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Wednesday, April 21, 2004
 I just learned about this Japanese sitcom, Oh! Mikey, in an old issue of Wired. It's about an American expat family living in Japan and all the roles are played by...mannequins. So much for the American dream. I can't wait to get the DVD, which has English subtitles and can be purchased at CD Japan (for less than on J-Box)!
3:52 PM
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Monday, April 19, 2004
I was struck by these quotes from Mitchell Duneier's Slim's Table in an essay by law professor Patricia J. Williams (one of the most brilliant, plain-spoken theorists on race I forgot I knew about):
"Many of these [black, working class] men grew up in homes where the father was at least as absent as in today's [1994] white middle-class families. Yet these are still people whom the contemporary men's movement would envy. They are consistently inner-directed and firm, and they act with resolve; their images of self-worth are not derived from material possessions or the approval of others; they are disciplined ascetics with respect for wisdom and experience; usually humble, they can be quiet, sincere, and discreet, and they look for those qualities in their friends. They are sensitive, but not "soft" in any sense that the men's movement sees as the basis of its gender crisis. They know how to put their foot down, and how to 'show their swords.'"
"As the men's movement searches for a masculinity it can admire, it might begin by studying black males of this sort and attepting to comprehend how the older ghettos formed men of such character. Indeed, sociologists and pyschologists need to explore with greater care the hypothesis that the adaptations of some black men have produced at least some variants of a ghetto-specific masculinity with positive characteristics that might serve as a model to men in the wider society."
[as quoted in "Meditations on Masculinity" in Constructing Masculinity, edited Maurice Berger, Brian Wallis, and Simon Watson, Routledge, 1995]
As Williams exclaims, it's "astonishing" that she has to look to a sociologist to find "good" black male role models. If you can see through the science-speak, the suggestion that these working class black men could serve as models for white men is, frankly, revolutionary, and proof positive that there is a "there there" when it comes to such "invisible men." It also gives the lie to pervasive thinking that all black/Asian/Latino/gay men are the same, and that stereotypes exist for a reason. And it does so in scientific language, a format that, while it has been criticized for its uncritical embrace of objectivity, is still widely recognized as the "truth". At any rate, I feel less alone in asserting that it's the invisible, real men out there who not only defy dominant stereotypes, but hold the key to re-vamping the whole concept of masculinity.
2:35 PM
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Saturday, April 17, 2004
Lately my life seems to revolve around racial performance. I just saw Kazuyuki Izutsu's Get Up! at the San Francisco International Film Festival, which is definitely one of the more wacky and provocative Japanese films I've seen, well, probably ever. It was a huge box office success in Japan, and as Roger Garcia, the programmer for Asian films stated in the introduction, it's not the kind of film you usually see at the festival. It's a screwball comedy about a Yakuza boss who worships James Brown. The boss is going away to prison, and his men vow to kidnap JB for one last farewell appearance. They end up with an impersonator (all black men look alike, dontcha know), and through a series of misadventures involving government investigators, hair dryer delivery men and a long lost daughter...well, mayhem ensues.
Along the way, there are plenty of scenes of middle-aged Yakuza men getting their groove on, singing "Sex Machine" with heavy Japanese accents. It's a sight I imagine plays a little differently (although no less humorously) in Japan than it does here, especially in the wake of William Hung's success. I didn't think it was as funny as the mostly white audience did, but there is one TRULY transcendent moment that shoos all the slapsticky schlock clear out of mind. It's the Yakuza boss performing James Brown, and it's one of those moments where you apprehend the simultaneous clashing and melting of cultural borders. Toshiyuki Nishida's performance as the boss is cartoonish and exaggerated throughout the film, but in this scene he's channeling the Godfather of Soul with such, well, soul that you can't help but laugh, and cheer.
But Get Up! quickly undoes whatever good karma it engenders. There's a scene at the very end of the film in which an entire school assembly breaks out and gets down, only to have giant fake afros suddenly appear on their heads. It's funny, I guess, but it's also kind of offensive. Nishida's JB performance comes across as authentic despite the fact that he's not even wearing a JB costume. The donning of the afro wigs strikes me as cheap, somehow. What's disturbing about it is that it ties a cultural expression to a trait that's both cultural and racial. Or rather, what was so beautiful about Nishida's performance as JB, was that you could see James Brown without actually seeing James Brown. Capiche? There's a lot of other stuff in there about performance and impersonation and tributes, etc., but it's too much to unpack right now...
1:03 AM
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Friday, April 16, 2004
In addition to debuting at #1 on the Billboard Independent Album Chart, William Hung's Inspiration was the most-listened-to CD Listening Party in AOL history, topping the previous record-holder, Britney Spears.
And a news headline that would make Mother Goose proud: "Registers Rung by Young William Hung".
2:49 PM
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The WB's upcoming Superstar USA weeds out the good singers and convinces the bad ones they've won, which although I've fought on the side of badness in the past, just sounds plain ol' mean to me.
2:13 PM
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Thursday, April 15, 2004
I've been doing some reading on Buddhism lately, and it strikes me how philosophically speaking, it's rather similar to postmodern or deconstructionist thinking. I suppose this is nothing new, but I haven't been able to find very many articles about it on the internet. So without corroboration, I think it's the sense of everything being relative and interconnected that ties them together. We have multiple and ever-shifting points of view; we're not unified, independent subjects. We're amalgamations of sensation and experience, coalescing for a relatively brief period of time and then dispersing, only to coalesce in some other form later on. If you leave out the reincarnation bit, it sounds a lot like deconstruction -- the death of the author, intertextuality, yadda yadda yadda.
But before we get too heady, I must admit that my knowledge of Buddhism comes only from an early childhood of Buddhist Sunday school (origami life of the Buddha, anyone?), and from a gift from corporate America -- Robert (father of Uma, friend of the Dalai Lama) Thurman's Infinite Life (Thurman is also a pal of my company's CEO, and he came to work to give a talk.) Now, I never thought I'd be reading a book with a purple cover called Infinite Life, and in fact, I haven't made it much past the 2nd chapter, but I'm impressed by Thurman's populism. As a child, the abstract idea of compassion -- "Buddha loves every living thing" -- seemed, well, abstract. We were constantly told to be compassionate, but we were never given any good reason, at least any reason that appealed to an eight-year-old's mind. I rather enjoyed the reverend's sermons when he told stories about eating ants, and I liked singing the hymns in Japanese (from phonetic Roman alphabet spellings), but for the most part I was bored. Once, I brought a book to read, but as they made all us kids sit up in the front, I was quickly shamed by my Sunday school teacher to put it away. At least we got a reward for our feigned attentiveness: as we filed out of the temple, we each got a cookie. It was usually one of those generic vanilla sandwich cookies, but sometimes it was an Oreo, and sometimes Mother's brand, I think. Then it was off to Sunday school, where we engaged in the aforementioned historical origami, as well as melted crayon sandpaper drawings and the construction of fuzzy spinny head pencil tops. What those had to do with being a good Young Buddhist I still haven't figured out.
So Thurman's approach, while not exactly Buddhism for dummies, is (sorry) enlightening. He's very good at explaining the basic principles of Buddhism in 21st century American pop cultural terms. For example, during his talk he used the movie Groundhog Day to explain the concept of reincarnation and multiple, serial lives. And he uses The Matrix to explain how material existence is nothing but illusion. Nothing high-handed or abstruse. I like that. Suddenly things started to click from way back when -- so that's why we should be compassionate: because it might come back to bite us in the butt later on. So that's why we needn't hurry through life with a "carpe diem" mentality: we have all of eternity to work on perfecting ourselves. I think what was missing from my early Buddhist education was the concept of reincarnation.
I may be wrong about this (I'm digging back to a college Religious Studies class), but the Japanese strain of Mahayana Buddhism ("Pure Land") that my parents and grandparents ascribed to must've dropped the teaching of reincarnation somewhere along the way. We were taught that when we died we went to the "Pure Land," not to another version of life on earth. Last week, we held the 49th day memorial service and burial for my grandmother, whose soul, as the priest explained, has been journeying through 7 gates (it's 7 days between gates and she must pause at each gate to reflect upon her life, which made me fondly recall Hirokazu Koreeda's After Life.) before she gets to enlightenment. She was given the name of a bodhisattva, so I guess she becomes a sort of buddha and a teacher to those of us left here behind. Dararith (who is a better Buddhist than I) says that when Mahayana "Greater Vehicle" and Theravadin or Hinayana ("Lesser Vehicle") Buddhism split, the former asserted that individual people need not seek enlightenment personally -- the temple and the priests could do it for them. Theravadin practice is the more traditional one we think of when we think of Buddhist monks and nuns -- individual enlightenment only comes through individual effort. I suppose it's somewhat analogous to the basic split between Catholicism and Protestantism, although it does without the hoo-ha about people rising from the dead, etc.
So I think it's interesting that through postmodern, or post-structuralist, or social constructionist or deconstructionist thinking that Western thought has finally arrived at a less-than-fixed notion of the self, something that Buddhists have taught since the 5th century BCE. It also makes projects like Roland Barthes' Empire of Signs in which he "reads" Japan seem completely ironic. I suppose it could only be more ironic if he "read" India, birthplace of the Buddha. Barthes is using his theories of a de-centered author/readership to conduct a wholly irresponsible and Eurocentric reading of everything from a bowl of miso soup to the Japanese eyelid. The problem with postmodernism, as many people have pointed out, is that it has no moral center. Because Western philosophers and theorists have no concept of reincarnation or universal accountability, they have detached the sign from the signified (or is it signifier? I always get that confused) without any sense of the repercussions of their actions.
Mab Segrest does an excellent job of explicating this problem in the introduction to Born to Belonging: Writings on Spirit and Justice, another title that sounds like something I'd never read. She basically deconstructs the whole history of Western subjectivity, starting with Descartes and ending somewhere near Sartre's Nausea, which she reads as an encounter with and repudiation of the infinite boundlessness of life that Buddhism embraces. Basically, Sartre saw the man (or the lack thereof) behind the curtain, and instead of making him feel free, it made him sick. So he scuttled back into his neat little individual-sized box of an identity and declared that existence was basically meaningless.
Now, although last I checked, theory is still dead, I still enjoy the machinations of postmodern thought as much as the next person -- it's fun, and I think it's still useful. But I agree with Segrest in believing that all the mental gymnastics in the world won't make a difference if they're not grounded in some basic moral or ethical respect for life. It's not enough to take things apart just to show how smart you are. It has to mean something. I guess this is just a symptom of getting older. If your teens and twenties are spent wanting to tear things down, in your thirties, you start to hope that you can make something out of all that useless rubble.
8:32 PM
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I seem to be writing about Asian American men a lot lately. According to my posts, you'd think there was some kind of movement going on: William Hung (1, 2, 3), "Gay or Asian?", Metrosexuality and Asian American Men. And now, further proof: an article about the Asian American Journalists' Association's new DVD: "The Men of AAJA". No, it's not beefcake, it's an attempt to showcase the work of Asian American male broadcast journalists, who are outnumbered 5 to 1 by their comely female counterparts. The DVD will be given to radio and TV news directors to make them aware of the talented Asian American men out there capable of bringing the news. AAJA hopes not only to raise awareness of the hiring imbalance, but to inspire more Asian Americans to get into broadcast journalism. Who knows, Asian American men, this just might be your year.
7:31 PM
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I started this entry on March 8 and it somehow got lost...but here it is in it's unfinished glory:
I saw two Anna May Wong movies this weekend at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival.
Although no compendium of Asian American media images is complete without her, until recently, surprisingly little work has been done on Wong's life and legacy. In many a critical Asian American documentary she has come to stand for the quintessential "Dragon Lady" -- an egregious example of orientalist stereotyping from a bygone era. Despite her frequent appearances in clips and archival photographs, I had never seen an Anna May Wong film in its entirety. Toll of the Sea (1922) and Picadilly (1929), both silent films, were frankly, revelations. Wong's performances were unexpectedly nuanced and ambivalent -- creating a small, yet significant rift in the otherwise seamless fabric of American (and British) racism.
Both films were presented with live piano accompaniment, which adds a surprising, immediate, human element, and made me wonder a bit what early movie-goers must have experienced. Can we, with our jaded media-saturated minds, even fathom how wondrous early moving images must have seemed? It felt for a moment like I had traveled back in time -- another kind of escape. Judith Rosenberg's accompaniment for Toll of the Sea was seamless, immersive and moving, complementing the film perfectly in classic style. By contrast, Jon Jang's specially-composed score for Picadilly was modern and jarring. Jang purposely left parts of the film "blank" i.e., without music, which was startling at first. It kept tossing you out of the stream of the movie to call your attention to a rare phenomenon -- a totally silent movie theater. But once the initial shock wore off, these silent bits seemed to heighten the dramatic tension rather than abating it. The score proved to be a completely suitable companion to the film -- updating, commenting, transforming it into something new. Jang preserved the retro feel of the 1929 movie, but made it feel contemporary and relevant.
As my friends and I left the theater, we realized you could teach a whole class on the issues raised in this one film. There's the exploitation of laborers of color, stereotypical portraits of Chinatown, 2 illicit interracial love triangles, skillful skirting of the cinematic prohibition against interracial coupling, an emasculated Asian man and a frowsy past-her-prime white gal. But in the end, it's all about Anna May Wong and the tensions and slippages she navigated: the very soul of ambivalence.
12:38 AM
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Wednesday, April 14, 2004
Ok, so I'm a little bit obsessed, but you have to watch William Hung's music video. It's fascinating, and one of the smartest marketing moves I've seen in awhile. Look for my comments on popmatters.com next week.
11:34 PM
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Thursday, April 01, 2004
To anyone who thinks people are only making fun of William Hung, I submit this video clip, from a recent appearance in San Diego (as seen on williamhung.net). Ridicule alone never inspired such fervor.
Also of note (as usual, I'm late to the party):
Rolling Stone's interview, in which William discusses, in trademark refreshing manner, sex and the accidental star.
Audio clips from his debut album, Inspiration, due out on April 6. Previews are also available on iTunes, and don't forget to keep an eye out for the 12" on vinyl!
NOT to be missed: in an eery echo of his patented dance moves, William demonstrates Playstation's "Eyetoy Groove" while singing his version of "YMCA."
It's interesting to note too, that William has been signed by Koch Records, an independent label better known for its hip hop and R&B artists (Master P, Goodie Mob, Boyz II Men, Jeffrey Osbourne) than for pop stars. I may be romanticizing the connection, but perhaps there's something about being the (racial/sexual/cultural) underdog that made William a good fit. Or maybe, from a more cynical perspective, Koch was just the first to reach for the low-hung (sorry!) fruit. At any rate, William gets to record his contribution, not only in the annals of pop, but for Asian American posterity.
12:01 PM
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Is it just me, or is there an upswell of Orientalism a foot? The Abercrombie & Fitch debacle was an early indication. But lately it feels like an onslaught. As usual, Hollywood has its finger on the pulse: Lost in Translation, The Last Samurai, Japanese Story, Kill Bill all came out last year, and feature the same tried-and-true stereotypes. Even the ascendancy of idol William Hung (despite my efforts) is haunted by the specter of the buck-toothed, obsequious Chinaman. And now Details magazine has run a feature titled "Gay or Asian?" which is basically an anatomy of a nattily attired Asian man, noting such traits as "LADYBOY FINGERS: Soft and long. Perfect for both waxing on and waxing off, plucking the koto, or gripping the Kendo stick." Ugh.
View a scan of the offending article and see what groups like AAJA & GLAAD have to say about it -- more appropriate responses, I think, than the rather shrill petition currently making the rounds. Then, if so provoked, write to Details:
Details
c/o Daniel Peres, Editor-in-Chief
detailsletters@fairchildpub.com
Managing Editor: Diana Bendasset
(212) 630-3820
diana.bendasset@fairchildpub.com
Whitney McNally (writer)
whitney.mcnally@fairchildpub.com
Perhaps it's just a by-product of living in Asian- and queer-saturated San Francisco (in what other city has the conservative candidate for mayor legalized gay marriage?), that this kind of cheap, racist humor seems like a thing of the past. You would never see a "Gay or Black?" article. People know better by now (don't they?).
But as someone who has touted the gender-bending potential of the confluence of Asian American emasculation and metrosexuality, I must hold my cocked arm lest I hypocritically cast the first stone. (Now that I re-read that blog entry, I realize that I was guilty of the same kind of essentializing impulse that fuels Queer Eye -- assuming that gay men are necessarily more comfortable with expressions of femininity than straight men.)
My current intellectual plaything is the construction of "Western masculinity," (the root of all evil). Although couched in abhorrent terms, Whitney McNally's article does (and you can slap my hand as I say it) point to a differently constructed masculine identity, an "effeminate" one that is not necessarily tied to sexuality (although clearly, not-so-veiled references like "the plumpest eel," and "kendo stick" are intended as cheeky innuendo).
The stereotype of the effeminate, sex-obsessed and/or rice queeny gay man is nothing new. But cross-pollinating it with race puts us in more interesting territory. McNally has (inadvertently?) stuck her finger in a slippery space (ooh). The image of the Asian man begins to dissolve before our eyes as we are forced to vacillate between what are posited as mutually exclusive categories: "gay" or "Asian." What if the Asian man pictured is gay? What if he's not? What if he were white/black/Latino? Our easy methods of classification begin to come a bit unhinged.
Read against the grain, the article hones in on a "look" that itself can be read in different ways. It points to the indeterminacy of personal style -- we may dress a certain way to send messages to the people around us, but our "look" doesn't always say what we intend. Beyond its egregious racism, the article's biggest offense is in reducing sexuality and race to a matter of style. Wouldn't it be nice if that's all they really were? Just convenient categories by which to know one another, instead of excuses for exploitation and brutality.
12:25 AM
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