Black and Whitewashed Up at the Oscars

Seattle – Diversity ruled the the 2010 Academy Awards. It was all about the who would be the first woman director (“I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar”) or the first black director, or whether Mo’nique won a good award for an awful black part. Even Sandra Bullock won one for the Sara Palin Christian crowd, as there were cracks about Nazis surrounded by Jews. I was almost happy to see that the one movie with an Asian American lead was nominated for five categories, including best picture, original screenplay, and sound editing. “Up” the story about an old man and a pesky scout won Pixar’s fifth Oscar for best animated feature film as well as musical score. But I really got my buns steamed when I realized something was terribly wrong. If Asians are finally pulling head of the West in the Olympics, nobody seems to recognize that in show biz, it is the “model minority” that is the most pitifully represented.  That might partly be due to a lack of even a minimal amount of “affirmative” casting and consciousness. But it might also be because we’ve spent so much of our cultural capital taking over Harvard, Stanford and the Boston Symphony at the expense of other cultural territory previously exploited by Asian greats such as Nancy Kwan and Yul Brynner (yes, Buryat on his mom’s side),

The first thing everybody says about the Princess and the Frog is that she was Disney’s first African American princess, even if she’s drawn as a frog for most of the movie. Pixar had cast just about every stereotypical ethnic part EXCEPT Asians, and painted a bleak Asian-free future in WALL-E. But when they finally cast an adorable Asian kid in a long tradition of Asian sidekicks, they not only failed to promote the unique diversity milestone, but they deliberately swept it under the rug. Daveonfilm.com noticed that the screener package sent to the judges traded the picture of Russell’s Asian American boy scout in favor of Carl’s wife Elle. As an adult, she didn’t even have a speaking part in the silent tear-jerker backstory. The awards audience saw only the solo picture of Ed Asner’s Carl. If the entire studio team including co-founder Steve Jobs was there, I couldn’t track down any trace of Jordan Nagai in press pictures, videos or stories. While the Asian American Movement ™ continues to crusade for alternative marriage and Affirmative Action Against Chinese, why is it me, the Asian American Glenn Beck-alike that spills his cold noodles when Hollywood diversity doesn’t even throw Asians a fortune cookie? My other Oscar mugging nomination goes to the score of Princess which was full Disney musical just like the Lion King. While disfunctional blacks have no problem attracting awards, when a movie features a rare feast of authentic African American soul, zydeco and blues, it loses to Up, which didn’t have enough catchy songs to even release as a soundtrack album.

Last year, Clint Eastwood’s Grand Torino was spurned by the Oscars despite or perhaps because of an under-appreciated Asian American cast. I would have nominated Star Trek’s John Cho (of Harold and Kumar Prove Asians Can Be Complete Asses Too) for the other Best Asian American Actor. The only Asian American actresses I noticed was Liza Lapria’s geek FBI agent in the disposable Fast in Furious (which at least outsold Hurt Locker by a bazillion dollars) No East or South Asian film made even a nomination for foreign films which were dominated by 3 Latin American films. Avatar featured two Latinas, both of Puerto Rican and Dominican descent, Zoe Saldana as Pocahontas (also Star Trek’s young Uhuru) and Michelle Rodriguez as the chopper jockey. The only Asians I saw that night were the dolphin-clubbing Japanese in “The Cove”, who look like the inspiration for the “premeditated” lone-whale Orca jihad attack against its unfortunate trainer at Sea World.

As a Vietnam war buff, Avatar was hardly about “peace and harmony”. It was a high tech update on the old Cowboys and Indians / Viet Cong / Jihadist theme. If you took Star Wars, National Geographic, Miss Saigon, Dances With Wolves, Blackhawk Down and the Matrix and mixed it all together, you’d get Avatar.

America is oddly unfazed that the FBI still stands by their determination that Major Nidal Hassan’s Fort Hood rampage had no terrorist connection AFTER reviewing e-mails with Al Queda terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki asking for “spiritual guidance”. What kind of spiritual guidance do you think he got from Imam Awlaki who celebrated Hasan as hero for defending Islam? How innocent can Awlaki (who wasn’t even named as a person of interest) be when his other student arrived in America in exploding underpants the day after America announced he was thought he had been killed in an airstrike?

Which brings me back to director Cameron’s script which boldly spoke of “fighting terrorism with terrorism” and contemplating “martyrdom”. It was the eyes of an enraged Nidal Hassan that I saw in Jake and pilot Trudy Chacon  in Navi warpaint as they sent dozens of hapless “sky people” to their deaths in flames as we cheered them on. As much as any audience can feel the same passion in Avatar’s final “struggle for justice”, that’s exactly what drove people like Hasan or even disgruntled contract software engineers to shoot their comrades or fly airplanes big or small into buildings. Asians have been on both sides since the “The Sand Pebbles” showed how the Chinese pushed the Americans back across the sea before the Viet Cong did. I know what side I’m firmly on, but those who count Yassir Arafat, Che, Ho Chih Minh, Mao or Marx among your heroes might check where your true loyalties lie if you ever have to choose between America, Insert-Your-Race-Nationality-Or-Religion, or Mother Earth.

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