THE BREAKFAST CLUB 1985 CHICAGO READER SKIN
THE BREAKFAST CLUB 1985 CHICAGO READER SOFTWARE

A recent study by the University of Southern CaliforniaвЂ™s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism showed Asian-Americans representing only 1 percent of all leading roles in Hollywood (the 2017 United States Census Bureau reported that there are 18 million Americans of Asian descent, or roughly 6 percent of the population). Representation of Asians within American performing arts has always been alarmingly small. You remain unlikely to see Asian-Americans in lead roles in big studios films without the hint of tokenism, even after the box office success of this yearвЂ™s вЂњ Crazy Rich Asians,вЂќ the first studio film with an all-Asian cast since вЂњ The Joy Luck ClubвЂќ in 1993. But these are still small changes, and this so-called progress rings hollow.

THE BREAKFAST CLUB 1985 CHICAGO READER SOFTWARE

Yang and Kumail Nanjiani in stereotypical but still more rewardingly complex supporting roles (Yang plays a ruthless if talentless app developer Nanjiani, as a software engineer, steals the scene in nearly every episode). The television reboot вЂњ Hawaii Five-0вЂќ has added more nuanced Asian characters who were missing from the original version, played by actors such as Grace Park, Daniel Dae Kim or Masi Oka, and newer creations, including вЂњ Silicon Valley,вЂќ have cast Jimmy O. He was as good-looking as he was complicated, but where typically there might have been some chemistry between two young and beautiful people embarking on a grand adventure, Wu was relegated by the end to the benign, if handsome, friend. Most recently, Daniel Wu was cast as Lu Ren in this yearвЂ™s вЂњ Tomb Raider,вЂќ starring Alicia Vikander. THERE HAVE BEEN attempts by Hollywood to insert real people of color - in this case, Asian-Americans - into the cultural landscape of film and television. He showed sound judgment and character in times of danger. In a subsequent feature-length film, Sulu eventually becomes captain of his own ship. He spoke - I remember finding this remarkable, and, in a way, I still do, given the show was created in 1966 - without an accent. The first was George Takei, a Japanese-American, as the steadfast and levelheaded вЂњ Star TrekвЂќ officer Hikaru Sulu. Their performances have stayed with me, like a novel you may never read again but pack with you every time you move. Having been raised on a mediocre diet of American television and mainstream Hollywood movies, I can count on one hand the actors of Asian descent who made an impression on me growing up. Maybe in Keanu Reeves or Olivia Munn, but even so, the side of myself that is understood as Asian - that is seen - is as washed away as theirs, and that is because we live in a world that doesnвЂ™t make time for ambiguity, that continues to reward whiteness with privilege. I have never quite seen myself on-screen. IвЂ™m over six feet tall and my eyelids have creases, and I have come to anticipate the pause in a conversation with strangers as I watch them - like someone calculating the size of someone elseвЂ™s apartment - square the fact of my ethnicity with my appearance. I, too, am half Chinese, though I have always been told (by other Chinese-Americans, by white people who were under the impression I was one of them) that IвЂ™m not the right kind of Chinese. Tilda Swinton, otherworldly in her beauty, as always, but monkishly bald as the Ancient One, a character originally intended to be Tibetan, in 2016вЂ™s вЂњ Doctor Strange.вЂќ More subtle, but still just as shocking: Emma Stone - blonde and green-eyed - as Allison Ng, leaning against a kitchen island in a scene from 2015вЂ™s вЂњ AlohaвЂќ and saying, вЂњMy dad was half Chinese, half Hawaiian,вЂќ as breezily as if she were saying goodbye to someone on the telephone.

THE BREAKFAST CLUB 1985 CHICAGO READER SKIN

Ashton Kutcher as a Bollywood producer, Raj, in a 2012 commercial, his skin darkened, a brown mustache affixed to his face, speaking in a cheap singsong voice, swaying his body, which is clad in a bright blue silk sherwani, back and forth to imitate the Indian head waggle. Yunioshi in 1961вЂ™s вЂњ Breakfast at TiffanyвЂ™s,вЂќ stumbling around his Manhattan apartment in a blue bathrobe, his face contorted - lips barely closing over grotesquely pronounced buckteeth, slicked-back hair dyed jet black. THEIR FACES ARE familiar for the feelings of horror and shame they produce in me.

The breakfast club 1985 chicago reader