Word, my friend. Word.

Regarding the sexism/racism jokes, I didn’t think it was that bad. It’s no worse than what’s out there in terms of fratboy movies. The American Pie series was just as ’sexist’ I guess, I don’t know.

What’s the Cindy Kim remark everyone’s talking about? I didn’t see that part.

However, the solution is not to hold Asian American movies to a high standard, just to hold mainstream movies to as high a standard.

First of all, I’m sorry I didn’t state this in the beginning (it would’ve cleared up confusion), I wasn’t replying specifically to your post. I was more just stating my opinion about the film and some of the criticisms I’ve heard about it. I actually agree with what you have to say- namely that the female characters are one-dimensional. I would never argue with that assessment. And, yeah, okay, I do get that this is a movie you went to see, support, etc, and so you are going to judge it. That makes sense.

And I DEFINITELY get the deal about satire-gone-bad or misinterpreted or just ill-used. I sat through an entire season of the Dave Chappelle show on a majority-white college campus. It was straight torture, and I was throwing eye-darts at frat boys on a daily basis.

Yes, in H&K, women were either unattainable, perfect-girls-next-door, or whores. But how many female-based movies show men in the same ridiculous standards- player, best friend, dream guy? I mean, I just choose to see H&K as a silly fratty-guy flick, and I don’t think it should be held to a microscope because it stars Asian men (again, not saying you, in particular, are doing this. Just a point).

1) Who is doing this? This thread is strawmanning all over the place.

Re-read my original post. I am not saying the film is horrid and I’m not criticizing it simply because it has sexist elements. I am criticizing it because it has one dimensional (yes, up to and ESPECIALLY including Kumar’s love interest) characters and those happen to be female. I’m criticizing it because those sexist elements do not qualify as “satire”–they are simply sexist.

Are there people having knee-jerk reactions that some might refer to as “PC”. Perhaps. I am not. Please speak to me.

2) With that in mind, we must criticize every fratty flick with those same weaknesses or worse, which is almost every frat flick ever made.

Done and done. The difference is I dropped twenty bucks on this film that went to support 88 seconds instead of H & K and I don’t do the same with other fratty flicks.

Let me clarify one last point: Simply saying something is satire or ironical doesn’t make it true. Surely we are all familiar with the “it was a joke when I squinted up my eyes to mock you” defense. We have also probably all used racial satire to mock racist. But the latter requires an understanding that shines through in the action. Tone and who supports the speech is critical.

When you examine these elements in H&K, it’s pretty clear that the tone and whether the speech/action is support differs between the racial and gender issues. One is almost 100% of the time satire, and the other is rarely such.

That’s problematic.

That said, the movie even laughs at itself, the over-romanticized elements of Harold and Maria is JUST as unrealistic as NPH (in all his real-life gay glory, which is itself satire) branding some whore on the ass. H&K is a satire of everything- racism, sexism, even itself.

Besides, John Cho is hot.

Apology accepted. I apologize also for focusing on a throwaway line. There is certainly insecurity ruining the discourse coming from every end of the community and your call to address that it necessary and vital.

The above is the other rift we have, and where much of the miscommunication is coming from.

1) I see no difference between sexism and racism and other -isms that root in the majority power culture’s need to control.

2) I have no problem with either issue being addressed with strategic satire. As you say, it is one of the best and only ways to address these issues in a pathological society.

3) We must evaluate each situation, as we are forced to everyday in our interactions as members of the ethnic minority in our respective societies, with what skills are at our disposal.

4) With that in mind, I have evaluated and it seems very clear the difference between the approach to race and sex in the movie. The approach to race is satirical, the approach to sex (not sexuality) is merely cheap, low-hanging fruit. As you can see in my posts, I’m not talking about the 14 year-old “I get to see pussy all day!” idea. I’m talking about the way that THE MAIN NARRATIVE in the film addresses women in general.

That’s the key difference for me–whether people choose to laugh at the racist elements or understand the satire, the racial perspective is crystal clear. The gender perspective is not, or in some cases, appears to me to be clearly regressive.

Both issues need to be addressed–that’s why Chappelle should be honored–he was brave enough to walk away when he felt that those who saw themselves as his masters were attempting to make money off of white racism rather than address racial issues. But the more serious one is the careless non-satirical approach to sexism in the movie.

Secondly, I have directly engaged your argument in at least two posts. To summarize very explicitly, here is my position: you have put this movie into a box. You consider it to be racial satire, and as such, race-based jokes are permitted, which would otherwise be very offensive in another context. Sex-based jokes are not permitted and are “sexist” in your view of this movie.

I am putting it into a bigger box, or perhaps a multi-module box: it may primarily be racial satire, but it also includes sexual satire. This reviewer would seem to agree:
http://www.bostonherald.com/entertainment/arts_culture/view.bg?articleid=1089722

“Nothing is off-limits … Not racism. Not sexism.”

I think the ridiculous satirical elements are pretty obvious: the bottomless party filled with just women, the deliberately-offensive Cindy Kim reference, the branding of the prostitute, even the “we’re whores” comment. Clearly, they’re mocking sex issues as well. Sure, there is some titillation at play here, but there is also “racial titillation”: you can clearly make the points they make in a much less offensive way, but that would defeat the purpose.

My comment on “insecurity” in AA activism was a bit of a throwaway line about serious problems I see in any sort of social activism in general: at this point in time, much of it is based on

1) Fear/ self-victimization/ insecurity
2) Condescension/ disdain
3) Narcissism

I’ll post more of my thoughts on this later, but to put it very briefly, I believe that political/social activist groups tend to be really fucked up and filled with really fucked up people, and this fucks up, or undermines, the legitimacy of their political/social agendas. It wasn’t always this way, but it’s become this way, partially as a result of baby boomer narcissism which has been passed onto the boomer children, partly because all the fundamental fights have been won (having established “formal” equality but not “substantive” equality), and partly because it seems to be the nature of the beast.

(”Atlasien” was a prime example of a good person who completely lost perspective as she got caught up in her feminist agenda. There are thousands, if not millions, like her. Also let me say that I don’t exempt myself from this, as none of us is immune; I try to be aware of the roots of my reactions and motivations and conduct myself as best I can.)

I’ll give you an extremely brief example, which will probably piss off Pat the Great. His girl was “downright appalled by the way gender was handled in the movie” and she and her friend “felt unsafe - unsafe in the way that you might feel if you’re the only asian person watching Breakfast at Tiffany’s in an all-white theatre.”

With regard to any “sexism” contained in this movie, look to my many previous posts for my thoughts there. Essentially, I don’t the movie “worsens the female condition”, or promotes “objectification” and “sexism” any more than it promotes objectification via class, age, race, appearance, or physical ability: it’s all there if you look hard enough, or are sensitive enough, but let’s keep some fucking perspective.

With regard to them feeling “unsafe” or “alone,” it can’t be compared to being a singular Asian at Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I’m going to make a fairly safe assumption here and guess that there were way more than just two females in that theater, and that they probably weren’t the only AA ones either. So their feelings don’t stem from any danger or isolation based on numbers in the physical world.

They stem from the mind. They stem from the fact that they feel isolated in their offended-ness; that they know “better” than all the other women and men in the room, and they don’t consider that perhaps their offended-ness is not warranted, and certainly not to the degree that they feel it. There is an incredible self-centeredness in this reaction; there is a sense of fear and victimization here, and there is certainly massive disdain for fellow audience members.

The question is, is it warranted? Is this reaction “reasonable” given the whole context of the movie? I believe that it is not, and I believe that anyone who feels this way has lost a bit of perspective on just what sexism (or racism or whatever-ism is), and that they are projecting their own fears and insecurities onto others. They are bringing their own monsters out, and essentially “creating” them where none exist (or where the “real” ones are a lot less scary).

This is a huge problem in social activism, and I think accusing H&K of being “sexist” is symptomatic of that problem. What’s worse, we’re taught to be this way by the intellectual and social activist elite.

As much as we may disagree on gender portrayals, isn’t it much more important to be furious about that?