The Midlife Crisis.
Slanted Screen: the crisis lies in stereotypes and the negative portrayals of Asian American men in films. However, like Slaying the Dragon, hindsight is 20/20, especially when the opportunities for Asian Americans in lead roles were nonexistent. At the birth of the movies these artists were groundbreaking in their contributions to the films. And while the racism, sexism, and other discrimination existed it isn’t until later, during it’s “midlife” when people begin to take these roles and plots apart, analyze them closely, compare them to history, and then critique them. Orientals is in, itself, an example of this midlife crisis. With Lee’s descriptions of movies such as Year of the Dragon and Rising Sun he illustrates the ways in which Asian American men are still misrepresented, underrepresented, and in need of a midlife crisis.
Saving Face: this movie moves past and breaks other stereotypes, such representing Asian American male sexuality (the many dates that Wil’s mother goes on, Cho’s attraction, and Little Yu’s surprise role) and the role of two queer Chinese American young women. While Wil’s character is a hard-working surgeon (at the beginning of the film the head surgeon says she will be Chief of Surgery by the time she is 45- five years before he stepped into the role) she is also seen as a multi-layered, complex woman. Other than the few, quick scenes in which she is seen in scrubs or her beeper is going off the majority of the film is focused on her as a daughter and a lover. This film also pushes back against the stereotype that women need to be put in physical danger or pressured situations to find love and be saved.
So here it is. The midlife crisis of Asian American films; without forgetting the contributions that Sessua Hayakawa or Bruce Lee made in showing other Asian Americans that representation is possible, it is now time to look at how those representations are limited and how the presence of Asian Americans on screen can (and needs to) still grow. Likewise, in Slanted Screen one of the people interviewed (the only women-who was white-) said that “there aren’t any good roles for Asian men in film.” I had a problem with this because it assumes that Asian men only have specific roles and unless those specific roles are written there is no part for them. As Lee points out in Orientals, the roles written for Asian American men were roles that subjected them to embodying the stereotypes that white America had projected onto them. Similarly, by writing “Asian roles” the projection of what an Asian role is and what the lead hero role is, recognizing the pattern in both of them to influence our acceptance of these stereotypes. On page 220 in Lee, there is an analysis of film Falling Down‘s main character and how his excessive reactions become comical. Lee comments the audience is prompted to laugh at his reactions which becomes comedic despite his obvious, unnecessary rage. By “writing these roles” for white men and then writing the role for his antagonist and casting an Asian American man we are training the audience to desensitize themselves and accept the protagonist as funny. (See: Gran Torino.)