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‘Charlotte Sometimes,’ Take 2

What obligations do Asian Pacific American filmmakers have to their community and to the “cause?”

That was a question director Eric Byler (who is half Chinese) was confronted with when his film Charlotte Sometimes screened at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival. The festival organizers asked Eric to speak to a class of aspiring filmmakers who had all seen his movie about four young APAs grappling with issues of sex and modern relationships.

Two APA men in the class took issue with the movie’s portrayal of its lead character — an APA male with relationship problems.

“Basically, their argument was that since Asian men are portrayed as being non-sexual in [mainstream] movies, Asian American films should be designed to fight that,” Eric remembers. “Asian men should be sexual and only have good luck with the women.”

Though Eric explained that his intention was to make a film that dealt honestly with flawed but human characters, and to show a more complex and realistic aspect of the APA experience, he didn’t have much luck changing the two students’ minds.

Another high profile APA indie film — Justin Lin’s Better Luck Tomorrow (to be released by MTV Films later this spring), which follows a group of privileged APA suburban teenagers who end up murdering another student — also made the festival rounds last year and managed to stir up a similar controversy. Though the film was highly acclaimed by critics and audiences alike, it also received some criticism for “portraying APAs in a negative light,” most prominently at last year’s Sundance Film Festival when a comment by, ironically, a non-Asian audience member about the film’s negative portrayals of APA teens sparked a minor debate at the film’s Q & A session.

Both Charlotte Sometimes and Better Luck Tomorrow represent a new wave in the still-burgeoning APA cinema movement. Whereas most films made by and about APAs in the past specifically tackled issues of ethnic identity head-on, these two films possess more of a post-ethnic identity. These are still works that explore the APA experience, but they feel no need to make an effort to educate, or to explain or justify that experience. The fact that the characters in these films are both Asian and American is already a given. These filmmakers are interested in jumping off from there to explore other issues. And yes, that means presenting stories whose main purpose isn’t to make APAs “look good.”

Which brings us back to the original question of whether or not APA filmmakers have an obligation to create “positive” portrayals of APAs to offset what the media normally presents.

This may not be much of a response, but I think the answer is both yes and no.

On one hand, you can’t ignore the lack of a true and consistent APA presence in film (and other media). The bulk of it has tended to be stereotypical at worst, marginal at best. If you look at things in this context, not only are we almost invisible (i.e. television shows set in hospitals in cities like San Francisco, featuring virtually no Asians), but when we are portrayed, it’s often in a limited capacity (i.e. martial arts experts, foreigners, dragon lady types, etc.). With such a lack of representation, it is no surprise that we are starving for positive images we can latch on to and embrace.

But on the other hand, this creates what can prove to be very real artistic limitations for APA filmmakers who have very specific stories to tell. Do we really want to limit our artists to only tackling projects that “make us look good” or that have specific political agendas? That would be just as reactionary and ultimately as narrowminded as anything Hollywood feeds us.

Ultimately, what I want to see more than anything else are truthful portrayals of APAs in whatever form that might take. Whether the story is about an Asian immigrant who opens a liquor store in an urban ghetto, an APA man unable to connect with women, or bored and privileged APA kids who steal, cheat and murder — none of these characters or stories are necessarily stereotypical or negative. It’s how the filmmaker decides to approach these characters and stories that are important. If he or she can tell these stories with genuine depth, emotion and passion — that to me seems to be the best way to create truly positive portrayals. This is something that both Eric Byler and Justin Lin have tried to do with their respective films. What they have to say may not always be what we want to hear, but it is something we need to listen to nonetheless.

Philip W. Chung is a writer and the co-artistic director of Lodestone Theatre Ensemble in L.A. His next project will be the Asian American horror film Children in the Mirror: www.childreninthemirror.com