Friday Ice Cream

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Kina Grannis: Gone

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MANAA + Cloud Atlas + Yellow Face

From the important PR:

MANAA ASSERTS OFFENSIVE USE OF YELLOWFACE MAKE-UP AND
EXCLUSION OF ASIAN ACTORS IN THE FILM “CLOUD ATLAS”

LOS ANGELES-The Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA) is criticizing the new Warner Brothers motion picture “Cloud Atlas”—promoted as artistically groundbreaking because its actors swap racial and sexual identities—as business-as-usual in its exclusion and offensive yellow-faced renditions of Asian people.

A multi-ethnic epic spanning 500 years and around the globe, “it’s an artistically ambitious approach to filmmaking,” according to the organization’s Founding President Guy Aoki.
“Unfortunately, it reflects the same old racial pecking order that the entertainment industry has been practicing for decades.”

“Cloud Atlas,” written and directed by Tom Tykwer (“Run, Lola, Run”) and Lana and Andy Wachowski (“The Matrix” trilogy) and based on the novel by David Mitchell, utilizes an all-star cast that includes Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Jim Sturgess, and Hugo Weaving. In order to stress a thematic continuity among the movie’s six different interwoven stories, the filmmakers cast many of the same actors as different characters in each time period.

One of the stories takes place in a totalitarian, mechanized Neo Seoul Korea in the year 2144. An Asian female clone (South Korean actress Doona Bae) is encouraged by another female clone (Chinese movie star Xun Zhou) to break out of her oppressive pre-programmed routine to serve men and become an independent thinker. The segment also includes White actors Sturgess, Weaving, and James D’Arcy as ostensibly Korean characters, using eye prosthetics to make their Caucasian features look more Asian.

“’Cloud Atlas’ prides itself on its ‘multi-racial cast,’” said Aoki, “but that basically means White men and women of color, like La Jolla Playhouse’s ‘The Nightingale,’ which was criticized last Summer for using only two Asian American actresses but allowing five White men to play Chinese characters.

Aoki said, “’Cloud Atlas’ missed a great opportunity. The Korea story’s protagonist is an Asian man--an action hero who defies the odds and holds off armies of attackers. He’s the one who liberates Doona Bae from her repressive life and encourages her to join the resistance against the government. It would have been a great, stereotype-busting role for an Asian American actor to play, as Asian American men aren’t allowed to be dynamic or heroic very often.

“But instead, they cast Jim Sturgess in yellowface,” Aoki continued, referring to the historically frowned-upon practice of using cosmetics, such as eye prosthetics, to make Caucasian actors look Asian.

“In fact, every major male character in the Korea story is played by non-Asian actors in really bad yellowface make-up. When you first see Hugo Weaving as a Korean executioner, there’s this big close-up of him in this totally unconvincing Asian make-up. The Asian Americans at the pre-screening burst out laughing because he looked terrible--like a Vulcan on ‘Star Trek.’ It took us out of the movie. And Jim Sturgess and James D’Arcy didn’t look much better.”

MANAA Vice President Miriam Nakamura-Quan stated, “In the modern age of movie make up, it is disturbing to see poorly done Asian eye prosthetics to make Caucasian men look Asian. The race-changing make-up totally disrupted the flow of the film. The old yellowface movie characters of the past like Fu Manchu and Charlie Chan looked more realistic than the characters in ‘Cloud Atlas.’ Why couldn’t they have cast a handsome Asian American actor of mixed race to play the multiple roles in Neo Seoul and the other time periods? It would have made the movie more believable.”

Added Aoki, “It appears that to turn white and black actors into Asian characters (black actor Keith David was also Asian in the 2144 story), the make-up artists believed they only had to change their eyes, not their facial structure and complexion. In two scenes in other segments of the film, Bae and Zhou are made up to appear Caucasian. The filmmakers, Aoki said, “obviously took more care to make them look convincingly white. The message the movie sends is, it takes a lot of work to get Asians to look Caucasian, but you can easily turn Caucasians into Asians by just changing the shape of their eyes.”

In another story set in the South Pacific in 1849, Maori slaves are played predominantly by blacks, including Afro-British actor David Gyasi. “You have to ask yourself: Would the directors have used blackface on a white actor to play Gyasi’s role?” asked Aoki. “I don’t think so: That would have outraged African American viewers. But badly done yellowface is still OK.

“In any case, this was a lost opportunity to cast real Asian Pacific Islanders. Why weren’t there any real Asian male actors portraying any of the major characters in this supposedly racially diverse film?” Aoki concluded, “It’s a double standard: White actors are allowed to play anything--except black characters--and have the dominant roles; Asian male actors are non-existent. And Pacific Islanders are played by blacks.”

Asked Nakamura-Quan, “If, in the making of this complex movie, the creators of ‘Cloud Atlas’ can make creative leaps in time, place, characters, race and gender, why can’t they also take a creative leap in the casting?”

MANAA, the only organization solely dedicated to advocating balanced, sensitive, and positive depiction and coverage of Asian Americans, recently celebrated its 20th anniversary. It led nationwide protests against the movie “Rising Sun” in 1993 and challenged Sarah Silverman’s use of “chinks” in her joke on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” and Bill Maher’s “Politically Incorrect” in 2001.

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Must Read On The NPR Cover Up: Hyphen Magazine And Kao Kalia Yang's "The Science Of Racism: Radiolab's Treatment of Hmong Experience"

Hands down, one of the most powerful articles I've read in a long time and a huge shout out to Kao Kalia Yang and Hyphen for getting this out, making this statement, and telling it like it happened.

Read it now.

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DFD: New Chick

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Hibakusha: Choz Belen, Steve Nguyen, Karin Anna Cheung + More

While the screening down at the JANM has passed, the life of this film looks to be just beginning, and with an amazing group of people involved, it should go a long way.

ABOUT

“HIBAKUSHA” is an animated documentary/drama featuring Kaz Suyeishi, a 57 year old Japanese woman, who recalls her most vivid and horrific experiences as a 17 year old Hiroshima student during the morning of August 6, 1945 when the atomic bomb dropped on her hometown.

This film is inspired to bring awareness to the Hiroshima & Nagasaki bombings in hopes that nothing like this will ever happen again and over time, show tremendous forgiveness after these terrible incidents occurred. This project will commemorate the 66th Anniversary of the bombings and is dedicated to the Association of Hiroshima & Nagasaki A-bomb Survivors.

CAST AND CREW

FILMMAKERS
CHOZ BELEN (DIRECTOR/CO-WRITER)
STEVE NGUYEN (DIRECTOR/PRODUCER/CO-WRITER)
IVAN TSANG (CO-WRITER)
DEAN MATSUDA (PRODUCER)
BRIAN L. TAN (PRODUCER)
MARVIN ORENDAIN (DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY)
TOMMY SU (CINEMATOGRAPHY)
HANS WANG (2ND UNIT DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY)

CAST

KARIN ANNA CHEUNG
PRISCILLA GEE
CONNIE LIM
DAISUKE SUZUKI
GRACE SU
JANE LUI
WILLIAM KNIGHT
PAUL DATEH
KATO COOKS
ERIC MCALISTER
JOSHUA WILLIAMS
RYAN SUDA
JASON Y. LEE
JENNIFER TAKAKI
YUAN-KWAN CHAN
RYAN TAE MCGILVRAY
POH CHOO SIM
KANE DIEP
KAZUE TANI PECK
JAMES BAK
FARAH MORIAH
KYLE GRIFFIN

http://www.hibakushafilm.com

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Kollaboration Star 2012: Episode 1

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Dance Showdown Episode 3

Just in case you didn't know about this...well..now you do.

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Best Comment On Jeremy Lin's "The Unexpected Ones" Volvo Commercial On YouTube

I really don't know the exact comment "George Michael" was replying to in the Lin Volvo commercial comments, but this was just funny for me:

"White men also seem to have small cock and can't drive for shit..."

When I read that I just couldn't help but think of someone's aunt who had some really bad dates on Match.com never to return again to the dating scene, bitter at the small white penises that almost got her into numerous accidents on the way to what they described as "a really authentic Chinese place" nestled between a Big Bowl and Leaann Chin.

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Maroon 5 Holds One #1 And PSY Has The Other

Number 2 on the Billboard 100 still isn't bad...and if you can't get #1 because of some scruffy white guys, at least take solace that your #1 on the Billboard Social 50.

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Where'd that week go?

Work. Sleep. Flu like symptoms.

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Watch It Again: Getting Pulled Over

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Netflix Watch: A Beautiful Life

Shu Qi in her Golden Horse and HK Film Award nominated role (her first since winning in 2005 for Three Times) and the director praised Liu Ye.

And yes...

It didn't make me blubber like Hula Girls (because when they do the dance at the train station trying to get Hirayama back, all bets are off) but there was some...quite blubbering going on that is.

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New Heights: Peaches (Live at Compound Studios)

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Candidates You Should Know

From AAA-Fund:

Tim Kaine, Former VA Governor, Military Veteran
Running for US Senate in Virginia
KaineforVA.com
Donate

Tammy Duckworth, Former Assistant Secretary for Public and Intergovernmental Affairs in the Department of Veterans Affairs, Military Veteran
Running for the US House of Representatives from Illinois' 8th CD (Lake, McHenry and Cook counties)
TammyDuckworth.com
Donate

Dr. Ami Bera, Physician and Educator
Running for the US House of Representatives from California's 16th CD (Folstom, Elk Grove, Eastern Sacramento)
BeraforCongress.com
Donate

Mark Takano for Congress, School Leader and Educator
Running for for the US House of Representatives from California's 41st District (Riverside, Jurupa Valley, Moreno Valley, Perris)
MarkTakano.com
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Nate Shinagawa, Tompkins County Legislator
Running for the US House of Representatives from New York's 16th CD (Tompkins County; Seneca, Yates, Schuyler, Chemung, most of Tioga; Steuben, Allegany, Cattaraugus and Chautauqua counties; eastern half of Ontario)
NateShinagawa.com
Donate

Jay Chen for Congress, Schoolteacher, Military Servicemember
Running for the US House of Representatives from California's 39th CD (Brea, Buena Park, Chino Hills, Diamond Bar, Fullerton, Hacienda Heights, La Habra, La Habra Heights, Placentia, Rowland Heights, Walnut, Yorba Linda)
ChenforCongress.com
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Dr. Manan Trivedi, Physician
Running for the US House of Representatives from Pennsylvania's 6th CD (Berks, Chester, Lebanon, Montgomery Counties)
TrivediforCongress.com
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Tulsi Gabbard, Honolulu City Councilmember, Military Veteran
Running for the US House of Representatives from Hawaii's 2nd CD (Honolulu)
VoteVulsi.com
Donate

Otto Lee, Patent Attorney, Military Veteran
Running for the US House of Representatives from California's 22nd CD (Fresno, Clovis, Visalia, Tulare, surrounding San Joaquin Valley)
OttoforCongress.org
Donate

Grace Meng, New York State Assemblywoman
Running for the US House of Representatives from New York's 6th CD (Queens)
GraceforNewYork.com
Donate

Dr. Jennifer Ong, Optometrist
Running for CA State Assembly from District 20 (San Lorenzo, Cherryland, Ashland, Fairview, Hayward, Castro Valley, Sunol, Union City, North Fremont to Mowry exit)
DrJenniferOng.org
Donate

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Albert M. Chan, WatchAdopteeFilms.com, Boston Asian American Film Festival, MNTRFF, And The Commitment

One post about two projects with mildly related topics: Asian American, Interracial Gay Couple, and Adoption.

And a couple of film festivals.

The first project is on director/actor Albert M. Chan's new film, The Commitment, which will be presented down at the Boston Asian American Film Festival about an interracial gay couple who looks to start a family through adoption and is chosen by the mother Kerri Patterson, to adopt her baby to.

The second project is on watchadopteefilms.com started by two Asian Americans, both adoptees, who have started out a site to stream films dealing with adoption and adoptee related narratives. The site is also a part of the Minnesota Transracial Film Festival now in its third year.

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Elaine Chang: A TIME Disrupter With Teeth

In case you missed it check out TIME.com's feature on Elaine Chang, 24 year old CEO of Social Teeth, who's mission is to crowdfund media plans for political ads.

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Last Chance Concert

October 13
5:00pm - 7:00pm at
706 North 1st Street
Minneapolis, MN
55401

Featuring Tou Saiko Lee, Chili Lor, Cody Lee, and more.

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Takei + Obama

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David James Said What?

Don't take the title of my post as knowing a lot about the football on the other side of the pond but I just thought it was interesting what former English goalkeeper David James said on racism:

I think that some people have an agenda to keep themselves in existence and, as a player, I don't see the racism issue - anywhere, personally. Maybe people just don't want to aim it at me - I don't know.

Remember - if it doesn't happen to you, it doesn't happen to anyone.

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