Fox Cancels ‘Banzai’
September 26, 2003
Mr. Banzai will no longer scream “Banzai!” for your television viewing pleasure. Fox television has canceled Banzai after a summer of controversy and protests. Racial caricatures like the show’s Mr. Banzai, who dressed in a karate outfit and shouted in a thick accent, offended many Asian Pacific American viewers.Fox would not elaborate whether controversy or low ratings ultimately killed the show after only six episodes. “We bought six episodes and we ran all of them,” points out Fox Vice President for Corporate Communications Scott Grogin. Grogin would not give any reasons for Banzai’s cancellation and hung up the phone when pressed for a response.
Fox Vice President for Diversity Mitsy Wilson’s office referred all inquiries to Grogin.
The show steadily lost viewers during its first three Sunday evenings, starting July 13. The show improved its ratings position against the three major television networks in its time slot, rising from fourth to third place in its final episode on Aug. 17.
Fox heavily promoted the new show and aired Banzai with its highly popular The Simpsons — an animated comedy that anchors the Sunday evening lineup.
The withdrawal of sponsorship by nine corporations in July and August may have ultimately brought Banzai down. In a campaign organized by the Internet discussion group BanBanzai, APAs asked corporate executives to stop advertising on Banzai. Some corporate executives had not heard of Banzai but viewed the show out of concern for their corporate image.
“Upon personal review of the program Banzai, GM made the decision to pull all advertising and support for the show,” General Motors Advertising Project Manager Liz Woods wrote to a BanBanzai organizer, adding that “our commercials should be associated with programming that conforms to basic standards of good taste.”
Other corporate executives had similar concerns about their companies’ continued association with Banzai. General Motors was unique in planning a review of its advertising policy “to ensure such objectionable content is eliminated from our media schedules.”
As reported in AsianWeek on Aug. 14, SBC Communications, Sprint and Sony were among the nine corporations that had also withdrawn after the July 27 showing of Banzai.
SBC felt that “this program was offensive to Asians/Asian [Pacific] Americans.”
Banzai’s detractors pointed out that a combination of sponsorship and a consumer boycott doomed the show.
“I believe that negative ratings and lack of corporate sponsorship both contributed to the demise of Banzai,” said BanBanzai founder Jane Liu. Group members were jubilant upon learning of Banzai’s cancellation. “It feels like a justly won victory.”
Besides BanBanzai’s campaign, modelminority.com organized a boycott of all Fox entertainment and sports networks, and Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA) organized a picket-sign protest of Fox.
“We’re happy that it’s canceled,” said newly elected MANAA president Jennifer Kuo, who said the show was demeaning to APAs and other groups. Kuo agreed that APA organizing efforts contributed to the show’s demise. “It’s good that crap like Banzai is not on TV anymore,” she said.
The tactic of lobbying advertisers to withdraw sponsorship of Banzai was a last recourse.
Kuo said that if networks do not in good faith listen to APAs, “we have to go where it hurts.” To help prevent future shows like Banzai from being produced in the future, MANAA is considering demanding diversity training for television executives. Kuo added, however, that one hour of diversity training “only works so well.”
The anti-Banzai movement revealed fissures within the APA activist community. While MANAA, the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) and a dozen or so other APA organizations protested Banzai, the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium (NAPALC) took an official neutral stance, stating that the show’s humor allowed for various interpretations.
Nevertheless, NAPALC director Karen Narasaki said she was happy Banzai had been canceled and called it a “stupid show.” Narasaki explained that NAPALC thought that Banzai “would die a natural death” and that it was “not in our best interests to bring more attention to [Banzai].”
In July, MANAA organizer Charles Chang publicly criticized Wenda Fong and Quan Phung, both Fox vice presidents for helping to produce Banzai. In response, Narasaki wrote publicly in the executives’ defense. Narasaki continued to defend the executives this month by saying Fong and Phung both spoke out against Fox Movie Channel’s Charlie Chan movie series. According to Narasaki, when socially conscious executives are publicly criticized, they ask themselves, “Why should I care?”
To prevent offensive shows, Narasaki called for APAs to raise their voices. “Our community does not write in enough,” she said. For example, Narasaki noted APAs should write to NBC to protest Jay Leno’s continued jokes about Koreans eating dogs.
Although MANAA and NAPALC disagreed on the correct approach to responding to Banzai, both organizations agreed that Fox Movie Channel should cancel its Charlie Chan movie series. The decades-old films feature a white actor in yellow-face playing a wily Chinese American detective.
Although Fox Movie Channel agreed in July to cancel the Charlie Chan films, it changed its position almost immediately. APA organizations including NAPALC and the Organization for Chinese Americans then negotiated an unusual compromise. Before the broadcast of each Charlie Chan film, a panel of APA activists, intellectuals and actors will discuss the film and its portrayals of Asians and other minorities.
NAPALC and MANAA are part of the Asian Pacific American Media Coalition, whose member organizations work for at least one common goal: more and better APA roles in the mass media. “There shouldn’t be any infighting within the coalition,” said Kuo, the MANAA president. “We need to push our common cause.”
The goal, according to Narasaki, is to “have more images — good and bad — the breadth of who we are. A picture of Asian [Pacific] Americans that is much more complex than what we have right now.”
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