Family Guys and Asian Stereotypes

       

     In the last class of Imagines of Asians and Asian Americans, we have watched several clip of Asian stereotypes that have been displayed in a quite famous American cartoon, it is called Family Guys. In name of cartoon, it actually mostly involves adults’ topics that prefer not to be seen or learned by children.

In three clips of Family Guys, I saw the cartoon making fun of China’s one-child policy, everything tiny that Asian girls love and  underpaid employers in a Chinese workshop. More or less, I feel the intensity for people work in the screen to save the image of Asians or Asian Americans. During this semester, Prf. Tung showed us at least 11 movies that either directed by Asian or Asian American, or played by Asian or Asian American actors and actresses. I want to list all sorts of imagines I saw or learned from this class:

·         Asians always play the bad guys and Caucasians are the good guys who save the day.

·         Asians are undesirable. They are weak, obedient and asexual.

·         Rather than playing super heroes who save the world single handedly, Asians are reduced to being shy and humble sidekicks.

·         They portray Asians as lacking in leadership, innovation and motivation. 

·         The Hollywood moves always portray Asian woman as docile and erotic which means that they are China dolls.

·         All Asian students are expected to excel in school and never cause trouble.

     Either you are an Asian or not, I believe you have seen either one on the list of the imagines of Asian or Asian American. I just want to say that it could be dumb to think every single person as same as those stereotypes. Be more observable and do not mistake anyone for what you see through media products.

Children of Heaven

       Children of Heaven is a perfect movie for both adults and children, as far as I am concerned. It is written and directed by same person Majid Majidi in 1997. This Iranian family drama movie tells a story of a brother and sister and their interesting and adventurous things over a lost pair of pink shoes. 
      
        The film starts with Ali bringing his little sister’s pink shoes to be repaired. He leaves them on the grocer’s counter to buy some potatoes. While he is not paying attention on the hoes, a garbage man accidently took the pair of shoes away. In order to find them, the young boy Ali brought down over the grocer’s vegetable baskets. The grocer was deadly mad then chased Ali away from his store. He got home with guilt to his younger sister and with fear to his parents. Ali tells his sister about the shoes and begs her not to let their parents know and promise that he will find them back for her. During the days she doesn’t have the pink shoes. They decided to share Ali’s Converse sneakers walking back and forth from school to home. The whole movie is on a quite slow pace. But the plots go up and down quite often based on the pair of pink shoes.

        My favorite two scenes made me cry. When Ali’s sister sees his shoes are wore by a little girl in her school, she follows her and finds out how bad situation the family is and as well, the great communication they have in the family members. They give up asking her shoes back. The other scene is when Ali tries his great effort to get the third place in the running race only for getting the prize --- a pair of sneakers for his little sister. Unfortunately, he gets the number one. He is so upset and feels guilty when facing his sister back home. They are very cute couple of brother and sister. And the story between them is BEAUTIFUL!

Strawberry and Chocolate

      

     Strawberry and Chocolate is a Cuban-Spanish-Mexican co-produced movie. It astonished me at the beginning. When getting to understand the director’s pace, it becomes comfortable to watch after then.

      The beginning scene is the young guy David and his girl friend being in the motel room. The girl was upset by his desire for sexuality which makes her think he doesn’t love her for real instead of desire for her body. In order to show his girl friend’s loyalty, he decides not touching her till they get marry someday in the near future. However, things go to be unexpected side. He was told she got marry with a very rich guys and the girl admits that her marriage is based on her desire for wealth. He is heart-broken, by his love one. I feel sorry for him. However, this is just a start of the movie. He met a witty and sympathetic gay guy Diego who attempts to seduce David but fails. Or I can say the relationship morphs into something else. David got to know Diego’s real life little by little. Finally, he accepts him as a normal friend and becomes open heart to him as a close friend. David falls in love with Diego's neighbor Nancy.

      The most thing I enjoy is the friendship between David and Diego. It deepens through the movie. You know sometimes we make decisions then after we forgot the reason why we made those decisions? The characters have very thoughtful things going on and gives audiences a sensual pleasure to watch. =P

Walk on Water

        

       Walk on Water is an Israeli film released in 2004. When the movie just began, I was attracted right away by the main character Eyal who is a hitman works as an agent in Mossad. The actor is named Lior Ashkenazi who is an award-winning Israeli screen and stage actor. I enjoyed watching it a lot. For a film set in three different countries (Turkey, Israel and Germany), Walk on Water really stroke my attention.

        Eyal goes back home from a successful hit in Istanbul. The sad thing is that he finds his wife Iris has committed suicide. A month later, he still refuses  to receive trauma therapy. At this time, Eyal is assigned by his boss to pretend as a personal tour guide for a young German named Axel. This young man comes to visit his sister Pia on a kibbutz. Eyal’s task is to spy on the sister and her younger brother and hoping that either of them will drop some clues related to their ex-Nazi grandfather. However, Eyal has difficulty accepting Axel's wild attitudes and his open homosexuality. Dramatically, when he follows Axel to Germany to attend his father's 70th birthday, Eyal awares that there is a lot of things that both he and Axel have to learn from each other, as their life roles’ changing dramatically.

        At the beginning, Lior Ashkennazi (Eyal) who is wary-eyed, olive-skinned, and hawkishly handsome, brought me so concentrated into the first Israel movie I’ve ever seen. Later on, the actors and actress’ strong performances impressed me indeed. As far as I am concerned, Eyal and Axel are completely different person. Axel ‘s delicateness and magnanimity make Eyal think comparing to his rage. Strongly recommended!

Tsotsi

          

          This was the first African movie I’ve ever seen and I was impressed a lot. The movie is an adaption of the novel Tsotsi. It set in an Alexandra slum, near Johnannesburg, South Africa. It tells the story of Tsotsi, who is a young street hooligan. The movie shows a dark side in Africa and also dsplay the beautiful side of human nature. I loved it and absolutely recommend!

           The main character’s born name is David but Tsotsi. His mother dies of a disease and he had to run away from his home because of the abusive father. He became a homeless child wondering and sleeping and hanging with some other orphans in large concrete construction pipes as a roof. A few years later, David, who now goes by the name Tsotsi is a leader of some people included his friends Butcher, Aap and Boston. They got involved to a serious fight and it made Boston badly injured. Tsotsi run away either for felling guilty or holding the grudge. He saw a woman leaving a car unlocked outdoor and it arouses his evil thoughts. He shoots a young woman while stealing her car. Unexpectedly, he discovered a baby at the back seat of the car. At the beginning, he struggled to take him(the baby) away or not. But he still did. And he starts from knowing nothing of taking care of a baby to loving the baby as his own. It is very touchable and beautiful story. At the last, he went back to that woman’s house and returned baby. He was crying. I cried for Tsotsi.

         Grassroots’ story, a tough thug shows his big heart. 

Better Luck Tomorrow

          


          Better Luck Tomorrow is directed by an Asian American director Justin Lin telling a story of Asian American overachievers who get tired of the boring and repetitive life they have, and indulge themselves into a series of crimes. 

          The story shot in California which I by far the most popular U.S. state located on the West Coast of the U.S. And it is the third most extensive state. As we all know, California is also known for its diversity of population. Recalling my memory back, when I was touring California in March of 2010, it was hard to think I was actually in America instead of walking on a street in China. There are so many Chinese population and it makes everything easier for those Chinese tourists or visitors who don’t speak English well enough to communicate with the locals. Returning to the subject of this movie, the story happens in Tustin ,California involving with four Sunny High School students.  The beginning plot is Ben and his friend Virgil lying in the sun discussing college admissions, but soon discover a human hand in the garden. What a transition! I was sort of worried this movie would go too far I could not handle it mentally. However, it was not too bad.

         Ben and Virgil are highly intelligent students whose goal is to gain acceptance into highly celebrated Ivy League universities. Yet it would be bored to the end if these best-grade students only do what people think. Therefore, the editor and director made them involved in petty crimes. Such as the purchase and return of computer equipment in order to earn easy money. Justin Lin attempts to change the vanilla image of Asian Americans into another wild side of them. Even though it is a highlight of a great change of the previous roles of the stereotypes of Asians we see, as far as I am concerned, it just goes too far. At the ending, Ben and his other friends cruelly killed Stuart Tay, whom is boyfriend of Ben’s brush Stephanie. There’s a quote Stephanie says to Ben when she finds herself actually likes him as he does, “You know how you make decisions that lead to other decisions but you don't remember why you made those decisions in the first place.” I agree. Changes comes faster than plans all the times. In our lives, we just adjust ourselves to fit in more changes. C’est la vie. And I enjoy it.

           

Falling for Grace

     

       Falling for Grace is a romantic comedy movie directed by Asian-American Fay Ann Lee, who also co-wrote and played the main actress in the movie Grace Tang. This kind of cliche is very entertaining to watch with a couple of friends sitting on the sofa with soda, chips, and crackers. The happy ending might not be a surprise but you would be happy to see.
       Grace Tang is a successful woman, at least I think so. She has a very stable and well-paid job in the most exciting city in the world ---- New York. She was born in a Chinese family of four included her mom, dad and younger brother. Her parents don't speak any English and younger brother doesn't have a job. He is  just like hundreds of young adults over in China who don't contribute to family a penny instead of living and being affording by parents on everything at this age. It is pathetic, indeed. Back to our heroine, she is supposed to be satisfied with what she's got. On the contraory, she still yearns for social acceptance among Upper East Side elite. When she finally gets a chance to be invited in a high-end party, she is accidentally mistaken for an heiress from Hong Kong, also has the same name with hers. She missed the timing to correct this mistake and it just seems like one lie has been told, you gotta make a series of other lies to make up the very first one. By this mistake, she got to introduced to a handsome white guy Andrew. Now cliche starts from here. No surprise Grace will fall in love with his "color" instead of choosing an Asian looking guy. It proved!
       Under reliable datas, Asian man is always less desirable by different races of women, whatever she is while, black, or etc. It actual happens in reality. But why an Asian American director just copycated the same cliche like the others? She would have done something more and better than that. All in all, at least, it is still entertaining.
     

Blue

Blue is the first part of Krzysztof Kieslowski's triology. It followed with White and Red. In Blue, it tells a story of a French woman whose husband and daughter have passed away in a car accident. She cannot accept horrible truth and try to throw all her grief belongings in order to forget her previous life with her dearest family. The main character Julie features by famous French actress Juliette Binoche. The main theme is about liberty which the color of blue represents. The color has been displayed a number of times.

Julie tried to end her life by having tons of pills in the hospital. But  she failed. After that she decided to get rid of the life and all belongings of the past and start a new life in somewhere knowing nobody. However, his dead husband, the famous composer, left an incomplete piece of symphonic music in manuscript that has been shrouded her life in darkness. She cannot even do anything with the music playing in her head all the time. She suffers every day and find difficult to renew her life alone. Finally, Julie’s late husband’s assistant at work who has fell in love with her takes great efforts to persuade Julie to work with him to complete this music. They did it. And the master piece made by three of them has been shown in public.

Blue is a beautiful movie. Krzysztof combined great shots and great background music. I like the way this movie changes from a tale about a loss of lifestyle to an affirmations to lifestyle. I like the way that little elements like rats in the house loom big in the imagined of our major personality, where as what others consider essential such as completing her spouse's concert seem very modest.

Bombay 1995

       

        It is a love story between a Hindu boy and a Muslim girl. This movie just made so interested on finding out the history of these two religions. Their families stand in different positions toward god and view each other enemies and couldn’t tolerant anyone’s behavior any little more. However, it doesn’t change any bit between this pair of love birds. They run away from home and got married in Bombay. When they start their new life in the small apartment in Bombay, I couldn’t stop exclaiming how worthy it is for him to insist on pursuing his love at the first place. He fell in love at the first sight of her. He waits in the rain of where she gets off the bus back from school every day in order to getting to know her name and the moment the wind blows up her veil to see her face. The interesting scene is that he pretends to be another Muslim girl by wearing their special black gown for school. It actually connect with what he expressed in the last few scenes that he doesn’t care what religions they both engaged in, they are just Indians; and when he stands up bravely against the evil elements and stop the riots on 6^th December 1992 to prevent his wife and twin sons from a variety of circumstantial events. I cannot admit that I almost gave up on keeping watching this great and heart-warming movie after seeing so much long dancing and singing in their language I’ve no idea. Fortunately, I stayed till the end of it and wept my tears several time during the movie. And I strongly recommend it if you have no access to internet by the outcome Sandy did and do not want to wasting time by just sitting around in the house!

All-American Girl

     

       All-American Girl is a 1994 ABC situation comedy. It is the second American sitcom centered on a person of Asian descent (Korean), namely Cho. The main actress is called Margaret who was twenty-three-year-old, a modern American young woman who lived with her more traditional Korean family. She had a contentious relationship with her mother about some of her personal life events. For example, choosing her own dates. This episode I have watched was about a traditional parent who tried very hard to disrupt her daughter's right to choose who she dates with. Margaret's mother, a Korean lady who only wants her precious daughter goes out with a well-educated Korean guy she sets up. This was the rule of the society during those old days that you are only allowed to marry your own ethnicity. In this comedy, there are several stereotypes that shows a traditional Asian family. Margaret's grandmother represents the senior generation, who lost her partner and lives with younger generations in a same house. She doesn't work and loves verbally disrupt younger generations' daily issues while listening to them. And she loves sitting on the couch and watching TV all day long. A pair of fun character is Margaret's mother and father. Mother always plays the role with "white face", meanwhile, father plays with "red face". This is what we say in Chinese that 一个唱白脸，一个唱红脸。Usually the one who has"red face" has a quite mild personality and showing a lot of compromise, on the contrary, the "white face" mostly has a hot temper and, sometimes a desire for control. The last character who represents a common stereotype of Asian is Margaret's elder brother in this show. He has his greasy hair divided from the middle and speaks in a almost-kill-me tempo. Usually this type of kid will be adored more at home because he listens to whatever his parents say and do whatever what his parents like. Margaret's brother is pretty much a mommy-boy at this point. I was told that this TV series had been called off after only two seasons. I assume that it probably didn't set up a meaningful educational model for audiences. However, it's still laughable.

Legend of the Eight Samurai

        When our Prf. was going to play this movie Legend of the Eight Samurai, the first thing I did was to check the definition of samurai. According to the web dictionary, samurai means a Japanese warrior who was a member of the feudal military aristocracy. This story starts from a Japanese princess whose families have been killed by their enemies, escapes successfully and she is told the legend of a curse on her family. She has to find eight beads that identify eight dog-warriors to defeat the evil queen Tamazusa. The guy who rescues Princess Shizu-hime and his companion are the first two beads owners. While looking at the light shines with the bead in their palms, I can clearly see two characters 信 and 義, which separately means devotion and justice. The other character who is called Shinbei, a passionate young man who falls in love with the princess holds a magical bead in his palm with 仁 benevolence. This truth actually doesn't  come out until a little behind the middle of the story after Shinbei gets to know the evil queen is his biological mother. Shinbei is extremely sad about it and has been transferred to another body by the ruthless followers of his mother. The rest of the beads are 孝 filial piety, 忠 loyal, 智 wisdom, 悌 vision. All of them have been fight for looking for the rest of the beads to kill their enemies. To complete this difficult task, they have also been killed by the phantom ghosts to get to the last final step to success. At the end, the princess uses the high-power bow and arch to shoot the biggest evil and won the war. I couldn't give more compliments to this movie because of I'm not a big fan of fantasy. Otherwise, this movie was shoot in almost 30 years ago. I'm going to stop judging.

Shanghai Triad

The Chinese director Yi Mou Zhang and the gifted actress Li Gong’s love story went to the peak during shooting Red Sorghum in 1987 and ended in Shanghai Triad in 1995. Many outsiders assumed that Li Gong was the reason of Director Zhang’s broken marriage. Who knows? Love for artists is miserable anyway. The only fact I care is director Zhang’s movies. My dad is a big fan of his works. Therefore I was influenced spontaneously by what I constantly hear from him.  Nearly ten years ago, when I was in middle school, my dad and mom brought me to the movie theatre and we watched The Story Of Qiu Ju. It won three of us tears. I saw Li Gong’s eyes with confusing, sense of alienation, expectations, curiosity, stubbornness and happiness. I fell in love her acting from the moment on.

Shanghai Triad, it is the story of a gang boss in 1930s Shanghai and his willful, troublesome mistress. It’s seen through the eyes of a small boy from the country who loses his innocence in eight bloody days. Li Gong acts a nightclub singer who mocks and taunts her man. More specific, she is not viewed by him as his woman but a toy. He is rich and a powerful boss of a Shanghai crime triad. Their relationship sees by a boy who comes from the countryside and becomes little servant of Xiao Jin Bao (Li Gong). His assignment is to work as a personal servant for her and he has been taught by his godfather how to serve her as the best. The godfather’s word is law in his little world and can never resist. I’m not crazy about this whole movie because the feeling pushes me to think that there’s something missing. And Li Gong’s performance seems not happy towards the plot or something. It is just one movie I won’t go back to see again.

The World of Suzie Wong

       I love this movie a lot. I was so surprised by how they make two social classes crash when a lady of the night and a wealthy man fall in love in the movie The World of Suzie Wong. It is like a Chinese version of Pretty Woman. A pretty girl called Suzie who makes a living as a prostitude met the American architect Robert Lomax, who travels to Hong Kong to paint. Suzie met him on the boat pretending as a high-society heiress. She tries to imagine herself not as ashamed as her job at night in another role but an elegant virgin with a rich father. When the night comes, she has to go to the reality and has to face what she most hates deep in her heart. This movie was shot in a huge studio where looks like the real Hong Kong. The actress herself, Nancy Kwan, a Hong Kong-born Eurasian-American. The World of Suzie Wong can be seen the first formal work piece on the screen to Nancy Kwan. After auditioning Stark, she was luckily chosen to feature the role of Suzie in the movie. However, from the record, the reasons don't sound very comfortable to me. Stark wanted an Asian actress because slanting the eyes of a white actress would merely look artificial. He also praised Kwan's features: an "acceptable face" and "being alluringly leggy and perfectly formed". In most of the Hollywood movies, Asian woman always play the one who do anything to get a white man to like her. They have been viewed as a gentle China doll all the time. This made a lot of people think that an Asian woman would be the best wife who serves her husband on anything in order to making him happy. This point has been shown in the movie of Sayonara as well. The story was shot after WWII when the inter-racial marriage was not allowed. But  three American soldiers feel in love with the local Japanese women. One out of three got married with a Japanese lady and built their cozy  Japanese style home. We can see how a timid doll-like housewife the Japanese lady is and how lucky the American soldier thinks he is in the world. It is always like this and the stereotype of Asian woman implants in the society and hardly to erase.

The Joy Luck Club

      

        Amy Tan, an American writer who has wrote several works, the most well-known one is called The Joy Luck Club. It has translated in 35 languages. In 1933, this book was adapted into a successful movie with the same name of the novel. According to the understanding of Amy Tan's own life story, I can see that she was inspired by her own experience to write The Joy Luck Club. The movie/ novel is about mother-daughter relationship. There are four pair mother-daughters. It is about four Chinese American immigrant families. Mothers are all good friends and daughters grew up together. They always get together in the Joy Luck Club where people play Chinese traditional game Mahjong for money while feasting a variety of foods. From the beginning of the movie, June's mother passed away. She is asked to take her mom's place at the Mahjong table. As the story goes on, I hear stories of the old times and the new. When parents struggle to adjust to America, their American children must struggle with the confusion of having immigrant parents. The relationships between the mothers and daughters show a gap of no understanding. 

       While watching the movies, I couldn't help thinking of my mom and the bit changes of my own personalities that affect somewhat between us. My mom is just like all traditional  Chinese parents who have great ambitions for their children. She hold high hopes for me since I was very little. When I received my grade for final, or even a quiz, the red number on the paper was always lower than she expected. It was just never enough. When you get 80 (let's take 100 as a full score), she would say if you try a little harder, 90 should be shown; When you receive 90, she would expect the full score. As my personal view, Chinese parents love their children as much as American parents, or even I can say, more than American parents. Their way expressing love is being their for us as always. They don't speak love but do it. They hide the love part but show the strict face and attitude to stimulate the potential parts of their children. Yes, we are beautiful apples in their eyes. They just don't understand actually the most important element for planting apples is provide sufficient NATURAL LIGHT!

First Asian American Star in Hollywood

" I'm Anna May Wong. I come from old Hong Kong. But now I'm a Hollywood star. " This is what Anna May Wong sang in her performance . She was the first Asian American to become an international star in Hollywood. It's a pity that I have never heard of her name and any of her works in her Hollywood period. I created a toll to check how many people would be familiar with her and her life story through a Chinese website where most of my friends in China get on. I was not too surprised by the result. One out of 15 people has voted that she has heard about her name before; the other 14, all voted to have never heard of her at all. In her career, she focused on silent and sound film, television, stage, and radio as well. However, the first movie she featured the leading role is The Toll of the Sea. I like it not only because I don’t watch silent movie a lot, but also I think she did a good job at the age of 17.

In the movie, Anna May Wong played a young and naïve Chinese girl Lotus Flower who finds an American man, Allan in the water by her village. They fell in love and he promised to bring her back to America. While watching, I was thinking of a series of questions in my mind. Will he come back for her, this poor girl? Or will he just forget her forever? Apparently, the scriptwriter did not amaze me too much. I think Anna May Wong did very good performance. Like some other movies of hers, she always ended up losing her life or losing her heart. I really mean that because she views his man, in The Toll of the Sea, as her everything in the future. But he abandoned the love and affection between them. She was heart-broken with losing her husband, later on, giving her own daughter to her husband and another American woman. As usual, it is always what Asian performers get in American movies.

The reason why I love silent movie is that, I could focus more on their performance. The background music goes up and down by Lotus Flower’s emotion. And at the end, the scrip in my head is when Lotus Flower saved Allan by the water, the inhibitant said to her “be aware of strangers”!

The silhouette you made

My heart is so proud.

My mind is so focused.

I see the great things you have done to me.

I place them everywhere in my room.

I appreciate that god led you to my life.

Even sometimes I feel discouraged.

That's the part in the story.

Film Reflection to The Slanted Screen

     

     If you are an Asian, if you work as an actor in America, if you are a male, the documentary film The Slanted Screen tells us the results it will be. 
     When I was watching the film, I just appreciate that I am not one of the Asian actors. Because I am not strong enough to suffer in those situations they were in. The Slanted Screen is a 2006 documentary film written, produced, and directed by Jeff Adachi about the stereotypical depictions and absence of Asian males in American cinema and other media from the silent era to the present day. As an Asian myself, I was annoyed, indeed furious, over what I heard in the film. As matter as fact, I have seen countless American movies in my life. However,the roles of heroes, lawyers, doctors are not for Asian but nerds, bad drivers and Kungfu expert. It seems it is their destiny of their career. Why is so? Because of smaller eyes or skin color? It sounds ridiculous in the country of the kind of FREEDOM. 
      And the funny thing is that all my American friends thought I know Kungfu. Nope! It's not a natural skill or anything for each of Chinese. And when I first got my driving licence, some of them teased me by I am probably a stereotype of "Asian woman driver"! It sounded nothing for me when I first heard it. Because I didn't know the story of it. After then I was pissed off. All Chinese people I have met in America drives not as bad as some LOCAL people I know.Actually, they don't speed; they don't hold a coffee while driving; they don't turn up the music volume to be easily break your eardrum. In a word, every country or every area has a stereotype of a characterization. But it is ridiculous when they exaggerate anything with a magnifier.

One of my favorite Christian songs

Recently I'm so in love with this song!

Better Than A Hallelujah

     -----by Amy Grant

God loves a lullaby

In a mother's tears in the dead of night

Better than a Hallelujah sometimes

God loves the drunkard's cry

The soldier's plea not to let him die

Better than a Hallelujah sometimes

We pour out our miseries

God just hears a melody

Beautiful, the mess we are

The honest cries of breaking hearts

Are better than a Hallelujah

The woman holding on for life

The dying man giving up the fight

Are better than a Hallelujah sometimes

The tears of shame for what's been done

The silence when the words won't come

Are better than a Hallelujah sometimes

We pour out our miseries

God just hears a melody

Beautiful, the mess we are

The honest cries of breaking hearts

Are better than a Hallelujah

Better than a church bell ringing

Better than a choir singing out, singing out

We pour out our miseries

God just hears a melody

Beautiful, the mess we are

The honest cries of breaking hearts

Are better than a Hallelujah

We pour out our miseries

God just hears a melody

Beautiful, the mess we are

The honest cries of breaking hearts

Are better than a Hallelujah

(Better than a Hallelujah sometimes)

Better than a Hallelujah

(Better than a Hallelujah sometimes)