LONG DUK DONG

http://www.vulture.com/2014/05/gedde-watanabe-long-duk-dong-sixteen-candles-interview.html

https://twitter.com/chriscornell/status/494923008373313539

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/12/men-without-a-country-mike-brown-trayvon-martin-my-father-and-me.html

http://www.vulture.com/2014/09/asian-tv-characters-hooking-up-list.html

i was entertained by that article. and Selfie wasn't too bad

http://thebiglead.com/2014/10/17/sung-woo-lee-royals-korean-super-fan-will-return-to-kc-for-the-world-series

http://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/ball-star/article2922076.html

http://www.salon.com/2014/11/10/why_selfies_cancellation_is_a_massive_shame_this_was_the_most_promising_interracial_couple_on_tv/

that particular scene they talk about was smoldering. sigh

http://www.vulture.com/2015/01/eddie-huang-fresh-off-the-boat-abc.html

Eddie already (sorta) distancing himself from his own show

the promos did not give me any more hope than "Sullivan and Son"

http://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/2015/01/hollywoods-real-problem-with-the-asian-male/

Interesting piece. I taken two links from this thread for the comments. It's a new article so comments thread can keep going.

not bad

http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2015/03/26/395127808/why-its-so-hard-for-us-to-agree-about-dong-from-the-unbreakable-kimmy-schmidt

Yah I'm still on the fence about him

In the context of the greater history of Asian-Americans on screen, any character named Dong is going to bring up a lot of complicated feels.

IT'S "FEELINGS" YOU MILLENIAL WRITER

although holy shit

https://twitter.com/katchow/status/581126331959775232

that took me a moment to figure out what the problem was but whoa

one of several hotly debated characters in Tina Fey's Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
the traits that make Dong such a classic Fey-sian misfit

Good contribution

Anyway my thoughts are I'm worried that this is like the Chappelle Show

Where the showrunners think they're twisting stereotypes

But non-black (or in this case non-azn) audiences are just like "Haha I'm rick james, bitch!!" or here "Haha his name is Dong and he has a funny accent"

I thought this take by Arthur Chu was good

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/television/2015/03/race_in_unbreakable_kimmy_schmidt_how_critics_are_missing_the_point.html

I also wish Dong had confidently grabbed the model minority stereotype by the horns to play with and mock it—maybe I’ve been spoiled by Fresh Off the Boat. Or I’d have liked Dong’s negative reaction to racism to become the source of some over-the-top humor—I see Sr. Chang’s explosive reaction to people questioning his ability to be a Spanish teacher in Community as a perfect gag, its own version of Titus trying to wear the werewolf costume 24/7 because being a werewolf improves his life.

Instead we get weaksauce stuff like Dong actually being good at math but Kimmy being chided for racism for saying so. Limp stuff like people making dick jokes about his name only for him to briefly comment that Kimmy also means penis in Vietnamese.

...

Similarly, Dong would’ve been groundbreaking 10 years ago, maybe even five years ago. But in a post-Selfie, post-Fresh Off the Boat world I just don’t care about him. Kimmy’s landlady Lillian gets a great line about how white women “swimming upstream” against negative stereotypes about Asian men can “clean up,” but Dong is, from top to bottom, a stereotype. He’s positively portrayed, but everything about that positive portrayal is straight-up model minority stuff—hardworking, smart, earnestly naive about sex and romance, unimpeachably innocent and well-intentioned.

Every single other important character on the show—Lillian, her boss Jacqueline, her roommate Titus, her fellow captives, her teenage frenemy Xanthippe, Kimmy herself—is a grotesque cartoon who is lovable despite the fact that in real life they’d be intolerable for all kinds of reasons. This only makes Dong, who would be a bland character on a “normal” sitcom, even more of a misstep.

Which is probably why even though Ki Hong Lee is a really good looking guy, there was zero chemistry or heat between Dong and Kimmy on-screen, whereas the previous show with a redhead white chick with an Asian dude love interest, Selfie, has this scene. It’s not a fair comparison. Selfie was built around Henry and Eliza’s will-they-or-won’t-they romance while Dong is a late introduction to the show. But that’s the point.

Like there's just not enough to separate nu-Dong from that dude on Two Broke Girls

i was half impressed to learn at least some of the "in my culture that means something else!" stuff was true, i.e. fingers-crossed.

wow - that Arthur Chu bit nails it.

This is not the first time I've read something where Arthur Chu articulates a really relatable position that just makes sense. Love that guy.

kind of wish I could hire him to follow me around and explain my life to me

that fucking headline tho

slate having a bad headline is pretty par for the course

Lee is pretty great in Maze Runners

http://blog.angryasianman.com/2015/03/would-you-drink-beer-called-happy-ending.html

An eight-member K-pop group was detained for 15 hours at LAX because authorities thought they were sex workers, according to the group's agency.

http://laist.com/2015/12/11/oh_my_girl_lax.php

Later stories reveal the actual reason they were stopped is that they claimed to be here for a vacation, but in fact were scheduled to perform, and didn't get the performance visa they needed for that. The sex worker thing was the story they told the media.

http://jezebel.com/margaret-cho-calls-out-absolutely-fabulous-movie-for-ye-1749365367

Margaret Cho expressed disappointment over the upcoming Absolutely Fabulous movie’s decision to cast a white actress Janette Tough as a male Japanese fashion designer named “Huki Muki.”

Wtf?! What century are these movie-makers living in?

http://welcometotwinpeaks.com/wp-content/uploads/mr-tojamura-2-785x785.jpg

ahahaha. Janette Tough = Jimmy Krankie.

For those of you not aware, Janette Tough is Scotland's leading drag king.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJmnLzw8NA4

At the end of An American Tail, the mice successfully chase off the cats who end up on a freighter to Hong Kong, whose destination is revealed with an "oriental" music cue. I had never thought about it until recently, but is this supposed to be a subtle nod to the stereotype that Chinese people eat cats? Something like, "these cats think they have it bad now, wait til they get where they're going!" I'm not even sure if I'm perceiving this right. Almost on a dogwhistle level, maybe?

https://youtu.be/V6igEQFnk7w?t=2m9s

when did ilx u-turn on Arthur Chu?

wow - that Arthur Chu bit nails it.

― Brio2, Thursday, March 26, 2015 5:56 PM (two years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is not the first time I've read something where Arthur Chu articulates a really relatable position that just makes sense. Love that guy.

― mh, Thursday, March 26, 2015 6:00 PM (two years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

kind of wish I could hire him to follow me around and explain my life to me

― mh, Thursday, March 26, 2015 6:01 PM (two years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the Hong Kong/"oriental" music cue stuff just seemed to me like they were emphasising the idea that the villains were being sent very very far away from our heroes, Hong Kong as somewhere exotic and remote, rather than anything more specific about how cats might be treated in HK? idk

just like making clear that the mice have definitively escaped from the cats, "that's the last we'll be seeing of them" or whatever

No I like HL's interpretation

yeah.. i'm gonna give it a 7/10 on the "probably racist" scale

soref, I think he stopped being at all relatable and stopped making sense, but we have an entire thread for that

http://www.stereogum.com/1961930/chainsmokers-apologize-for-joking-that-chinese-people-eat-dogs/news/

I'm cackling at "because I have read reports" in the apology

At least some percentage of Switzerland apparently eats cats, that should be the default stereotype.

I've heard they don't even really have cuckoo clocks

it's a dumb joke, but what there's a meat festival??

David Cross, Charlyne Yi.

http://www.yomyomf.com/charlyne-yi-dumbfounded-by-the-racist-comments-comedian-david-cross-made-towards-her/

imo david cross is someone who comes across as obv an asshole but wow