Tweaking the theme of identity, this story had a lot to do with the bending of reality. The moment with Haruki’s ghost is the first time that the book changes from being part of our reality and turning into something that twists the idea of what reality was presented as in this story.

The relationship between Nao and Haruki shown at the temple is an interesting one; a relationship between the living and the dead. Haruki gives her hints towards different things that happened to him during the war, while starting an attachment that Nao feels towards him that continues to strengthen when she reads his letters.

Identity also begins to shift for Nao during her time at the temple as she searches for her ‘Supapowa!’, gaining strength and insight, even if she doesn’t always use it in the most productive way.

As we have seen, there were issues relating to family, tradition and generation gaps within this film. Wei struggled with admitting to his parents that he was gay which in return affected his relationship with his lover. As we go on to see during the movie, the struggle Wei has with his identity and that his mother continuously attempts to set him up with a woman so that he can get married and give she and his father grandchildren. The traditional wedding was supposed to be a huge celebration between the families of the two getting married yet Wei wanted to make it a small wedding so that he could get it out of the way and so his parents would stop heckling him about finding a wife.

The family/tradition issue is a common issue we have seen in multiple films this quarter. For instance, in Saving Face, Wil is unable to tell her mother that she is a lesbian which in result makes she and her mother’s relationship suffer. However, once she admits to her mother and her mother finally accepts the fact that she is not straight, forces her mother to grow as a person and to step away from sticking to just what her family expects from her but she is also finally willing to do what makes her happy, although it is not the traditional way of doing things neither is what her family expects of her. This is similar because Wei and his father suffer with having a successful relationship because his father is so focused on wanting grandchildren that he lacks having a close relationship with his own son. Wei is scared to tell his family that he is gay because he knows that it will disappoint them, and he is also breaking away from what is expected of him from his family.

Ridiculous [ri-dik-yuh-luhs]  adjective

What I appreciate the most about The Debut was that it was a story about Filipino families. It seems like there aren’t enough stories out there about this particular culture. There seems to be more movies based around Japanese and Chinese culture, but not many when it comes to some of the other Asian and Asian American cultures.

Something else about this movie that was interesting was the idea wish that the main character’s father had for him to succeed. He had had an option to ‘follow his dreams,’ but he had sacrificed it all for his family. All he wanted was for his son to succeed and not have to go through the hardships he had gone through when he hadn’t been able to make his dream a reality, even if it meant sacrificing immediate happiness.

The portrayal of the reluctance to accept their parents’ culture was another interesting point. It was neat to see how the character struggled with integrating the Filipino culture into general American teen culture, and the battle that he faced in order to learn to accept the different aspects of his life, as well as respect the mindsets of both.