation, upbringing, connection to provocative events such as the LA riots, what individuals filter from media sources and a variety of other factors perhaps too extensive to comprehensively mention in this post.  Nevertheless, films such as Sa-I-Gu must cannot solely rely on the opinions of one particular group without providing sufficient attention to others involved in the situation.  African Americans were rarely interviewed in Sa-I-Gu.  Another issue that arises is a need for self-awareness on the part of the filmmakers.  Choy's film tends to favor the reactionary and emotional at times as opposed to objective and insightful analysis.  Sa-I-Gu had the opportunity to focus on the Korean women while simultaneously offering a holistic view of the riots.  Criticism aside, this film is not without merit.  

Sa-I-Gu allowed viewers to delve into the mindset of Koreans, particularly women, in the aftermath of the LA riots and follow their narratives.  The very existence of the film is another channel for hearing, seeing and understanding Asian and Asian American perspectives in a country whose media generally glosses over this demographic.  Despite the short length of the film, Sa-I-Gu adds to the discourse of race and socioeconomic class relations in the United States and American cities such as Los Angeles.  City politics, economics, the context of the early 1990s, African American and Latino viewpoints in LA, the Caucasian perspective, and an analysis of the culture of the LAPD and city police agencies are the additional pieces to the "puzzle" that are connected to Sa-I-Gu.  All the pieces need to be reflected upon in order to even attempt to answer the never ending question of "why?"   

Sa-I-Gu

I have seen Sa-I-Gu twice and both viewings left me feeling a bit manipulated. The overbearing mood music, the footage of Ed Lee's funeral procession (which seemed highly exploitative of both the viewer and the Lee family) -- it all seemed like a heavy handed attempt at making the audience sympathize with these characters. And unfortunately, what this did for me was force me to look at the characters more critically.

And unfortunately, at least in my case, this attempt yielded the opposite reaction. I started to look at each of the women more critically, less inclined to take their emotions at face value. For example, I wonder about the Korean woman nicknamed "Smiles" for her amicable disposition to her African-American customers. Her words were full of drama, frustration, and sadness--yet her demeanor, at least in my perspective, was, for lack of a better word, "smiley." She wasn't just calm or reserved, but in fact, nearly chipper.

I don't believe my assessment of her is particularly fair, but I do believe that my perspective is fueled directly by the film, an unintended side effect that tarnishes the more emotionally true moments, notably the interviews with Mrs. Lee. Although I still believe there is something very disquieting about "Smiles" and her interviews, I chalk it up to a cultural/generational differences in articulation and communication.

The film's side effect (perhaps only felt by myself?) may be a result of how soon after the riots it was made (the interviews took place only 3 months after). The film seems more like an emotional response and less a thought-out objective response.

Mississippi Masala: Race/Relationships

At its heart, Mira Nair's Mississippi Masala is a romance, an ethnically tinged take of Romeo and Juliet... with a happy ending. However, as many of my classmates have already mentioned, the relationship between Meena and Demetrius rings false, too brief and unbelievable to make the audience feel any real love between the two characters. Indeed, the relationship begins as a ploy for Demetrius to make his ex-girlfriend Alicia jealous.

Meena, too, seems to have an ulterior motive for dating Demetrius, one that is, in fact, arguably racially motivated. After sleeping with Demetrius, Meena asks him to "wish me a happy birthday." A flashback to Uganda reveals that a young Meena is sad that their family friend Okelo didn't sing happy birthday to her.

In this way, Meena's desire for Demetrius is figured as a desire for Okelo, which can be interpreted as the desire for black men. For Meena, Demetrius simply fits the role -- he reminds her of her life back in Uganda and of Okelo. And he does this by (I know I am oversimplifying here) being a black man.

In this instance, how is race/homeland linked to desire? What does it mean to love someone for the color of their skin? Is it OK for Meena to desire black men because she grew up in Uganda? Interestingly, many of these questions sounds a lot like the questions asked during the Interracial Dating Forum here at Brown.

Mississippi Masala

Principally, I was impressed with how the film provided a history of Indians in Uganda. Director Mina Nair was able to vividly portray how an individual's assumed identity can abruptly change as a result of large-scale political and social upheaval. These uncontrollable events are a major factor in international migration, and consequently force all the members of Meena's family to rapidly adjust to a different society. While Meena's father remains tied to the label of a Ugandan Indian, Meena and her mother attempt to adjust to living amongst South Asian Americans in the United States. Meena's assimilation appears to have occurred in a gradual and almost natural sense, as she was quite young when the family settles in Mississippi. However, Meena does not attempt to become another Asian American stereotype that works hard solely to end up at a prestigious university. Aware of her family's financial situation, Meena decides to forge her own path in life, disregarding the racial and social norms prevalent throughout the South and within the local the Indian American community. Meena's mother thus fills in the gap between the two character extremes. Overall, both Meena and her father struggle to find a sense of place while her mother attempts to live by the phrase, "home is where the heart is."

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?"

Behind the Scenes of Chinese Restaurants

Cheuk Kwan's documentary "Chinese Restaurants" offers great insight into the stories of Chinese restauranteurs across the globe.  Aside from topics of acculturation, assimilation, cooking methods and personal histories of the restaurant owners, Kwan was able to focus, albeit somewhat briefly, on the wait and kitchen staff in various Chinese establishments from Brazil to Norway.

    

I found that the opinions of restaurant owners towards the local staff regularly appeared condescending, regardless of location.  Many non-Chinese restaurant workers in the kitchens, with the exclusion of chefs, tend to hold menial or mundane tasks.  In Madagascar, the female restaurant owner clearly stated that the local staff (with the exception of "one or two skilled workers") were simply unable to learn how to properly prepare authentic Chinese dishes. However, a contradiction exists in her reasoning since many Chinese restaurants throughout the world prepare inauthentic Chinese food in order to please local tastes and preferences.  If the Chinese food produced by restaurants is "fake", then how will locals such as the aforementioned workers in the kitchen experience the true tastes of Chinese food?  If ignorance is shed through education, why disregard non-Chinese and non-Asian kitchen staff as simply "not skilled"?  While I acknowledge that many issues factor into the situation, ranging from issues of socioeconomic status to potential racism, such questions cannot be overlooked when discussing workers in Chinese restaurants. 

"Chinese Restaurants" revealed the various hardships restaurant employees face in modern times.  Many kitchen staff have similar immigration stories, fleeing their home country in search of a better life and greater economic opportunities.  While the restaurant owners received a majority of the camera's attention, many immigrant workers can easily relate to the difficult journeys the Chinese restauranteurs and their predecessors faced in order to survive.  Immigrant employees continue to face such hardships, particularly those that entered a country illegally.  Waiters and waitresses in Chinese restaurants, if not locals from the region, encounter comparable difficulties.

Overall, "Chinese Restaurants" provides much more than simple critiques of Chinese food, but a glimpse into the complex history and world of the Chinese diaspora in relation to the numerous Chinese restaurants open for business worldwide.

Language/Assimilation/Success

An observation/disclaimer: Ironically, Cheuk Kwan's documentary series "Chinese Restaurants" is less interested with Chinese restaurants and more interested in what such establishments can tell us about the Chinese diaspora. Kwan focuses on the bigger picture and often neglects to do, what I would call, a true study of "food culture" to get to the more dramatic diasporic personal stories of struggle, alienation, and regret.

Thus, my post (and I believe most of our posts) will have less to do with food itself. (Any observations regarding this?)

In Kwan's 4th installment of the "Chinese Restaurants" series Latin Passions, Kwan visits Peru and documents two very different stories by two very different Chinese Peruvians. On one hand, we have the owner of San Joy Lao, Luis, a very successful restaurateur who hosts his own Chinese cuisine cooking show in Lima. On the other hand, we have the owner of Chifa San Luis, Maria, a recent immigrant who feels stuck in her job and in her surroundings.

Luis is much more assimilated/intergrated into Peruvian culture than Maria, who still feels like a stranger in Peru. Most interestingly, Maria speaks Cantonese while being interviewed and Luis speaks in Spanish. The level of assimilation and, to an extent, sucess in the restaurant business corresponds directly to language proficiency.

With this in mind, what do we make of Chiang Fu Ching, the bi-lingual Spring Roll King of Buenos Aires, Argentina? How do his abilities to speak both Spanish and Mandarin affect what we think about him as a member of the Chinese diaspora?

Also, a tangentially related topic: The etymology of the Peruvian word "chifa." It's really quite interesting and may help us digest/understand the relationship between language and assimilation.

Peru is the only place where Chinese restaurants are known as chifas. Chifa is a Peruvian word. My grandparents would say "let's cook" which in Cantonese is chui fan. "To eat" in the Hakka dialect--my grandparents were Hakka--is chi fan. Our Peruvian brothers in Calle Capon would hear thousands of Chinese, around 11 in the morning, say chui fan, "let's cook," or at noon, chi fan, "let's eat." Hearing a chi fan and chui fan, they combined into a single word achifa, "let's eat Chinese." That's why chifa refers to Chinese restaurants.

Gay Asian: Gaysian?

Ang Lee's films often work within a well-defined genre but with a nearly contradictory twist. In Brokeback Mountain, Lee made the Western, gay. In Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, the martial arts film, feminist. And in the case of The Wedding Banquet, it can be argued that Lee made a queer film, Asian. The basic plot/plot devices are reminiscent of the 1978 film La Cage aux folles, but with an Asian twist. In this manner, Lee seems to be solidifying queer cinema as a genre, giving queerness an added significance in The Wedding Banquet.

However, throughout the film, Wei Tung's Asian identity challenges his identity as a gay man. Why is the banquet, a decidedly Chinese event, so prominently featured in the film? The banquet represents ritualized heteronormativity and patriarchy to the highest degree; the bride is kissed by every male in the room, a little boy jumps around on the marriage bed to promote the conception of a male heir, etc... In this manner, the queerness is nearly displaced, cast aside by the film. Indeed, the homosexual relationship in the movie is marginalized--Simon is a comparatively thin role.

Thus, can Wei Tung's struggle with his Asian and Queer identities can be read at the meta level? Is his struggle mirrored by the film's struggle to be a certain type of cinema?

The Wedding Banquet: A Glimpse Into the Hypocrisy of Asian Societies

While watching Wedding Banquet, I was rather peeved over how Asian societies generally view homosexuality. The dramatic wedding ceremony was quite indicative of how tradition and patriarchy are emphasized and reminded me of how the heterosexuality of an individual is never questioned since it is supposed to be an Asian societal norm. Inherent hypocrisy within Asian communities exists in regard to homosexuals: on one hand Asian societies as a whole have been reluctantly open to the queer community, yet whenever a family member or sibling is "discovered" as a homosexual, the subject becomes taboo and the individual is negatively viewed and immoral. Wai-Tung's need to hide his sexual orientation from his family is a prominent example of what many Asians and Asian Americans continue to practice when around family members.

An example that comes to mind occurs within Thai society. I have seen firsthand how people labeled as "ladyboys", those who either undergo a sex change or dress and alter their body in the shape of a woman, are generally accepted in the country. However, at the same time there are many stories of closeted homosexual Thai men in their mid and late 20s to early 30s who are pressured to marry but continue to keep the facade of heterosexuality when in front of their parents. When around friends, however, they can openly identify as queer. The fear of "coming out" is clearly expressed through the character of Wai-Tung in the film and representative of closeted Asian and Asian American homosexuals. The continued reluctance to accept homosexuality is prevalent in many societies, particularly those that emphasize patriarchy and the need to produce male offspring.

Nevertheless, there has been somewhat of a shift towards accepting, albeit reluctantly, a more open perspective in regard to homosexuality. Wai-Tung's father and Simon's conversation near the waterfront clearly presents the fact that the older generations do comprehend the situation, regardless of their personal feelings on the subject. I believe that in this case, the importance of family in Asian society trumps all other prejudices or societal standards. While the selfishness of Wai-Tung's father is certainly arguable, he does seem to value family and the continuation of family. I wish Ang Lee would have continued following the parents onto the plane since I can easily imagine Wai-Tung's father disclosing all he knows to Wai-Tung's mother. As Wai-Tung's situation becomes gradually transparent to each character in the movie, it is only fitting that the parents would eventually discuss Wai-Tung together. How else will they kill the time on the airplane?

Confused: Bruce Lee in Enter The Dragon

1) Yes, Bruce Lee did not have "implied sex" with a woman in Enter the Dragon, unlike Roper and Williams.

2) However, I believe we can make the argument that Lee was not, in fact, emasculated or de-sexualized. As Vijou points out, Enter the Dragon clearly objectifies Bruce Lee's body, showing off his physique time and time again during those famous and unnecessarily-shirtless fight scenes. His body is an object of desire for both men and women.

3a) In the famous final showdown with Han, Lee enters a room of mirrors. Although the effect is largely disorienting, the set also carries with it the same sexual implications that can be found in the Flower Drum Song musical number "I Enjoy Being a Girl." The viewer can see every angle of Lee in the mirrors, objectify him, and view him sexually.

3b) I just compared Bruce Lee to Nancy Kwan. Does this a) sexualize him, b) emasculate him, or c) both? Can you be both?

4a) Regarding all the shirtlessness, we could argue that the filmmakers were trying to portray Lee as a freak, a side-show. In which case, he wouldn't be so desirable sexually.

4b) Or would he? Serious question.

In the end, I'm confused. All I know is that I don't believe the film has a clearly defined perspective regarding the issue of Asian male masculinity/sexuality.

The Grand Illusion of the Enemy

Throughout the screening of Enter the Dragon, I could not help but focus on the "James Bond style" villain character of Mr. Han. Despite Bruce Lee's role as the protagonist and all the involved issues concerning sexuality, Asian masculinity and the angry Asian body, Mr. Han is presented as a direct contrast to Bruce Lee. Mr. Han is thoroughly emasculated through his usage of henchmen, technology (ex. the claws) and vast personal wealth.

However, the status of Mr. Han as the "patriarch" of his criminal organization, glaringly apparent when surrounded by his personal female guards, provides a grand illusion of a powerful, albeit evil, Asian male figure. As the self-made and de facto leader of all persons on his island, Mr. Han is able to manipulate the actions surrounding Bruce Lee and the other fighters. Nevertheless, Mr. Han's gun prohibitions on his own island originate from the lingering fear over the decapitation of his hand. Direct and supreme control is the only setting where Mr. Han's power is ensured in the film. The immense power of Mr. Han is thereby only an artificial construction, which may allude to a rather negative assumption that most Asian males require the traditional, patriarchal societal structure as a means of safeguarding masculinity and power. The presence of Bruce Lee's character may upon first glance undermine the aforementioned argument since Lee is an independent undercover agent, but even Bruce Lee is situated in a rather patriarchal system where head Shaolin monks and British police chiefs essentially have absolute control over him.

Returning to the subject of Mr. Han, viewers can cleary see that the martial art skills he utilized against Bruce Lee's character towards the end of the film did not allude to an angry Asian body but were rather a desperate attempt of self-preservation. Prashad states that "90 percent of Oriental self-defense is baloney...it's organized despair" (132). In the case of Mr. Han, this may prove true. Mr. Han thus embodied a pitiful archenemy and black market businessman clinging to pride and power.

Fractured Identity: I Enjoy Being a Girl

Having never seen Flower Drum Song before (indeed, I wasn't even aware it was a musical), I was surprised when I recognized the song "I Enjoy Being a Girl." Recorded and performed by everyone from Miss Piggy to drag queens, the unbearably catchy Rodgers and Hammerstein tune is made even more memorable by Nancy Kwan's performance in Flower Drum Song. Frolicking around in a barely-there camisole with pointed toes and long black hair, Kwan definitely makes an impact, at least for this IMDB.com forum member: "I also really enjoy that she enjoys being a girl... I think I was 5 or 6 years old at the time, and I couldn't take my eyes of Nancy Kwan. I've had a thing for Asian women ever since."

A definite product of its time, the staging, lyrics, and performance of "I Enjoy Being a Girl" in Flower Drum Song is rife with 50s era notions of female identity. Linda Low's identity as a "girl" relies on men and their characterization of her:
"When men say I'm sweet as candy, as around in a dance we whirl, it goes to my head like brandy, I enjoy being a girl! When someone with eyes that smoulder says he loves ev'ry silken curl that falls on my iv'ry shoulder, I enjoy being a girl! When I hear the compliment'ry whistle that greets my bikini by the sea, I turn and I glower and I bristle, but I'm happy to know the whistle's meant for me! I'm strictly a female female and my future I hope will be in the home of a brave and free male who'll enjoy being a guy having a girl like me."

Kwan's hyper-sexual posturing (neck stretched, toes pointed) in a no-where-to-hide brightly-lit mirrored bedroom supports this male-gaze fantasy. Linda Low physically exists only as a male projection of the ideal female.

At the same time, however, there is an inadvertant tension/fracturing of identity that occurs in this scene that is particularly interesting, even if it is simply coincidence, and suggests a more nuanced way to read "I Enjoy Being a Girl." The character of Linda Low can be interpreted as a Dragon Lady... who wants to get married, a woman who uses her sex... so that she can "go-steady." This dichotomy is enhanced by the casting of Nancy Kwan, a hapa actress who uses an accent in the film, only to sing in perfect American English (her singing was dubbed by B.J. Baker). The staging also emphasizes a fracturing or multiplicity, as there are 5 mirrors in the set that portray different sides of Linda Low (3 floor to ceiling, one on the vanity, and a small hand mirror).

Does this fractured identity directly oppose the male-gaze fantasy? Is it complicit?

The Idea of Setting

What first struck me about Flower Drum Song were the interesting background selections, particularly the private garden of the Wang family. The visually accurate recreation of a beautiful Chinese garden in San Francisco alludes to the immigrant desire to manufacture familiarity and a connection to the homeland. Whereas Wang-Ta’s father, Mei-Li and her guardian admire the beauty of the garden, the more assimilated characters tend not to reflect or spend a lengthy time in the location. Major social functions are generally the only moments when the younger Asian Americans in Flower Drum Song remain in the garden.

Wang-Ta’s younger brother epitomizes the lack of appreciation for Chinese aesthetics, and subsequently culture. He is always dashing out of the house for American social and cultural activities, ranging from baseball games to marching in a local parade dressed as an American revolutionary. Wang-Ta himself is barely in the house, clearly demarcating the generational divide in terms of mindset and culture. However, as the median between his stubborn Chinese father and American brother, Wang-Ta is forced into the role of mediator between the two extremes. The settings where Wang-Ta is the center of attention are thus either distinctly American or Asian, representing the oftentimes conflicting values of being an Asian American. The date scene with Linda Low on the hill in the Mercedes convertible is distinctly perceived as American, while the wedding scene with Mei-Li resembles a traditional Chinese marriage atmosphere. Interestingly, Helen’s apartment is an arguable safe haven from Wang-Ta’s perspective as an Asian American since the area is situated relatively far and isolated from Wang-Ta’s traditionalist father and the more Americanized Linda Low. Disregarding the romantic agenda of fellow Asian American Helen, the apartment is a temporary haven from the internal identity debate. The peace is short-lived due to Mei-Li’s appearance and Wang-Ta’s hasty departure. The little screen time in the apartment reflects the fact that Asian Americans have little reprieve from questions of identity.

As a Roger and Hammerstein production, Flower Drum Song is technically created for a white audience, and the presentation of settings and places support such a notion. Echoing Chan is Missing, the “foreign” Chinatown is again the primary setting of the movie. Nevertheless, the Chinatown and Chinese community presented in Flower Drum Song depicts a clean, orderly, civil realm anchored by a middle-class Asian population. The swift robbery scene then shatters the assumed peacefulness of the community fairly early in the movie. The actual setting of the robbery is not a major issue, but the refusal to report the crime to the police by Wang-Ta’s father reveals the preconceptions of institutions of authority from a hardened immigrant point of view. The general misconception that crime in actual Chinatowns was low is briefly confronted in Flower Drum Song. As the real Chinatowns were rather untidy and sometimes dangerous places, Roger and Hammerstein attempted to portray an idealized Chinatown that was consistent with a “model minority” community. Settings in the film were thus an essential component to the plot construction of Flower Drum Song.

For the Sake of my Health, I Should Stay Away from Internet Forums

As viewed by a group of Brown University students (taking a class on Asian Americans and pop culture, no less), Broken Blossoms smacks of racism. Cheng Huan, as portrayed in yellow-face by Richard Barthelmess, is a meek, de-sexualized, hunched-over caricature. Although it may be unfair to judge Broken Blossoms out of its own historical/socio-political context, I think we reserve the right to be unhappy.

Which is why I am surprised (kind of) to see this: My Students Called This 'Racist' -- Your Response? I have culled a few of my favorite responses:

"My response is that your students have been brainwashed by political correctness. Blame their professors who want to reduce all art to disguised propaganda of whatever power structure was current at the time. I'm glad there are a few teachers like you who are trying to undo the damage. These days, I think an intelligent viewer who hasn't taken a lot of humanities classes is in the best position to appreciate a film like Broken Blossoms."

"GET BETTER STUDENTS!"

Interestingly, Broken Blossoms has an IMDB rating of 7.7 out of 10 (as opposed to Birth of a Nation's 7.1/10). Also interestingly, only 1.5% of viewers/voters gave Broken Blossoms a rating of 1/10 (while Birth of a Nation: 11.5%).

I will concede that Broken Blossoms seems conflicted about its portrayal of Asians. On the one hand, Cheng Huan is the protagonist of the film, noble and kind (a fact that many use to rebut the claim that the film is racist). On the other hand, he is emasculated to the point of pity--indeed, his character bears much resemblance to Lucy (note the similarity in the scenes where Cheng Huan leans against a wall and Lucy sits forlornly on the pier).

Perhaps the ambiguity in the film (and to the reception of the film) stems from the nature of the formation of the Asian male stereotype, the reaction of white men to a foreign sexual predator who cooks and cleans, just like a woman.

Language: A List

After watching Wayne Wang's Chan is Missing, I was struck by how the film used/played with the concept of language. Unfortunately, I can't make much of it, besides the fact that I think it's an important aspect of the film. Instead of trying to craft a weak/shoddy argument, I have created a list of moments in the film that draw our attention to language, and perhaps we can come up with something more cohesive together.

1. (Arguably) The Genesis of Chan is Missing: Chan Hung is stopped by a police officer and the two men become embroiled in a verbal tussle that escalates to Chan Hung's arrest. The argument seems to stem from the inherent discrepancies between Chinese and English grammar.
2. Newspaper articles--written language--as clues.
3. Disembodied voices (the man behind the door and the mysterious female caller)--spoken language--as clues.
4. The Cook: Speaks fluent Mandarin... only to reveal he pretty much speaks fluent English. Note the lack subtitles (intriguing).
5. Acronyms Galore: FOB and ABC are defined.
6. Steve's amazingly corny joke: "You can tell by the way I use my wok, I'm a Chinese cook." An example of playful use of language.
7. The Language Center.
8. Chan Hung was the brains behind his brother's first word processing system in Chinese.
9. Names: Jo and Steve versus Chan. ("Chan is too Chinese")

Thoughts?

The Role of the Documentarian

Unlike many documentaries, "My America" features the documentarian as a central figure, as opposed to a non-existant entity behind the camera. Throughout the film, you see Renee, you hear Renee, and you get to know Renee (to the point where I am now in a first name basis with her). Her life is portrayed unabashedly in "My America." Baby photos, old home movies, and even footage of her wedding are featured prominently, creating a unique relationship between the viewer and the documentarian. Michael Moore often plays a large role in his films, getting a good deal of screen time (probably because he's such a character). Renee goes one step further: she's not only in the documentary, she also uses her life as content. It's HER America. Renee's story functions in "My America" in much the same way as Victor Wong's or Yuri Kochiyama's. Indeed, Renee often draws parallels between her life and the lives of those she meets--she compares the death of her younger brother to Victor Wong's son's murder, Alyssa Kang reminds her of herself, etc...
What are the implications of this? Does it lend the film an authenticity? How would this film have been different had the documentarian been an invisible force behind the camera? Perhaps a more interesting question, how would this film have been different had the documentarian been non-Asian? Could it still be titled, "My America"?