Actually, don’t you think this is due to the stuff they are turning out? Even Asian people often hate HK movies because of the acting, plot, etc. that is found in HK movies. Honestly, I really can’t think of too many “fresh innovative” movies that I have ever seen from HK.
Granted, western filmmakers turn out garbage as well, but I think it is impossible to compare the two. Just one look at the western films which are turned out each year clearly reveals their superiority over the stuff from HK.
Just finished watching season 2 of 24. There is a cop played by an Asian actor and his character’s name is Baker. Now that’s blind casting.
I’d be interested to know how an Asian male could have the name Baker. Although it hasn’t been a trip to the moon or anything, I have traversed the galaxy of my imagination and cannot come up with any possible reason for a full blooded Asian male to have the name Baker. It bothered me the whole way thru the show.
I agree with what Joan Chen said about the most talented actor being cast regardless of visible differences. I’ve seen plays where this has been done (A black male brother with 5 French sisters for one) and after 5 minutes, you forget about it and listen to the character’s heart, not his skin.
But…
What I really wanna know is:
when do I become a star?
[quote=“Stewart Pendous”]
I’d be interested to know how an Asian male could have the name Baker. Although it hasn’t been a trip to the moon or anything, I have traversed the galaxy of my imagination and cannot come up with any possible reason for a full blooded Asian male to have the name Baker. It bothered me the whole way through the show.
:[/quote]
Adoption.
[quote=“wipt”][quote=“Stewart Pendous”]
I’d be interested to know how an Asian male could have the name Baker. Although it hasn’t been a trip to the moon or anything, I have traversed the galaxy of my imagination and cannot come up with any possible reason for a full blooded Asian male to have the name Baker. It bothered me the whole way through the show.
:[/quote]
Adoption. [/quote]
[quote]I’d be interested to know how an Asian male could have the name Baker. Although it hasn’t been a trip to the moon or anything, I have traversed the galaxy of my imagination and cannot come up with any possible reason for a full blooded Asian male to have the name Baker. It bothered me the whole way through the show.
[/quote]
Or he changed his name.
Also he could be a many-generations in the US family Asian - don’t know about the US, but in NZ they used to ask new immigrants “what’s your name?, what? nobody can say that, I’ll write down Baker OK?”
Or from an Asian country where most people only have one name - at immigration “know you have to have two names - we’ll give you a surname - Baker OK?”
Brian
Going completely off-tangent, there’s an Irish-Chinese senator in Australia, named, believe it or not, Bill O’Chee. I think it was just a coincidence - his dad or someone further back was ‘given’ the name by immigration for the reasons Brian describes, and his father married an woman of Irish descent. Great name though 
It’s true subtitled movies don’t generally do well in America, or in other English-speaking countries either. Popular music in languages other than English doesn’t sell well, either. This is partly because these countries, with America leading the way, produce such a huge amount of product. An American who only watches American movies and TV shows, and only listens to American music, will nevertheless have a lot of very good material to choose from. People from smaller countries won’t, and so have become accustomed from an early age to listen to music in a foreign language and watch shows with subtitles. It’s pointless to blame America for this. If I want to watch one good movie a week, and I’m from Iceland for example, I’m obviously going to have to accept subtitles.
That said, I cannot agree with cornelldesi when he says that Hollywood does not respect Asian films. Clearly they do: many movies from the past ten years have been heavily influenced by Asian movies. Examples: Matrix; all movies by Quentin Tarantino; and many recent action films, which, more and more, have Hong Kong-like action. Asian filmmakers have been accepted by Hollywood: Ang Lee, for example, has made American movies and been nominated for Academy Awards. Mission Impossible was directed by John Woo.
Surely the normal state of a culture is to prefer its own products, while also accepting outside influences. In this light, America is normal; it’s the countries like Taiwan that seem to prefer another country’s entertainment that are strange. India has a thriving movie industry of its own, and Indian movies are what most Indians prefer to watch. Surely China can do the same.
By the way, neither “Z” nor “Life is Beautiful” won the Academy Award for best picture. They were both nominated, but didn’t win. They did win the foreign film award, but obviously all winners of the Academy Award for best foreign film have been subtitled. “Midnight Cowboy” beat “Z” in 1970; I forget what beat out the Italian film.
Blind Casting in US films?
improving half a step every 10 years. NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
Remember, we can’t compare the US films with films in other countries with a very homogenous society such as Taiwan. The US minorities have fought their way through White society ever since slavery, and in regards to films they have moved quite a bit from the Charlie Chan movies and racist depictions of Blacks back in the 20’s.
HOWEVER, even after gaining a “so-called” equality, there are truly too many discrepancies that have not been taken care of, especially in movies. If we were truly all equal, blind casting would have taking place a long time ago. Now we still have directors who still believe that White people should take up most of tv and movies. The past 2 years, there were statistics that showed minority depictions barely if at all moved up in appearances on tv during primetime. Asians and American Indians were way down there, and had actually dropped in numbers.
I really don’t see why a person of Indian or Asian descent couldn’t have been cast for certain roles, ESPECIALLY love roles. They will always pair an Asian woman with a White man, before they even pair an Asian woman with an Asian man.
Fucking hollywood and US tv sucks arse. Ask any Taiwanese they think any White person = American. They don’t realize that there are other races too cause all the actors/actresses you see in movies are mostly a great majority White.
Right on. I have no idea who this guy is, and I don’t give a shit about him. Its his job to impress me… its not my job to give him a chance and respect him.
He should quite whining about how unfair life is. 
[quote=“cornelldesi”]Blind Casting in US films?
improving half a step every 10 years. NOT GOOD ENOUGH.[/quote]
Not good enough for who and by what standards?
Great.
So? Is there some law that prohibits Asians from establishing production companies in the US and from producing movies in the US with primarily Asian actors?
So? Is there some law that prohibits Asians from establishing production companies in the US and from producing movies in the US with primarily Asian actors?
That’s ridiculous… but even if it weren’t, again, so what?
You’re a freaking crybaby.
Actually, I know of at least one of these. However, for whatever reasons - quality or lack of perceived marketability - they have not been able to get their films widely distributed. Even assuming a good product, they will still face obvious marketing hurdles trying to sell to distributors, TV stations etc., so IMO the mere formation of such companies and production of such movies is not necessarily going to improve visibility (which I believe is the main complaint).
IMO the representation of minorities in the media is going to be mainly dependent on the influence of studio heads, producers, directors etc - the people who make the big decisions. If/when Asians become big enough players in Hollywood, I expect things will change, as they have for other minorities.
You refer to a production company rather than a discriminatory law, right… 
Even still, I don’t see how those problems are mine. I mean, Cornhole makes it sound as though there is some grand conspiracy against Asian males. I don’t see that as the case at all. In markets where there is an Asian population, such as West coast USA, there are Asian television channels and other sources of Asian media… It seems ridiculous, IMO, to complain that the overwhelming majority demographic isn’t interested in a different and minority culture’s art.
Yes, that was my point about Asians establishing their own production companies and staffing them with Asian bosses…
[quote=“tigerman”]
Yes, that was my point about Asians establishing their own production companies and staffing them with Asian bosses…[/quote]
What was the most successful record company in the '60s? Motown. Black owners, black performers, black company. What’s one of the funniest standup show on cable? Def Comedy Jam, on BET - black owned, operated, performed. You don’t get anywhere waiting for the white man to graciously hand you a job. You go out and do it your own damn self. In America we got no time for whiners. You stand or fall on your own merits.
Paragraph twelve, section 3…
No, I don’t think those problems are yours, as such, and if you’ve read my other posts, I don’t think it’s a huge deal either. However, I do think his point as I read it, is that mainstream productions - Hollywood movies, national TV etc. (and not the specialized media as you and mod lang both cite) do not represent Asians to the full extent that they actually exist in the mix of the American population. Actually, I don’t know for a fact that this is true, but certainly in Australia, it took a long time before there were any faces on mainstream TV that weren’t white, despite the mix in the population, and as I say, although that has improved, I doubt Asians (or for that matter, other minorities) receive proportional representation, either in numbers, or in the variety of jobs/professions that they do (eg not necessarily associated with laundry or restaurants ). But to repeat, not a big deal - other things are much more important, and on those counts, I think the Asian population is doing OK.
Sometimes it’s not appropriate to the theme/plot/location of the show, and that’s fair enough. I’m only saying it would be nice if they showed more Asians as minor characters and as background extras where it was appropriate to the location, and I see this happening more and more anyway - certainly things have come a long way since I was a kid.
Asians only represent 1-2% of the U.S. population. They’re well represented proportional to their small size. Outside of California, NYC, and Hawaii, there just aren’t that many Asian-Americans in the U.S.A. So what if a sitcom set in Missouri is full of nothing but white people? That’s just reality.
How many aborigines do you see on Taiwan television, in Taiwanese movies? Proportional to the population in Taiwan (1-2%) there are just as many in Taiwan as there are Asians in the U.S.A.
How come it is when I click on Taiwanese television, all of the people in all the soap operas are “white” (as is, they have waishengren white skin). But when I walk around downtown Tainan, it seems that most of the people here are “brown” (“native Taiwanese” being a mix of aborigine & Chinese blood). Hmm, is this some sort of racist discrimination based on relative darkness/lightness of skin I see?
[quote]Asians only represent 1-2% of the U.S. population. They’re well represented proportional to their small size. Outside of California, NYC, and Hawaii, there just aren’t that many Asian-Americans in the U.S.A. So what if a sitcom set in Missouri is full of nothing but white people? That’s just reality.
[/quote]
Did you live out of the country that long? The population for asians are close to 5% now and growing rather fast. The REALITY is that TV IS NOT reality. You look at Sex in the City. Sure, the story is about upperclass white people in NYC, but pay close attention to the background. THEY ARE MAJORITY WHITE.
On another note, I really don’t think American directors believe Asian Americans are Americans. They don’t seem to see Asian Americans in the same light as other Americans. We have to be type casted in MOST movies as someone who can’t speak English, does Kung Fu, basically non-sexual roles (males ONLY). These are the ONLY dimensions that directors see Asian Americans. From a few of my friends who are in show business in the US, directors even made them try a fake Chinese accent to get a part in certain shows…which is ridiculous. They aren’t even treated like Americans!
It is not fair to blame Americans for Taiwanese ignorance. Movies are not real life: if you take movies as your primary source of information about a culture, it’s your fault and your problem when you’re wrong, not the movie industry’s.
I also think it is ridiculous when Taiwanese people seem to think that all white people are Americans; have they never heard of Europe? I also think that many Taiwanese people going to the US for the first time are going to be plenty surprised by the number of black people. However, again, why blame America for Taiwanese ignorance?
If you met a Canadian who, on her first trip to Hong Kong, expressed surprise that she hadn’t yet met any flying monks, which would be the most reasonable reaction? a. She’s an idiot. or: b. The Hong Kong film industry must be censured because it doesn’t realistically reflect life.
Unless the population has changed significantly since I left the US, Asians make up approximately 3% of the total US population. If they want representation based on actual numbers, I think there would be even less Asians on US TV and in US movies.
And so long as a white production company is producing a movie with Asians cast in certain roles, some Asians will complain. If the Asian character is a Kung Fu guy or a dragon lady, they will cry “stereotyping”. If the Asian is cast as a successful Engineer, doctor or attorney, they will cry “stereotyping”.
Thus, I think if Asians want to see more Asians in non-stereotypical roles in the US, they should establish production companies and staff these with Asian bosses and produce movies and TV shows with Asian casts.
I can’t stand reading cornhole’s incessant whines.
3%… unless its a movie set in Chinatown… and then some crybaby like cornhole will scream about stereotyping.
Never see an American actor fake a British accent?
majority of American actors don’t fake British films. The percentage of Asian Americans that need to fake it percentage wise is a lot greater. Sorry the real percentage of Asians in America are about 5%. Yeah you were probably out here too long cause 5% was the figure of the census a year and a half ago.
The problem is White actors have very diversified roles from villains, to heros. Asian Americans are still blatantly portrayed in certain ways. Tigerfuck points out that Asian production companies should hire the Asians. That is ridiculous. We are talking about equality. Obviously White directors don’t see Asian Americans as Real Americans. They see us as still very Asian, with all those stereotypes.
Its fucking sad, and thats why there are websites like mediawatchdog, etc.
Too bad Tigerfuck still thinks this is not a serious problem. Wish he were Asian American.