“I am not what you would think of when you think of a movie star. I don’t look like one. I don’t sound like one. I don’t act like one,” she said. “I want to show girls, young Asian-American girls, that you can be literally what you don’t see there and you can still do it. You have to open the door for the next generation.”
Read MoreFinding that community of Asian American creatives wanting to work and make things together is key. Nancy Wang Yuen emphasizes that “The talent has been there. There is more support, more platforms, [people are] more nurtured. There are more Asian Americans behind-the-scenes working on Asian American projects…a desire for Asian American writers to tell the story.”
Read MoreThe pain of Asians is not something to be disregarded or pushed down, even as Borstein, Gillis, and Yang all believed, at some point and in their own way, that the aggrieved should just try harder. It’s not clear why this expectation consistently falls on Asians. None of us think combatting a bad comedian is the first priority of forging a path toward collective liberation; we’re just trying to say that it sucks. It’s that simple.
Read MoreOur 28th season, my first at Theater Mu, is inspired by the late Yuri Kochiyama, the legendary Asian American civil rights activist who urged her community, “Tomorrow’s world is yours to build.”
Read MoreYang joined SNL last season as a writer and will be the show's first full-time Asian American castmember. He also co-hosts the Las Culturistas podcast. He appeared on camera as Kim Jong-Un last season in a sketch with Sandra Oh.
Read MoreConstance Wu recounted a childhood memory in which a teacher wrongly accused her of plagiarism. “My parents, while they are very educated ... his spoken accent is very strong and he has a softer voice. ... this woman is already thinking that I’m dumb and I’m not good enough. I’m not going to let her think that about my parents just because they talk differently,” she said.
Read MoreWhen Asians were declared a model minority—by the community itself, and then embraced as such by Westerners—face put on the pressure to maintain it. It needs to be recognized that Asian Americans are a diverse amalgam of different cultures that contains both ends of the spectrum: those that have “succeeded," in the traditional sense, but many who haven’t. Then, perhaps there can be the acknowledgement that anyone can break under immense pressure, and discussions of mental health can be normalized.
Read More“It's also a great way for Filipino-Americans to have representation in America right now because I didn't have that sh*t growing up,” Eva says, “For me, it was finally a chance, where I felt like this made sense. This is my story, this is the girl next door's story. This is the girl in the Philippines' story. This is a Filipino story.”
Read MoreIn doing so, we’re reinforcing the basic premise of critics: that adherence to Western masculinity should be the yardstick by which manhood and sexual appeal are universally measured. Instead of rejecting objectification and fetishization—realities that Asian women face every day—Asian men are aspiring to such circumstances.
Read MoreBut there’s a clear objective to this objectification: detonation — to blow up the stereotype of the emasculated Asian man. If you’re not familiar with Hollywood’s troubled history of portraying Asian men, it’s a given that if an Asian man pops up in a mainstream movie, he’s going to be asexual.
Read More“They’re the ones who always do the right thing, stand up for the little guy and then fly away into the sunset. What could be more cool than that? I think seeing yourself represented in that way can have a profound impact on how you view your place in society, your cultural identity and what you are capable of achieving.”
Read More“There’s nothing else to call him but the butt of the joke, because everything that makes him powerful is the very thing that makes him laughable in the film,” said Yuen, who found the depiction and her theater’s reaction to it insulting. “His kung fu becomes a joke, and his philosophizing becomes a fortune cookie, and the sounds that he makes as he does kung fu are literally made fun of by Cliff. They made his arrogance look like he was a fraud.”
Read MoreThe story is framed and told by white men with little or no consultation from the Vietnamese community. And each time it plays, it will get a standing ovation because — well — the performances are strong and eclipse the racist details and macro-aggressions in the narrative.
Read MoreThere is growing desire to see hot Asian men up on the small and big screen. However, it’s still an unfortunate world that we live in when actors of color have a more difficult time landing leading roles, as Hollywood remains overwhelmingly white.
Read MoreIn addition to the new K-Pop category, BTS was nominated in three others — “Best Collaboration,” “Best Art Direction” and “Best Choreography.” But given the group’s overwhelming popularity, fans questioned why BTS and other K-pop groups needed to be separated from the main awards, such as “Best Pop” and “Artist of the Year.”
Read MoreBut while the current wave of movies makes the necessary first steps of representation, we must interrogate whose stories are being told. Judging by the roster of what's hitting theaters, Hollywood—and the people talking about its successes—seem stuck in the problematic loop of conflating "Asian" with "East Asian," boiling down the "Asian American experience" to one phrase that doesn't actually suit all.
Read MoreSeonjae Kim is a NYC based director and writer from Seoul, South Korea. Riot Antigone, her original Riot Grrrl musical adaptation of Sophocles' tragedy will be published in a Routledge anthology of Greek adaptations as well as be released as an independent record.
Read MoreLeah Nanako Winkler is an award-winning playwright from Kamakura, Japan and Lexington Kentucky. Her plays include God Said This, Kentucky, Two Mile Hollow , Death For Sydney Black, Diversity Awareness Picnic, Double Suicide At Ueno Park, Linus and Murray, and more. The New York Times called her a “distinctive new voice.”
Read MoreThe Chinese-Canadian actor, 30, was announced as Marvel’s pick for the role of the kung fu master in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings at Saturday’s panel at San Diego Comic-Con. The upcoming film marks Marvel’s first feature with an Asian lead.
Read MoreOh, yeah. It was a full-body experience. It’s a unique experience, to leave America and go to where you are “from.” Your whole life, you’re being told that you don’t belong here [in America]. Then you go there [to China] and really realize that you don’t belong there. But then you think about how this is your history too, and you can’t forget that part about yourself. That’s what happened to me.
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