Hollywood & Asia

In our discussion yesterday we covered Hollywood’s stereotyping of Asia and Asian culture. From the era of early Hollywood and the 1920s through popularization of kung fu by Bruce Lee, to today’s action hero, typical Hollywood movies for the past 80 years, have portrayed Asians in typecast roles- usually negative roles- villains, gang members/leaders, prostitutes, or traitors. Unfortunately, as the US explores Asia and all things Asian, these stereotypes have not died. Americans learn about other cultures from movies and TV programs, and this vicious circle of stereotyping does not help Americans learn the true cultures of these lands, but only reinforces the negative stereotypes.

Recent Hollywood remakes of Asian movies such as Replacement Killers, or, The Grudge, The Ring, and many more, when compared to the original in the original language, are pretty bad. One exception and higher rated movie is last year’s Oscar winning The Departed, but when compared to the HK original, still is not as good. We can assume that the remake of the Korean My Sassy Girl is in for a similar disappointment.

We discussed Asian directors, and in particular Ang Lee, whose earlier movies such as The Wedding Banquet, and Eat Drink Man Woman were sadly overlooked. But whose Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, won 4 Oscars and his Brokeback Mountain finally won him the best director Oscar, plus two others. Did he really deserve best director for Brokeback? Was it just that he deserved best director for being a good director and was passed over so many times? He certainly had his share of less than appealing movies including Hulk, a remake of the 70s TV series.

Will the US ever really learn about true Asian culture? Not likely. The US has a way of filtering and distilling until the culture has all but become American culture. A process that has been happening ever since immigrants came to the US.