INTO THE NEXT STAGE
With Asian Americans Like These... Who Needs Enemies?
By Guy Aoki
Wednesday, April 9, 2008

If the Rafu Shimpo had lived up to its mission of reporting issues of importance to the Asian American community, you would already have read about MANAA’s battle with Sony Pictures over their new film “21.” For whatever reason, the paper chose not to cover it, even though mainstream outlets like the Boston Herald and KABC-TV did.

In this column, I usually refrain from rehashing issues that MANAA takes on (e.g. Beyond the press release, I said nothing more about Norm MacDonald’s joke about “gooks” on the Adam Ca­rolla Show; but uh, come to think of it, the Rafu failed to inform you that he belatedly apologized—three weeks later. So now you know) unless there are some larger points to make. What came out of the 21 controversy and its coverage speaks to some of the embar­rassing character traits of some in our community.

To recap: In 2002, Ben Mezrich had a best-selling novel, “Bringing Down The House,” based on a real-life story of an MITprofessor who taught students how to count cards and beat Vegas casinos at blackjack. Most of those kids were Asian American. The star money-maker on the team was also an Asian American Jeff Ma. Yet in 2005, Mezrich told an MITaudience that for their movie ver­sion of it, executives at Sony Pictures had decided to go with an all-white cast except perhaps for an Asian female.

OK, got that? A book sells over a million-and-a-half copies and remains on the New York Times best-sellers list for over a year. Readers are apparently not “bothered” by the fact that most of the protagonists were Asian. But good ole racist Hollywood decides not to take a chance by reflecting reality. They go white, presumably because they don’t believe white audiences will pay money to see Asian people on screen. In late 2005, I spoke with Kevin Spacey’s co-producer, Dana Brunetti, who kept interrupting my spiel about the need to reflect reality and how even television shows in Hawaii rarely feature Asian Americans in prominent roles. Brunetti kept bringing up extraneous topics and gave that tired old line, “I’m just going to find the best actor for the role”—Meaning, “I’m going to use white actors and not seriously consider any Asians for this.”

Jeff Ma with actor Jim Sturgess. Notice the resemblance?

Over the next year-and-a-half, MA­NAA Vice President Jeff Mio and I made several phone calls and wrote several letters to Sony executives about this. The only reaction we got was from a flack who said the casting was none of our business.

Maybe because something we said actually got through to them—or who knows, maybe they were going to do it anyway—the filmmakers cast two Asian American actors among the five students—Aaron Yoo and Liza Lapira. But the lead went to a white Brit, Jim Sturgess of “Across The Universe.” Of course, this made a lot of sense because Sturgess is a household name whose very presence on a movie guarantees a huge opening weekend (OK, please note that I’m being extremely sarcastic here). As far as finding the best actors for the roles, consider this: Co-producer Kevin Spacey cast himself as the professor. He asked his co-star of two previous films, Kate Bosworth, who’d also worked with the director, to play one of the students. This director, Australian, chose a Brit for the lead. And the other white stu­dent was also in “Across the Universe.” Sounds like a combination of laziness and nepotism to me.

But this is what took the cake: In an interview with USA Today, Jeff Ma, who served as a consultant on the film, actually said, “I would have been a lot more insulted if they had chosen some­one who was Japanese or Korean, just to have an Asian playing me.” Ma was more concerned about getting someone who captured his personality.

What?!! Right, let’s do the “black test” folks: If a black man had his story told in a major motion picture, I’m sure you could picture him saying he would’ve been insulted if the filmmakers got a black man to play him—that he would’ve been more relieved that they found a white Brit because he was so much closer to his true personality.

Can you say “self-loathing Asian who wants to be white,” boys and girls? Can you say “pathetic loser?”

I let it rip with Laura Raposa of the Boston Herald. I crucified Ma. In re­sponse to her, he meekly said, “I am a proud Asian American and very proud of my Chinese culture, so I feel badly that people think I sold out…And frankly, there were components of the story that were changed that concern me more, like the fact my father was dead [when he’s still alive]!”

OK, Jeff, continue to feel badly. Now go and see a psychiatrist who can deter­mine when and why you first decided you were going to try to be an honorary white to be liked by everyone in society to the detriment of your own community. For that matter, anyone who would make this statement or thinks the guy’s ratio­nalization makes sense should also hang their head and seek therapy.

After doing an interview with KABC, I expected the white “powers that be” to offer lame excuses to my assertions. But sadly, they didn’t have to lift a fin­ger—members of the Asian American community did it even more effectively by proving how brainwashed they’ve al­ready become: In addition to Ma’s quote about being insulted, “MAD TV’s” Bobby Lee said he understood that the producers may’ve changed the cast from Asian to white because they didn’t think they could attract a large audience.

That presumes we don’t have enough talented actors or ones who can draw interest from a mainstream audience. Don’t sell us short, Bobby. If people regularly pay money to see movies star­ring Jackie Chan, Jet Li, and others who can barely speak English, why wouldn’t they be even more eager to see Asian Americans who can?

Carrie Ann Inaba pointed out she’s the only American judge on “Dancing With The Stars” and she’s Asian, which is saying something (it is, but what does that have to do with this movie?!). She added that we have to make our own opportunities.

Uh, Carrie Ann. Wasn’t this an op­portunity for Asian Americans to be featured prominently in a Hollywood film? Who didn’t make their own opportunity? Isn’t it about “whitey” who denied us those chances? Just as Universal Pictures didn’t allow director Justin Lin to even consider an Asian American lead for “Fast & the Furious: Tokyo Drift,” but they were OK with having a large role for a black guy (Bow Wow) in Japan?

We’re all familiar with that adage from “Fields of Dreams”: “If you build it, he will come.” But if you don’t build it in the first place, no one can come. Meaning if you don’t really get behind a feature starring an Asian American, how can anyone—Asian, white, or otherwise—come and support it? How can we disprove the notion that “Asian doesn’t sell?”

Ralph Macchio may’ve been the star of the first three “Karate Kid” films, but it was Pat Morita who got the loudest applause when his name came up in the opening credits. Hollywood can make anyone a star—and a box office magnet.

So this isn’t about economics. It’s about racism. Plain and simple.

And Bobby, if I believed white people wouldn’t watch Asian Americans on television, I wouldn’t have told the President of Fox in 2000 she needed to have an Asian regular on “MADTV” to offset the offensive yel­low-faced character Ms. Swan. Is it any coincidence that you got that gig the following year? You’re welcome.

And Carrie Ann, if you call play­ing one of the offensively stereotyped Japanese twins, Fook Yu or Fook Mi in “Austin Powers in Goldmember” “mak­ing your own opportunities,” uh… forget it. We’re not on the same page let alone the same planet.

And mind you, Lee’s and Inaba’s comments came right after announc­ing the nominees for the annual Asian Excellence Awards, a show they’re co-emceeing. If they can’t feel the pride then, I don’t know if they’ll ever.

For the rest of you: Start noticing the excuses that we make in order to fit in whether it’s excusing away racist com­ments about us, downplaying our lack of opportunities, or believing ridiculous excuses like those provided by Jeff Ma. It’s not too late to have some self-esteem and integrity. Or is it?

Till next time, keep your eyes and ears open.
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Guy Aoki, co-founder of the Media Action Network for Asian Americans, writes from Glendale. He can be reached at guyaoki@yahoo.com. Opinions expressed in this column are not neces­sarily those of Rafu Shimpo.