Kuro Madoushi
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I wouldn't say it's exactly a shining example up here.
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'We're the geeks, the prostitutes': Asian American actors on Hollywood's barriers
- Thread starter lightskintwin
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capitalCORN
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But at least in TO. People here mix MUCH more than NYC, when I'm in the States during my trips there.
lightskintwin
Banned
What? LOL
They hug instead, because it felt more appropriate given the context of what just happened. Look, I understand given the stereotypes Hollywood continues to perpetuate and typecast Asian men, why somebody would think there are racist reasons upon learning that a kiss scene was removed from Jet Li and Aaliyah. However in this specific case, it simply isn't true.
From Jet Li's own words:
https://web.archive.org/web/20040808112254/http://jetli.com/jetli/words/words_forum_jet07.php?bw=
Elegant Weapon
Member
To piggyback on the sentiment that Asian Americans don't support each other the way African Americans do; black americans don't have a country of origin to connect to the way asians do. Any Indian person can watch Bollywood if they want to see a majority of Indian people in diverse roles, same for Japanese & Chinese.
remember the scene in Master of None when Aziz's character says there isn't a indian Beyonce that uplifts their own people or whatever? Meanwhile, every chick the dude dated in his show was a white woman. Like he consciously wrote, acted & directed that his indian american character only dated white women in the first season of his show; yet his character was upset there isn't an "indian Beyonce". There probably is an "indian Beyonce", but Aziz himself didn't think to find or feature this woman, you know? Why? I don't know.
But the fact is, black americans do have a pronounced need to be represented in Amreican mass media. That's why we have Melvin Van Peebles creating entire new genres that feature black heroes kicking the man's ass, Spike Lee's & Oprah's all the way down to Issa Rae, Donald Glover & Jordan Peele's crafting specially black american stories & our people loving & being uplifted by it.
If asian americans want the equivalent of black people on the walls of Sal's Pizzeria, you have to demand it like Buggin Out & Radio Raheem.
You kinda have to smack your lips & roll your eyes so loud people can hear it the next time you see another brown haired white kid go on a flight of fantasy, even if it makes you an angry colored person.
remember the scene in Master of None when Aziz's character says there isn't a indian Beyonce that uplifts their own people or whatever? Meanwhile, every chick the dude dated in his show was a white woman. Like he consciously wrote, acted & directed that his indian american character only dated white women in the first season of his show; yet his character was upset there isn't an "indian Beyonce". There probably is an "indian Beyonce", but Aziz himself didn't think to find or feature this woman, you know? Why? I don't know.
But the fact is, black americans do have a pronounced need to be represented in Amreican mass media. That's why we have Melvin Van Peebles creating entire new genres that feature black heroes kicking the man's ass, Spike Lee's & Oprah's all the way down to Issa Rae, Donald Glover & Jordan Peele's crafting specially black american stories & our people loving & being uplifted by it.
If asian americans want the equivalent of black people on the walls of Sal's Pizzeria, you have to demand it like Buggin Out & Radio Raheem.
You kinda have to smack your lips & roll your eyes so loud people can hear it the next time you see another brown haired white kid go on a flight of fantasy, even if it makes you an angry colored person.
tearsintherain
Member
If your friend says lets go watch an artsy french movie, what are you expecting? A movie, usually set in Europe, and everyone speaks French, right? If you saw a bunch of random people in Beijing talking in English but it was produced by a french company, would you think you just saw a french movie?
Asia has its own massive internal movies. Bollywood, Chinese movies, Japanese movies, Thai movies, Korean, etc, etc. Most of them produce MORE movies per year than Hollywood. Some of their top blockbusters actually film in foreign locations (Europe is popular for rom-coms), use their own countries stars as leads, and cast foreigners as extras. They get multiple dubs (Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, and Korean, or Hindi and a dozen other indian languages, etc) for domestic markets.
So when a couple in Beijing decide they'd like to see a Hollywood movie this weekend instead of a Chinese movie, do you think they want to see a movie starring an American Asian guy or girl, speaking English? Or do they want the "Hollywood" experience, which is becoming more and more constrained in terms of having a AAA lead, massive budget, massive special effects, multi ethnic cast (but white leads), and multi location shoots? Transformers, Fast and the Furious, MCU movies have created a template for a blockbuster movie and it seems like its becoming exceedingly difficult to break out of that template.
Not pulling that stuff out of my ass either, my wife is chinese and we go back to Beijing every year and while they aren't really that familiar with Hollywood movies (most of her relatives maybe watch one a year) they do know some of the top stars and they will ONLY watch those movies with them in it. The attitude is "if I want to see someone like me, I'll just watch a chinese movie, why would I watch an american movie?" and the box offices have reflected that to date. Combine that with how much control the Chinese government has over Hollywood imports (only ~20-30 foreign movies are allowed in per year, anything that feels socially disruptive is not allowed) and there are certainly going to be issues with the government concerned about how Chinese are depicted.
Oh sure but Superman and Lois can suck face on the still fresh corpses of Metropolis and nobody bats an eye! Dat kryptonian privilege
lightskintwin
Banned
LOL Now a better question would be if Jet Li was White or Black, would they have played up the romance more between Aaliyah and had them kiss way before the climax of the film? I don't know, but it's certainly possible.
It's why I don't think the Asian character in Edge of Seventeen is all that progressive in Asian male representation despite him getting the girl in the end.
Mighty Chin
Banned
It's like you didn't read what I wrote.
lightskintwin
Banned
I see Star Wars: The Last Jedi has an Asian American actress named Kelly Marie Tran playing the character Rose.
NipplesAndToes23
Member
I think the current CEO of Warner Bros. is an Asian man. I wonder why he hasn't pulled for more Asians in their films and TV.
Can you imagine how much shit he's had to put up with or condone to get where he is? He's probably used to it.
That's a really weak devil's advocate. His filmography is mostly in hk cinema starting in 1983. Probably because he couldn't find any work in america until he built his name up overseas.
NipplesAndToes23
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