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?"
Showing posts with label terminal usa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label terminal usa. Show all posts
Friday, May 2, 2008
Monday, April 28, 2008
Terminal, USA & JJ Chinois
After watching JJ Chinois and Terminal, USA, I was as weirded out as everyone else who posted before me was. I actually had absolutely no idea what went on in JJ Chinois until I did more research on his (her) character. Completely ignoring the fact that the video was incoherent to me, watching it did get me thinking "who would watch something like this?" The same question I think also applied to Terminal, USA. Who is the audience for these types of media, and perhaps more importantly, what is the filmmaker trying to say through the films?
After reading various articles and websites on the character Lynne Chan portrays, I can see some how her character is a commentary on many things, including Asian American identity, transgender identity, as well as suburban vs. urban environments and attitudes towards the former. Many people on the blog commented on Chan's use of Bruce Lee clips and images of herself to sexualize the Asian American male body, as well as to mainstream the image of a transgender person, specifically an Asian transgender individual. However, what end is she attempting to achieve through this short clip? In all of the articles and research that I read about JJ Chinois, it never came across clearly what her intentions are. Specifically regarding Asian American identity, I felt like she used her ethnic connection to Bruce Lee to push her portrayal of transgenders in the media.
I found Terminal, USA extremely interesting and coherent, as opposed to JJ Chinois. While I was completely weirded out while watching the movie, in retrospect I see that it was able to critique the concept of a perfect nuclear family and the concept of the Asian model minority through its absurdness. While the movie took the breakdown of these ideas to the extreme, it also showed viewers that there is no such thing as a perfect nuclear family or a true model minority. Ignoring the absurdity of the sons and daughters of the family being either crazy druggies, sluts, or closeted fetish homosexuals, the very process of growing up as a teenager is riddled with change and experimentation, very much in contrast to the static image of perfection that both the nuclear family and model minority ideal tend to portray.
After reading various articles and websites on the character Lynne Chan portrays, I can see some how her character is a commentary on many things, including Asian American identity, transgender identity, as well as suburban vs. urban environments and attitudes towards the former. Many people on the blog commented on Chan's use of Bruce Lee clips and images of herself to sexualize the Asian American male body, as well as to mainstream the image of a transgender person, specifically an Asian transgender individual. However, what end is she attempting to achieve through this short clip? In all of the articles and research that I read about JJ Chinois, it never came across clearly what her intentions are. Specifically regarding Asian American identity, I felt like she used her ethnic connection to Bruce Lee to push her portrayal of transgenders in the media.
I found Terminal, USA extremely interesting and coherent, as opposed to JJ Chinois. While I was completely weirded out while watching the movie, in retrospect I see that it was able to critique the concept of a perfect nuclear family and the concept of the Asian model minority through its absurdness. While the movie took the breakdown of these ideas to the extreme, it also showed viewers that there is no such thing as a perfect nuclear family or a true model minority. Ignoring the absurdity of the sons and daughters of the family being either crazy druggies, sluts, or closeted fetish homosexuals, the very process of growing up as a teenager is riddled with change and experimentation, very much in contrast to the static image of perfection that both the nuclear family and model minority ideal tend to portray.
My new favorite Brown alum: Jon Moritsugu
Wow...what the fuck did I just watch? JJ Chinois is gonna have to wait, because “Terminal USA” was one of the most bizarre movies I have ever seen in my life. It seemed like a mix between a twisted Asian American Sitcom and a cheesy zombie movie with all of the fake blood. I would love to meet Jon Moritsugu’s family when he was younger or to read his family’s reaction to this film. Moritsugu is certainly one of Brunonia’s gems.
The characters of the film made it so interesting and twisted. Moritsugu did an excellent job of developing such strange and unique characters that viewer attempts to follow throughout the film. As I took notes during the film, I found myself creating profiles for all of the different characters in an attempt to follow everything that was happening. Underneath the characters, there was some very interesting social commentary. Using the classic nuclear family American sitcom for the film, it offered a scathing satire of model family structures and interactions. In that sense the film reminded me a lot of the popular film “American Beauty” (1999), which also critiqued the model nuclear family.
There were some interesting race relations in the film. In one of the first scenes the father comes home from work complaining about death threats towards him because of his race (“I am not a chink, I’m a Jap”), which can be read as response to the killing of Vincent Chin and animosity towards Asian Americans in the workplace. The two skin heads in the film are also racist towards Kazumi. This film came out following the Rodney King riots when Asian/Asian American race relations were tense. It wasn’t a coincidence that an Asian male in the film shot one the white skin heads out of self-defense.
It was comical to watch the father in “Terminal USA” struggle to “spend time with his kids” only to be increasingly shocked that none of his kids were meeting his expectations. Kazumi is a drugged out teenager (“a real blooming freak”), who lets himself bleed to death in film. Marvin is a sexually-suppressed homosexual (“the pervert in the backroom”), who spends all his time in front of his computer. And Holly, a sex crazed cheerleader, who runs off with a pedophilic lawyer/producer of childhood pornography. The characters were hard to wrap my head around. After consulting IMDb, apparently both Marvin and Kazumi were played by Moritsugu (perhaps, the characters he most identified with at Brown).
modern political heroes: jj and kazumi (?)
i have to agree with everyone that these films were, well.. interesting to watch. i didnt know that jj chinois was bruce lee imagery either until i did the reading and terminal usa felt like such a postmodernist parody of ..well, suburbia? asian stereotypes? modern parodies?
jj chinois really required a lot of background information (which is still hard to find) to understand even slightly. it was interesting what the text said about the re-masculination or using bruce lee's body for the other extreme. by this i mean instead of viewing bruce lee's as having a zero sex rating and representing a "puritan" moral cleanliness, using his body to present the other extreme of desire, physical manliness, etc. it is also interesting how this 'manliness' is represented through a transgender individual and what statement jj chinois is making by ultimately 'performing' this piece. is jj chinois saying that all manliness is performance or 'fan labor' as nguyen suggests?
i felt nguyen's final statment was most provocative when she stated:
"this is an important part of the utopian impulse...the desire to transform popular culture into a counterpublic for a radically different imaginary. because popular culture is imagined as a shared cultural resource with access to an audience of millions, we might wonder whether desire for the star's body--especiallyone like jj chiois;s--can deliver a ground on which to do politics" (297). [emphasis mine]
we've been talking about the importance of popular culture all semester long and i feel these lines pretty much summed up the reason, especially when counterculture becomes that pop phenomenon.
as for terminal usa, it was just so many different themes packed into that hour-long film and i really dont know where to start. what resonated most within me after watching the (sorry) creepiness in that film was that most all roles in life was a performance. i especially felt this way when i realized that the only "normal" depiction or close-to-life depiction of anyone was the drag queen who picked up the like when marvin call a phone sex service. it seemed to make that contrast that not only is drag queen-ism a performance, but everything else in life is, so why the hate?
it's also interesting that the movie is called terminal usa, which seems to mean that the 'terminal' to the united states for the alien girlfriend 8-ball was this suburban japanese american family. i just cant really make much more out of that right now ^^;; to be discussed in class......
jj chinois really required a lot of background information (which is still hard to find) to understand even slightly. it was interesting what the text said about the re-masculination or using bruce lee's body for the other extreme. by this i mean instead of viewing bruce lee's as having a zero sex rating and representing a "puritan" moral cleanliness, using his body to present the other extreme of desire, physical manliness, etc. it is also interesting how this 'manliness' is represented through a transgender individual and what statement jj chinois is making by ultimately 'performing' this piece. is jj chinois saying that all manliness is performance or 'fan labor' as nguyen suggests?
i felt nguyen's final statment was most provocative when she stated:
"this is an important part of the utopian impulse...the desire to transform popular culture into a counterpublic for a radically different imaginary. because popular culture is imagined as a shared cultural resource with access to an audience of millions, we might wonder whether desire for the star's body--especiallyone like jj chiois;s--can deliver a ground on which to do politics" (297). [emphasis mine]
we've been talking about the importance of popular culture all semester long and i feel these lines pretty much summed up the reason, especially when counterculture becomes that pop phenomenon.
as for terminal usa, it was just so many different themes packed into that hour-long film and i really dont know where to start. what resonated most within me after watching the (sorry) creepiness in that film was that most all roles in life was a performance. i especially felt this way when i realized that the only "normal" depiction or close-to-life depiction of anyone was the drag queen who picked up the like when marvin call a phone sex service. it seemed to make that contrast that not only is drag queen-ism a performance, but everything else in life is, so why the hate?
it's also interesting that the movie is called terminal usa, which seems to mean that the 'terminal' to the united states for the alien girlfriend 8-ball was this suburban japanese american family. i just cant really make much more out of that right now ^^;; to be discussed in class......
Terminal USA and JJ Chinois: "over-assimilation"?
I too, am a bit confused about the direction JJ Chinois was trying to take with the music video, but I do see that it goes hand in hand with Terminal USA in the shock value that it generates. It was confusing (and still kind of is) until I did some research on JJ Chinois, which unfortunately there isn’t much of, and realized the music video was about transgender roles in the media. Nevertheless, I think that it does spark the necessary curiosity for one to go out there and do the research to ultimately create more awareness about the taboo topic.
Taboo does seem to be the theme of this week’s videos as Terminal USA pretty much brought every ludicrous social “stigma” to the table, Asian American or not. I think it was interesting to shed light on such issues that are expressed as stigmas today. As they are generally discussed, one would say that homosexuality, drug abuse, and sex are not “wrong” per se, but rather quite natural and recurring themes of growing up, and in the case of homosexuality, merely one’s sexual preference. They do however create shame and disgrace in a more closed-minded model community, and I think that the sheer chaos and exaggeration in Terminal USA create a good contrast to the absurd expectations that people have of model citizens, or model minorities in this case. I found it interesting that the father alone, rather than both parents, played the role of the “perfect TV dad” as a NY times review puts it, and it added to the degeneracy of the family as a whole. Even as far as appearances and wardrobes go, the grandfather on his deathbed was the only character who did not have an exaggerated costume. That is to say he looked the most “normal” in everyday conventions.
On one hand, I see in Terminal USA the American Beauty appeal, of a seemingly normal family suburban family riddled with problems underneath it all. On the other hand, I think this film takes on the lens of a first generation Asian American parent, the grandfather in this case, mourning the corruption that the subsequent generations’ “American-ness” has created. Even the title of the film, Terminal USA and Kazumi’s girlfriend, who turns out to be an alien, imply that this family is a true representation of a suburban American family gone wrong. Yet there are many references to the family being Japanese, and it is even apparent in the names of some of the characters like Kazumi. There are a lot of issues to fork through in both the film and the music video, and it’s not as simple as an Asian American family struggling to assimilate anymore. Perhaps now we are dealing with Asian Americans who are “over-assimilated” that must reconcile their ethnic differences with the classically “American” problems they are dealing with.
Taboo does seem to be the theme of this week’s videos as Terminal USA pretty much brought every ludicrous social “stigma” to the table, Asian American or not. I think it was interesting to shed light on such issues that are expressed as stigmas today. As they are generally discussed, one would say that homosexuality, drug abuse, and sex are not “wrong” per se, but rather quite natural and recurring themes of growing up, and in the case of homosexuality, merely one’s sexual preference. They do however create shame and disgrace in a more closed-minded model community, and I think that the sheer chaos and exaggeration in Terminal USA create a good contrast to the absurd expectations that people have of model citizens, or model minorities in this case. I found it interesting that the father alone, rather than both parents, played the role of the “perfect TV dad” as a NY times review puts it, and it added to the degeneracy of the family as a whole. Even as far as appearances and wardrobes go, the grandfather on his deathbed was the only character who did not have an exaggerated costume. That is to say he looked the most “normal” in everyday conventions.
On one hand, I see in Terminal USA the American Beauty appeal, of a seemingly normal family suburban family riddled with problems underneath it all. On the other hand, I think this film takes on the lens of a first generation Asian American parent, the grandfather in this case, mourning the corruption that the subsequent generations’ “American-ness” has created. Even the title of the film, Terminal USA and Kazumi’s girlfriend, who turns out to be an alien, imply that this family is a true representation of a suburban American family gone wrong. Yet there are many references to the family being Japanese, and it is even apparent in the names of some of the characters like Kazumi. There are a lot of issues to fork through in both the film and the music video, and it’s not as simple as an Asian American family struggling to assimilate anymore. Perhaps now we are dealing with Asian Americans who are “over-assimilated” that must reconcile their ethnic differences with the classically “American” problems they are dealing with.
thoughts on Terminal USA
I found Terminal USA to be one of the most disturbing (yet fascinating and thought-provoking) films I have ever seen. I didn’t find any of it funny and I thought it was visually (and auditorily) frightening. Like Keiko, I also found it slightly offensive that these bizarre portrayals were projected onto an Asian American family. I thought that the film was making a number of critiques on racism, suburbia, Asian American stereotypes, nuclear family, etc. but throughout watching, I felt like I was undergoing a similar feeling of the typical horror movie experience.
The two characters I thought were found particularly interesting were the parents. Over the course of the film, the father went more-and-more insane over protecting the “purity” of his family, especially the sexual purity of his daughter, Holly, and son, Marvin, and found himself disappointed/shamed by their "impurity" (Holly having sex with the lawyer and Marvin masturbating to gay pornography). At the end of the movie, the father had completely lost it. His attempt to kill his already dying father-in-law and the klan members and rhetoric about an apocalypse showed his progression of "losing it". Was this supposed to be a critique of the unspoken, insanity of patriarchal, nuclear suburbia?
The mother, on the other hand, was a drug addict yet, still trying to take care of her father, husband and children and sex and sexuality came a lot with her (the scene with the pizza man and her comment to her father with not being satisfied with her husband sexually).
I liked that this film was one of the only ones that we have watched (besides Flower Drum Song) that centered around the parents as well as the children.
There were a number of motifs I noticed in the film like the cowboy theme(Holy in cowgirl costume, the father and the scene with the gun), eyeballs, and telephones. I also thought the camera angles and strategic use of music were two techniques that particularly stood out to me.
The two characters I thought were found particularly interesting were the parents. Over the course of the film, the father went more-and-more insane over protecting the “purity” of his family, especially the sexual purity of his daughter, Holly, and son, Marvin, and found himself disappointed/shamed by their "impurity" (Holly having sex with the lawyer and Marvin masturbating to gay pornography). At the end of the movie, the father had completely lost it. His attempt to kill his already dying father-in-law and the klan members and rhetoric about an apocalypse showed his progression of "losing it". Was this supposed to be a critique of the unspoken, insanity of patriarchal, nuclear suburbia?
The mother, on the other hand, was a drug addict yet, still trying to take care of her father, husband and children and sex and sexuality came a lot with her (the scene with the pizza man and her comment to her father with not being satisfied with her husband sexually).
I liked that this film was one of the only ones that we have watched (besides Flower Drum Song) that centered around the parents as well as the children.
There were a number of motifs I noticed in the film like the cowboy theme(Holy in cowgirl costume, the father and the scene with the gun), eyeballs, and telephones. I also thought the camera angles and strategic use of music were two techniques that particularly stood out to me.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
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.
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.
The Issue of Race in Terminal USA
I found Terminal USA very bizarre yet fascinating, although I didn't necessarily understand many things. I wanted to point out the fact that the family does not talk about race unless there is an external force--for example, the father bringing home from work a note with racial slurs on them--that initiates the conversation about the ethnicity of the family. Although there are stereotypical Asian images throughout the movie, like the Asian female in porn and the computer nerd, the issue of race gets buried underneath other non-race specific problems such as drugs and sex , two issues that appear on typical nuclear family sitcoms. Terminal USA, however, takes the issue of drugs and sex to an extreme, releasing all the repressed feelings out of many characters. For example, the repressed homosexuality of Marvin, sex-addiction of Holly, frustration of the father over his ailing father-in-law all come to full manifestation by the end of the movie. The other two members of the family, Kazumi and Ma do not express their frustrations as much because they are constantly in and out of drugs. The issues of typical nuclear families are vastly exaggerated for the effect of emphasis in the movie, and I wonder if this falls under the category of the "exploitation film."
The strangest part of the film is when Fagtoast, who is wearing priest-like garment, comes into kill Kazumi and Eightball and then starts praying (?). He says, "the pleasure must stop! the pleasure must stop!" Is he repressing his desire to kill? I didn't really understand that part at all (as well as the black liquid that Kazumi drinks then spits out).
JJ Chinois and Terminal USA Response
I actually haven’t seen any underground films until now, and was very surprised by both JJ Chinois and Terminal USA. I watched JJ Chinois before reading the essay in Alien Encounters with a few friends, and I’m pretty sure none of us caught the fact that JJ Chinois is played by a woman. It wasn’t until I read the essay and then watched it again that I was able to see the significance of the scenes from the Bruce Lee movie to JJ Chinois’s masculinity. This brought up quite a few questions – how much does Lynne Chan expect the average viewer to know about Bruce Lee? I personally didn’t know that the scenes with the random subtitles were clips from a movie about Bruce Lee until I read Alien Encounters. Perhaps the fact that I would have never guessed that the male character was supposed to be Bruce Lee goes to show how I (and maybe the general public) would not associate this sexualized image of an Asian American male with the stoic image of Bruce Lee portrayed in his movies. Would the only people who would understand the significance of these scenes be then people who have seen Bruce Lee I Love You before (who may be Bruce Lee fans)?
Terminal USA was a lot easier to follow in terms of plot, but I am still confused about the meaning of everything. In the beginning of Terminal USA, the scene opens with Kazumi doing pseudo-martial arts moves around his room, yelling like one might see in a typical martial arts movie. He tries to yell like this in the following scene when the two druggies confront him, but is quickly pushed down to the ground while one of them yells in a deeper voice. Is this meant to emphasize the ridiculousness of trying to emulate martial arts masters in the “real world”? I got the feeling that the filmmaker introduces the viewer to an over exaggerated stereotype of martial arts to show how overly exaggerated Kazumi (and the rest of the characters) are in this film. Also, one aspect of the film that stood out to me was the clothes the characters were wearing. They were obviously meant to emphasize the stereotypical role each had in the family (Marvin being the studious geek, Kazumi being the rebel, and Holly being the perfect cheerleader). Was it to serve as a contrast to the secrets each child was trying to hide from the parents?
Friday, April 25, 2008
JJ Chinois and Terminal USA
JJ Chinois and Terminal USA were probably the two strangest films I've watched for this class -- I felt like I was in HA89 (Contemporary Art) all over again. These are definitely "underground" films -- interesting cinematic and subject choices, and the exploration of Asian sexuality was pretty fascinating. At a few points I found myself asking, "What is going on?!?", because seriously, many of the events in Terminal USA were bizarre and disturbing (Kazumi's leg injury, the dying grandfather, etc).
After reading more about JJ Chinois, I feel that I understand at least that film a little more. But Terminal USA -- huh? The characters are obviously meant to be very extreme, almost caricatures, and I see that there's clearly a spoof of American soap operas/pop culture/B-movies. The dialogue and delivery is all rather strange; I'm interested in finding out what Terminal USA is meant to be saying about Asian America.
After reading more about JJ Chinois, I feel that I understand at least that film a little more. But Terminal USA -- huh? The characters are obviously meant to be very extreme, almost caricatures, and I see that there's clearly a spoof of American soap operas/pop culture/B-movies. The dialogue and delivery is all rather strange; I'm interested in finding out what Terminal USA is meant to be saying about Asian America.
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