Tom's Film History II Blog

While I am usually not a fan of shock humor in the style of Margaret Cho, I laughed hardest at Cho's most vulgar jokes. Her whole act is clever, but she seems to be at her most creative when thinking of the most off-putting concepts (one that sticks out to me is her explanation of how the HPV vaccine is developed/collected). Cho mentions Joan Rivers as a mentor and idol, which is very evident in her content and comedic timing. While I have never seen Cho's All-American Girl, I am interested in the notions about the show expressed in Cassinelli's piece. The landscape of race representation in sitcom television has puzzled me in recent years. In particular, the shows Fresh Off the Boat, Modern Family  and  Blackish come to mind. I have only seen a handful of episodes of these shows, so I cannot offer a definitive opinion on any of them, but they all make reference in their titles to a "modern" subversion of the traditional nuclear sitcom family. I suppose that this ...

    Margaret Hillenbrand's "Of Myths and Men" has many provocative quotes, but the final statement in reference to Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle  is the one I'd like to examine more than any: "if Asian American cinema can be parodied alongside Sixteen Candles and The Simpsons , then surely-at last-it is on its way to arriving” (72). Hillenbrand is addressing a meta-joke in Harold in Kumar, in which a white bully tells John Cho's Harold "better luck tomorrow" in reference to his role in the Justin Lin film.      Does parody and/or canonization mean anything for representation or race relations on a larger scale? This is a difficult question. Simple representation may not change a bigot's view. For example, in Do the Right Thing, John Turturro's character is prejudiced against black people, but his favorite basketball player is Magic Johnson and his favorite actor is Eddie Murphy. He claims that he does not see these entertainers as bla...

What is the purpose of a subject-focused documentary?   In the case of A.K.A. Don Bonus , I think it's somewhere between an informational documentary and a vlog. Don seems to treat it as a video journal, but there is a clear politicization from the circumstances of its production, release and the reaction to the film. As a film in itself, it's a very intimate look at Don's life, it's well-made, and is quite dramatic for a true story. However, it raises the question of the documentarian's role in the subject's life. Is Don being exploited for a larger sociopolitical narrative?  Todd Solondz'  Storytelling brilliantly parodies the notion of the exploitative documentary filmmaker. A director, played by Paul Giamatti, sets out to make a fly-on-the-wall documentary in the style of A.K.A. Don Bonus  about a misguided teenager named "Scooby". In order to achieve an adequately dramatic narrative for the film, the director manipulates Scooby's life in v...

As described by Phruksachart, "Messianic Visibility" is "an overinvestment in the idea that insistently normative cinematic identification possesses transformative, even curative, political and personal potential". In other words, simply achieving representation is not a complete political solution by any means. I am sure that there are many Asian Americans that saw Crazy Rich Asians at a multiplex (or just saw its level of success at the box office) and felt some degree of acceptance in American culture. It could be argued whether this is a good thing or not. Phruksachart posits that this representation is used to keep minority groups complacent and therefore prevent actual political change, because media representation gives oppressed group the feeling of being accepted without any government policy behind it. Phrukaschart raises the question of what correlation media representation has with legitimate cultural and political change, specifically as it relates to C...

  The cyborg is a science fiction concept; combining human anatomy with technology to achieve feats beyond what a human can do. In a sense, Chow's figures are cyborgs. The actors perform impressive kung-fu techniques, but Chow uses CGI in post-production to transform their moves into a superhuman display. Mamoru Oshii's film  Ghost in the Shell (1995) reckons with the philosophical implications of the cyborg as well, questioning whether it is ethical to create a fighting machine that can be manipulated like a computer. Should a fighting machine be allowed to have human decision-making skills? What if Sing in Kung Fu Hustle used his strength to join the Axe Gang, like Anakin Skywalker joining the dark side in Revenge of the Sith?    In Kung Fu Hustle, Chow uses this trope for a humanist argument; the idea that one person can, through self-discipline and agency, achieve their "best self". Kung Fu Hustle also carries out a political statement through this trope. The Axe...

    Uche Chukwu's Run is an uninhibited, creative and morally complex film that operates outside of the confines of Western genre tropes. It contains comedy, action, drama and horror in fairly equal parts; though Hollywood bends genre often, almost no Hollywood films incorporate these many genre elements in one work.     Chukwu uses the narrative to opine on various issues relating to women's rights. The lead, Tomilola Wright (Kiki Omeili), runs through a city, constantly pursued by men trying to kill or assault her for varying reasons.  Most of the narrative takes place at night, which adds to the unsettling tone. The clearest takeaway from the film is the difficulty of being a woman in a largely populated area. None of the men that Tomilola encounters seem trustworthy; or if they do seem trustworthy at first, we suspect that they will betray her, which almost every man in the film does. She encounters a sex worker who is being exploited by a customer, and a wo...

    Popular cinema requires themes and content that can resonate with a wide audience. In Hollywood today, major studios are challenged with making films that can sell to both American and international audiences (usually focusing on China). This raises the question: how do you appeal to the widest audience possible? What style and themes transcend cultural differences? While there is some variance to the answer, the commonality in popular cinema is spectacle.     Genre and spectacle are often used for the purpose of escapism.  For example, in Star Wars, visual and sound effects place the film in a world outside of Earth. This other world shares many elements of the real world, but it feels different enough from our perception of reality to reduce the events of the film to mere allegory. There are aliens, but most of them take recognizable forms. Although it is set in the past, the world of Star Wars  likely parallels much of its audience's vision of Earth'...