ALOHA AND CASTING ALL THE WHITE PEOPLE AS ASIANS

The Aloha Brouhaha

A lot of casting Asians to play Asian roles controversy has come up in the last year. When I saw the poster for Aloha and saw blonde hair blue eyed movie stars standing in front of the Hawaiian landscape pleading with their eyes for us to all give a shit about their romantic mishaps and misunderstandings I rolled my eyes and thought about how another opportunity to put beautiful brown people got eaten up by the machine. Then people started freaking about how a character in there played by Emma Stone (blonde/blue) is actually called Allison Ng is part chinese and reps Hawaiian culture. They bitched about it so much that Cameron Crowe said whoops my bad then pointed to all the native Hawaiians he gave jobs by shooting there. It reminds me of british colonials saying how grateful the Indians were that they had jobs being their servants. It also reminded me of people in turn of the century france and En saying where is MY all American and they are not wrong.  But Hollywood is a business. They look at numbers As I said on facebook:

gland putting on chinesey looking dresses and decorating with enamels and that beginning the orientalist craze. The brouhaha about casting is also about just generally feeling unseen. If I describe the cast of Aloha as typically “all American” the Asian americans who have been paying taxes and buying movie tickets and getting fat off fast food just like everyone else are

“Just as banks are a business. a bank doesn't care if you achieve your life's dream to own a house with a white picket fence. They care about fees bonuses and their personal portfolios. Hollywood does not care about your dream to be represented or have your story told. They care about selling tickets and the way they do that is by making you "aspire" to something (something more beautiful than your humdrum life somemething more noble, rich, etc.) Once in a while by accident an artist peeps through with a story that "matters" but mostly its a cash proposition. Emma stone did not audition for the role of Allison Ng. It's a lead. It was an offer and the conversation was like "who can we get on this list who will sell tickets." And by the way the foreign sale, the sale of the american dream to all the ticket buyers overseas is an Abercrombie and Fitch type play-- the utopian white unattainable romantic white america. You think my relatives in indonesia care if the cast of the movie looks like them? Nope they WANT to see white people because they have been taught for decades that THAT is beautiful and desirable. so listen all ye outraged artists and activists. You want to see more roles for asians? You want Hollywood to expand its terribly narrow view of what is beautiful START COMING TO SEE MY SHOWS. START GOING TO SEE ASIAN PLAYS IN GENERAL. BUY TICKETS TO MOVIES STARRING ASIANS. GO SEE GEORGE TAKEI ON BROADWAY. HIT LIKE ON MY SLANTY EYED MAMA FACEBOOK PAGE. HIT LIKE ON ANY ASIAN ARTISTS PAGE. VOTE FOR THE ASIAN CONTESTANTS ON THE VOICE. STAND THE FUCK UP AND VOTE WITH YOUR DOLLARS. this is America. Money talks bullshit walks. Get involved by supporting writers who write asian stories. DO IT

Www.facebook.com/slantyeyedmama “

AZN shuts its sad lame doors

I can't believe we never even had a chance. The article from December 2005 in the SF Gate called "Asian Pop/AZN R.I.P" sent a shudder through the hearts of Asian American Artists who only a few months before had thrilled to the announcement that comcast was launching a special network JUST FOR Asian Americans with original programming as well as feeds from around the world. I like, many other A.D.D. multimedia multicultural AZN artists came up with 300 good ideas for programming, cheap cool ones at that. And I interviewed hundreds of college and high school students while on tour with Slanty Eyed Mama about what kinds of things they would like to see on an AZN network. Here is an excerpt from the SF Gate article in case you don't want to read the whole thing. Bottom line my friends. Money talks and bullshit walks. I am so mad mad mad because the shut down of AZN sends the wrong message to the media. It says that there is no audience for cool A/PI programming which is BULLSHIT!! There is no audience for whack old school K-dramas sandwiched between endless repeats of the same Yao Ming documentary and one off stand up comedy shows half assed shot in a basement with no decent graphics package and no publicity. We got sold out for a half billion dollars in the pockets of the real power players who put this deal together and whose name you will not find in this article or anywhere on line. We had our asses handed to us by shit brains who wanted us to fail and who laid off the entire staff, cancelled production and pulled budgets out, waiting for 2008 so they could say "Well, gee whiz we tried! I guess there is no audiences for this kind of station." Lemme in that board room! Next time round we're gonna do it right.


FROM THE SF GATE 2005 portender of doom:
Variety shows and news from Hong Kong. Japanese animation. Soap operas from Korea. Bollywood movies. Valuable content, but nothing groundbreaking -- and nothing targeted specifically at Asian Americans. With senior managers dedicated to development and acquisitions gone, some staff members wonder what will happen once the channel runs out its string. As one employee put it, "They don't want to be seen as killing it, so they're going to let it die on the vine."

Business is business, of course, even for companies that proudly tout their commitment to diversity and community service. And hidden behind the hype and glory of AZN's launch were some financial intricacies that suggest the channel is ultimately as valuable to Comcast dead as alive, if not more so. This is because the deal that landed the channel in Comcast's lap was actually part of an intricate fiscal tango in which Comcast received $545 million in tax-free cash, called a "cash-rich split-off."

Because of certain arcane IRS regulations, at least 5 percent of the assets transferred in a cash-rich split-off have to be in the form of a business "engaged in the active conduct of a trade or commerce" -- in this case, International Channel. This business also has to continue operating for a certain period of time after transfer, the rule of thumb being one year.

After that, the parent company is free to liquidate it if it so wishes, thereby absorbing the subsidiary's assets -- which, in this case, include a half-billion dollars in tax-free cash. By that standard, one should note that on July 28, 2005, the anniversary of the transaction, the statutory incentive for AZN's existence essentially went away.