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Showing posts with label 21. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 21. Show all posts

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Harold and Kumar 2: Yellow Fever

Yes! Yes. This movie gets it. It's about time we minorities fought back against racism by being racist back to the white people, thus pre-emptively out-racist-ing them into submission (except without the slave chains and cotton plantations, of course). It worked for Afghanistan and Iraq, why not in the real world?

In fact, this entire spring has been a coup for us yellows. I noticed a total of three Oriental-oriented movies on the marquee tonight: The Forbidden Kingdom, Harold and Kumar 2, and, of course, 21.

The only thing about the film that briefly disappointed me was that the entire Escape From Guantanamo Bay only took about 10 minutes (and no, that's not a spoiler -- the fact that it's stated in the title disqualifies it), but then I realized that nobody laughs at racism from Cubans -- we at racism from white people, because, you know, all white people are racist. Everyone knows that.

Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay: 4/10

Thursday, April 17, 2008

21 and its So-Called "Whitewashing"


While I have not seen the movie, I've been asked several times what I thought about Hollywood "whitewashing" history with Caucasian actors. Do I think the move is racist? Am I angry about it? Offended? As a minority, do I care?

And, invariably, I just turn to them and chuckle at their ignorance, and ask, "Minority? Are you sure about that?"

In fact, I completely support this move because Caucasians are underrepresented as it is. In fact, I pity them. More than half the world is of Asian descent and, for you colored folk who don't know your math, that's more than 50%.

Asians are hogging up all the screen-time on this planet, it's like Caucasians don't even exist except on niche, fringe western islands like "North America," and even then they have to share the space with other people of color. I can only imagine such invisible underappreciation.

Furthermore, Caucasians are typecast constantly. It's about time they're portrayed as smart, mathematically-inclined folk (even though it is, of course, just a movie). Plus, when they are portrayed, white people never have any shades of gray. I guess it's just their nature.

These groundless assertions that Hawk's "Shop Assistant," Jim Sturgess, was cast just to bring theatergoers into the audience is complete hogswash. Everyone knows Caucasians don't sell. If anything, all they do is buy, buy, and buy, and, if we're lucky, maybe pay reparations once a century when under extreme societal pressure.

As far as I'm concerned, all this bitching by the Asian community is really very unfounded. If anything, we should encourage giving Caucasians voice in this world, especially since a lot of them only bother to learn one language.

It's about time we gave back to our less-fortunate race and let them shine, for once. And for that, Hollywood and 21, I commend you.