No, it's not yellowface, it's called a façade

Boston Globe recently released an interesting article about the film "21", which I've ranted about at length in a previous post. The Globe had quite a few interesting things to say about Ben Mezrich's book Bringing Down the House, which inspired the film "21", including the following:

"Bringing Down the House" is not a work of "nonfiction" in any meaningful sense of the word. Instead of describing events as they happened, Mezrich appears to have worked more as a collage artist, drawing some facts from interviews, inventing certain others, and then recombining these into novel scenes that didn't happen and characters who never lived. The result is a crowd-pleasing story, eagerly marketed by his publishers as true - but which several of the students who participated say is embellished beyond recognition.

Ouch. I'm not sure if this is official policy with the New York Times Book Review, but if you ask me, calling a supposed work of non-fiction a fiction is a major critique. This article from the Globe only makes me want to watch "21" even less (yes, even beyond the boycott-level of not-watching "21") and it makes me want to avoid Mezrich's book altogether. Personally, I am a strict adherent to the belief that a work of non-fiction should be exactly that, non-fiction. Embellishing the emotions of certain characters or the tone of a scene is one thing, but creating new characters and scenes is something else altogether. Even if they are composites of real characters and scenes that doesn't mean the composite actually exists, that's like saying a Griffin exists because its based on two real animals.

However, regardless of the authenticity of Bringing Down the House and consequently "21", I do not think that does anything to change my argument in my previous post on "21". Many individuals who claimed to be involved in the original MIT gambling teams have actually recently stated on various message boards that the movie "21" is not racist because the original story has been altered so much that it has nothing to do with the original individuals, much less their race. This completely misses the point as the story of Bringing Down the House and "21" were inspired by the real-life stories of Asian Americans and we deserve the justice of being portrayed by Hollywood as we are, especially in stories inspired by us. In fact, not only was the story inspired by Asian Americans but their race played a role in the scheme (at least according to Mezrich) since Asian "model minority" gamblers were generally ignored by security. All film adaptations of books take a certain level of creative license to make the film more appealing for the box office. Scenes are always omitted, condensed, or spliced for the sake of length and dialog is heavily edited to be more vibrant for the big screens. In the case of "21", Hollywood producers have chosen to edit out Asian characters to make a film more appealing, only reinforcing Asian stereotypes. Can you imagine if they made The Pursuit of Happyness with a white leading actor, even if the exact plot and dialog of the film did not match up with the original book or series of events? Also, if the movie is so distant from the original series of events, then why was Jeff Ma personally involved in preparing Jim Sturgess for the role?

Speaking of Jeff Ma, he has actually been a supporter of "21". He has been quoted for saying that he was more shocked to see that his character in "21" had a deceased father than to see that he was white. He also stated that he was glad to be portrayed by Jim Sturgess, since Sturgess could accurately portray his own personality well, regardless of his race. In fact, he even went on say that he's glad that he was not played by someone Korean or Japanese just to find an Asian face. Ma's apologist color-blind logic also misses the point. Of course, it's important to match an actor/actress with the right role, but to suggest that race is irrelevant in this selection process is to suggest that people, society, everybody looks at Jeff Ma and looks at Jim Sturgess and, aside from a few slight differences in height, weight, age, and hair color, only sees the personality underneath. Certain associations are carried with race and to suggest that society exists beyond those associations is naïve. Indeed, existing beyond those associations would be ideal but reaching that stage does not require ignoring those associations, in fact that would only reinforce the status quo, but making any effort to reach that stage (which I would argue is not possible - social constructions will exist so long as society exists) requires acknowledging and deconstructing those associations.

I can understand how Jeff Ma does not wish to be racially-typed as an Asian American character, but rather wishes to be portrayed as a person even if it means being played by a white actor. However, I believe one's race generally defines a large part of one's life because it defines how society sees you. When you move to a new school as a little kid and you're automatically placed in the advanced math class, kids pull on their eyes to make fun of you and people call you "chink" and "gook", it's specifically because you're Asian. Albeit these may be particularly extreme experiences with race that Mr. Ma may never have experienced, but I still find it difficult to believe that Mr. Ma's race has had no influence on his character and personality.

Lastly, I'm sick of hearing people say, "But there are Asian American actors in the supporting cast," as though Asian Americans should be satisfied with getting any roles at all. (You know us Asians, you give us a foot we ask for a yard...) What if they made a film about the United Farm Workers with a white leads playing Caesar Chad and Philip Von Kruiz? Oh, but its okay because there are Latino and Filipino supporting cast members. Indeed, I certainly don't want to demoralize Aaron Yoo and Liza Lapira for taking those roles, but my complaints have nothing to do with them and everything to do with the film's producers. Getting Asian American actors more screen time is only one of the issues at hand here, another is improving how Asian Americans are portrayed in Hollywood.

[Note: I'm actually writing this post on 5/27/08 and backdating it like Steve Jobs with a handful of stock options. Yes, I realize that as of 5/27, this argument is dead. I still have not seen the movie, which should be out of theaters by now, and I probably won't ever see the movie.]