Something I've Noticed

X-posted here @ immigreat.deviantart.com/journ…

Why is it that if you have a Latin accent it's suddenly seen as ''sexy'' or if you have a British accent it's seen as ''intelligent'' but if you have an Asian accent it's ''comical''? I don't understand this, that society has to place Asians as comic relief and make fun of them.

Was watching Race the Sun the other night and although the film is corny and predictable what bothered me most was the Hawaiian stereotypes. Though the film is OK for what it's trying to say...an ''inspirational'' message about a bunch of misfits from the Konawaena High School winning a solar car race, the cliche racial stereotypes (and not just racial stereotypes but others as well...for example, quiet Asian girl being math genius and her overweight boyfriend being physically inactive, slow and almost dumb...why chubby characters are always seen as less attractive than the thin characters and treated as a constant joke I don't know) prevented me from enjoying the film.

Also Sixteen Candles. I don't understand why this movie is so popular. Gedde Watanabe's character is beyond insulting. According to IMDb.com:
''This movie has gotten a great deal of criticism from some of its Asian American viewers for its racial insensitivity and its negative impact on their upbringings. In a 2008 NPR piece titled "Long Duk Dong: Last of the Hollywood Stereotypes?," reporter Alison MacAdam interviewed Eric Nakamura, a co-founder of Giant Robot Magazine, which covers Asian and Asian American pop culture. Nakamura said, "Every single Asian dude who went to high school or junior high during the era of John Hughes's movies was called 'Donger.' I mean, if you're being called 'Long Duk Dong,' you're comic relief amongst a sea of people unlike you. And you're also being portrayed as a non-[American] person. You're being portrayed as a guy who just came off a boat and who's out of control. It's like every bad stereotype possible loaded into one character. Just the gong that, you know, appears behind them magically every time he's on the screen, gong, you know, that's awful. I mean, I feel bad for [actor Gedde Watanabe] in the end because he's had to live with the fact that all these Asian American men hate him." Watanabe was also interviewed for the piece, and he recounted numerous incidents in which people have publicly expressed their anger at him for playing a role that so widely disseminated negative stereotypes of Asian men.''

Believe me, this isn't the last of the Hollywood stereotypes on Asians. It still continues to persist. Asians are always doomed to be the high-techy, math/computer wizzes or funny sidekicks to the main characters, with an over-the-top accent.

Hey Arnold! Love the show and I understand what the creators were trying to do. They tried to show diversity in its cast of colorful characters BUT instead they went the contrived route. Phoebe Heyerdahl, the shy super smart sidekick to bully Helga. Mr. Hyunh,  an immigrant from Vietnam, working in a Mexican restaurant. They were trying to show us the Model Minority in a positive way, but is it positive representation of Asians or just more stereotypes?
Cool article written by a Vietnamese person that arrives at the positive conclusion:
talk.onevietnam.org/asian-in-m…

It's not just the Asian characters either but also the other immigrants in Arnold's tenement building and even some of the people of color. Gerald. Plays basketball and sings in the choir. He's a cool character and I'm not saying you can't be black and play basketball, but why the usual cliches? Seems like another ''Sassy Black Friend'' T.V. trope to me. Why is it that the main characters, usually white, have to have ''sassy black friends''? Not saying you can't, but why can't it be the other way around? Why can't the black characters be Face Characters for once, and the white characters sidekicks? I guess that's why I like I like The Princess and the Frog to a certain degree. The main character is a woman of color and she has a sassy white friend.

Now I know what people are going to say: ''Jesus you need to lighten the f*ck up. Expecting (intentional) social commentary in B-movies and cartoons is dumb. This is not a documentary. It's called a comedy. And in comedy there are jokes. And amazingly enough, jokes can be racist, homophobic, misogynistic, and not-PC. So lighten up and get a clue.''

Even if it's fiction and meant to be a comedy, does it make it right tho and why society continues to think it's OK?