AAPI community still buzzing about Oscar's Asian jokes

Estie Kung, right, responds to the Oscar joke that has riled up Asians and Asian/Americans.

OSCAR'S JOKE, at the expense of Asians and Asian/Americans, continues to draw the wrath of the AAPI community days after the Academy Awards was aired.

The three Asian/American youngsters brought on stage as the Price/Waterhouse /Coopers accountants didn't know they were going to be the butt of the racist joke until the auditions and their parents apparently didn't understand their kids were going to be the butt of the joke until the night of the telecast.

In an NPR interview, Laura Kung, the mother of one of the kids, 8-year old Estie Kung, said: "In this case, it wasn't until the rehearsals, after Estie got her tux fitted and was already looking forward to the opportunity to be on the Oscars, that her parents heard the entirety of the joke for the first time. But they had already signed the contract and had to confront the very likely possibility that their daughter would be part of a racist joke that would cause an uproar. After talking to Estie, they ultimately decided to take the optimistic point of view, believing that an inappropriate Asian joke that might provoke a difficult public conversation may be preferable if the status-quo alternative was to have no Asian presence at all. So, they braced themselves."

RELATED: Chris Rock goes one joke too many

Host Chris Rock, who opened the awards show with a monologue addressing the lack of African//American nominees in the Oscar acting categories, introduced the three young Asians as Ming Zu, Bao Ling and David Moskowitz, evoking the stereotype that Asians (and Jews) are good at math. If that wasn't bad enough, thesis, "If anybody's upset about that joke, just tweet about it on your phone that was also made by these kids," conjuring up the image of child labor abuse.

And it got worse. Sasha Baron Cohen told a joke about Asians asking why no Oscars were given to "short, yellow people with small dongs - you know, the Minions," bringing up the demeaning stereotype of Asian men. (I must have left the room to gag because I failed to mention this in my post immediately after the Oscars.)

Apparently, in Chris Rock's view, it is still a black and white world. Latinos were not the butt of any jokes but they were not mentioned by the host either. Despite all the talk about inclusion and opportunity, it is still OK to make fun of Asians. 

CORRECTION: In earlier versions of this post, Chris Rock was erroneously associated with the movie "Rush Hour." That reference has been deleted.

Hawaii 5-0 actor Daniel Dae Kim tweeted that the first reference to any ethnicity other than black took 30 minutes, when "someone mentions 'pho.' I thought #diversity was more than that."

Little Estie is apparently quite a cook and a celebrity with Food Network viewers. Here she is in a guest appearance with late-night host James Cordon where her sparkling personality and composure is on display.

"This was not OK and should never have happened," says Laura Kung. "But the angrier people are and more people talk about it, the better it will be moving forward. Estie hopes to keep acting and we all hope for a time when she can be on that stage to honor her achievement."

"It's hard seeing pictures of your daughter's very serious face on stage associated with all of this," says Estie's mother. "It's definitely been a damper to all the joy she felt just being there."

As for budding actress Estie, when asked if she thought the joke was funny, said, "Kind of ... kind of not."

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For more news about Asian/Americans & Pacific Islanders, read AsAm News.

Asians insulted; Chris Rock went one joke too many at the Oscars telecast

Chris Rock's Asian joke fell flat

ASIANS were finally mentioned on the Oscars show last night (Feb. 28) but not in the way I expected.

Host Chris Rock and the writers apparently see the world in Black and White.

In show dominated by talk about diversity - or the lack of it - there was hardly any mention of Latinos or Asians. Only because the movie Revenant was nominated for Best Picture did Native Americans get mentioned.

But we cringed when Rock (or the writers) introduced the accountants from Price Waterhouse. Out came three Asian youngsters, perhaps 5-8 years old, thus playing up the stereotypes of child exploitation and math proficiency.

The celebrity-filled audience, perhaps a little sensitive because of the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, laughed nervously.

Yeah, I know, Chris Rock loves to make people uncomfortable and maybe I'm making too much out of nothing. I still cringed.

"If anyone is upset about that joke, just tweet about it on your phone that was also made by these kids," said Rock.

And Tweet, they did:

Rock's opening monologue was hit and miss but he made his point about the lack of African/American nominees and opportunities.  Is Hollywood racist, he asks. Hell, yeah, but it is not “burning-cross racist,” but it was “sorority racist. It’s like: ‘We like you, Rhonda, but you’re not a Kappa!’”

The camera obviously 

loves Chrissy Teigan,

absolutely glowing from

 her pregnancy. The 

camera kept panning

 over to her and hubby

 John Legend. After

 another joke that

 fell flat, the camera

 caught her reaction. 

The most effective bit was when he visited a theater in Compton and asked the moviegoers what they thought about the Oscar's Best Picture nominees. They hadn't even heard of them; illustrating the disconnect between the Hollywood movie makers and the real-people movie audience. Hopefully that opened some eyes of the executives at the major studios.

Oscar Notes:

Where was Ronnie Del Carmen? When Pixar's Inside Out won the Best Animated Feature, I was hoping Filipino/Ameircanl Carmen, who co-directed the movie with Pete Doctor, would stride up to the stage to receive an answer. Doctor accepted the award and there was no mention of del Carmen among the 'Thank you's" the recipients accepted the Oscars even though he helped write the storyline.

Pakistani/Canadian filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy won an Oscar for her short documentary, "A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness." The film examines the case of an 18-year-old Pakistani girl who survived a brutal attack by her father and uncle bent on an "honour killing." Human rights groups estimate that about 1,000 Pakistani women are killed every year for "bringng shame" to their families. It was her second Oscar.

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For more news about Asian/Americans & Pacific Islanders, read AsAm News.

It's awards show season, but not for Asian Americans; We conduct the first annual Eddie Awards

IT'S AWARDS SEASON.  With the Golden Globes, Oscars, Emmy's, the People's Choice Awards right around the corner, it was impossible to note the glaring omission of Asian American artists among the nominees. Therefore, I thought I'd hand out some awards of my own. 


The 'EDDIEs,' modestly named after a blogger who shall remain nameless, will be handed out yearly in the categories I'll make up out of the clear blue sky. There are no trophies or cash awards - just a reminder of what happened and what didn't happen in the past year by and about Asian/Pacific Islander Americans in pop culture. Hopefully with some humor and a dash of irony thrown in.

CAVEAT: I purposely didn't include Asian actors based in other countries. The EDDIEs are reserved for Asian American performances.

Hoon Lee

So, here we go. Drum roll. The envelope, please.

Stereotype-buster: 
Hoon Lee for his portrayal of Job, a cross-dressing ass-kicker (Yes, you can be a cross dresser and a tough guy at the same time) on the TV show Banshee. OK, he's adept at the computer, but that's about the only thing that reminds us of the Asian nerd. He likes his make-up but he can take on three yahoo's at once without hitting the pause button on his laptop. Even though he is officially a sidekick, his character is so strong and complex, he is an equal in scenes with Antony Starr, who plays Lucas Hood, the lead character in this sexy, adrenalin-pumping unpredictable Cinemax series. The writers give him good lines, but I'm hoping the writers delve more into Job's background this coming season of Banshee, which starts Saturday, Jan. 9. What makes this character tick?



Best moment that never happened: 
John Cho and Karen Gillian, the lead characters in Selfie that only lasted six episodes before getting cancelled. The "moment" happened -- or, didn't happen. Cho's character, Henry, and Gillian's character, Eliza played a cat-and-mouse game hinting and searching for their growing relationship with each other. Eliza tells Henry that women liked to be touched and she urges him to touch her. At first he hedges, then suddenly, he pulls her close to him and viewers were screaming at the screen, "Kiss her, dammit!." But she pulls away, realizing her attraction to him. The watershed event, the kiss that Asian America had been waiting for -- the first Asian American romantic leading man on a TV series almost - ALMOST - happened. We were robbed! So we must wait for another series, another time, another leading man, for that moment to happen.

Click here for the complete GIF. 

Worst moment that did happen (over and over again):

Matthew Moy

Just about any episode of 2 Broke Girls where the character Han Lee is featured, which is ... just about any episode of 2 Broke Girls. Matthew Moy plays the Han Lee character and draws up just about all the traits of the emasculated Asian male stereotype. Lots of the sitcom's jokes are about Han Lee's height, penis size and stinginess. You have to sympathize with Moy because at least he has a job in a Hollywood where Asian males are still the least represented demographic on television. But the character whom the writers create is so bad that even non-Asian media have taken noticed, such as the Hollywood Reporter, The Guardian, innumerable newspaper articles and blogs. Moy and the show's creators discuss the Han Lee character in a fairly objective article in Audrey magazine. There's no sign the producers are going to let up on their reliance on stereotypes to get a laugh.

Best show we'll miss:
Selfie was the show I most wanted to succeed because of John Cho's lead character. However, an uneven start doomed the series and because the title itself, Selfie, would want to draw from the same demographic that least likely would be watching the show on the television set, the same group that prefer mobile devices a their chief mode of interaction. Although the ratings were not high, they weren't so bad, either. But the ABC honchos were not patient enough for the show to establish its audience. Other shows with poorer ratings for the first six episodes eventually found its niche and audience. There's a petition to the show but chances are slim for Selfie's revival. The remaining episodes of the 13 total that were made, can be seen at Hulu and at ABC.com  Unfortunately, the fate of this series may make future producers reluctant to put an Asian male in a romantic lead.

Seeya "Selfie." The show had a diverse cast but race didn't enter into the conversation.

Best show nobody ever watched
With all the hoopla around Selfie and F.O.B., this show never got the attention it needed. "Sullivan and Son," the first Irish-Korean family featured on TV was about a bar-owner married to a Korean woman and their hapa children. It was Cheers with kim-chee. Unfortunately, it was sporadic in its writing and laughs but it was interesting to see how they used the Korean angle. They never made a big deal about it, which was kind of nice, but maybe that was also what was wrong about it. Perhaps the biggest hurdle it couldn't overcome was it was on at odd hours on a station (TBS) hardly anybody watched, unless you were an Atlanta Braves fan watched. TBS should be applauded though, it gave S&S time to try and find its legs - three seasons - that's more than what you can say about ABC's handling of Selfie (See above).

Goodbye, we hardly got to know ye.

Best director:

Yes. There are a few Asian directors in the Hollywood scene. Unfortunately, you can count them on one hand. This year's EDDIE for "best director" goes to Taiwan-born Justin Lin. Lin started out with the under appreciated Better Luck Tomorrow, a small budget delightful film about Asian young people that surprisingly showed some cross-over appeal. He has proven himself to the money people of moviedom with four movies in the profitable Fast & Furious franchise, two of which opened with $70 million each. Lin was recently tabbed to direct the upcoming third film of the Star Trek prequels with his biggest production budget yet.

Justin Lin will direct Star Trek.

Justin Lin is a busy guy these days. He opted out of his fifth Fast and Furious film to direct the next Bourne Legacy movie. When that was cancelled, he producer J.J. Abrams picked him for the next Star Trek movie which reportedly will be released in 2016, the 50th anniversary of the TV series debut. His career goes where only a few Asians dared to go.

Lumpia lover Darren Criss.

Is he, or isn't he?
The award goes to an actor we didn't know was Asian (or part Asian). The winnah is ...  Darren Criss, who plays Blaine, an out-and-proud gay character in the hit show Glee. The question is not: Is he really gay, or not? but: Is he really Asian American? Turns out that Criss is a lumpia lover. His mother is a native of Cebu, Philippines. Unfortunately, this is Glee's last season which starts Jan. 9. If you don't know about Glee, what rock have you been living under?  A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, his father was a director for the San Francisco Opera. Criss went to the University of Michigan where he majored in theatrical arts. 

The Samoan-Canadian sports Samoan tattoos.

Best kickass man:
This was a tough one. There are not too many roles out there depicting Asian males as - what we in America like to call "ass-kickers," you know the tough-as-nails, no nonsense indestructible, macho, he-man hero. For assistance, I turned to "Nerds of Color," for suggestions. Hmm, Keanu Reeves or The Rock, AKA Dwayne Johnson. I like those nominations. This year, however, I'm going with the Rock, Every movie he's in - I mean, talk about type-casting - he's just kickass. He's got the physique and the death-stare down pat. And in Hollywood terms, the color of money is more important than the color of your skin, Johnson is one of the top money-makers in town based on his roles in the Fast and Furious sequels and Hercules. In 2014, the black/Samoan pro-wrestler made over $52 million. His casting appeal is partly because of his racially ambiguous appearance which allows him to play characters of various races. Not that he's denied his heritage; if asked, he'll proudly describe his Pacific Islander roots.

Best kickass woman:
This is a another really difficult category. There are bunch of ass-kicking Asian women on TV. It seems the white producers and writers have a proclivity for this type, but what-the-hell? For better or worse, work is work, This year's award goes to Ming-Na Wen of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., for the episode in which her character, Agent Melinda May, fights with her doppleganger. The fight is really well choreographed and technically, really difficult to pull off. It took almost three days to film the scene for the S.H.I.E.L..D. episode, which usually takes 8 days to produce.  Really good stuff.

At least, Woo Hwang's honor is intact.

Stupidest move on a reality show:
Woo Hwang chose Tony to be in the final trio of Survivor: Cagayan. Tony was the best player of the season with his aggressive strategizing and he deserved the $1-million prize, but Woo had the chance to eliminate the strongest survivor and he didn't. Woo chose to abide with his agreement with Tony rather than succumb to the temptation to "outwit" his competition. By choosing honor over greed, Woo walks off the beach with the nothing but his integrity. By the way, Woo is the dude who described himself as the "stupidest" survivor player ever.  



Most intriguing personality:

Chrissy Teigan

Chrissy Teigan. To her credit, she is the antithesis of the Asian female stereotype of demure, obedient, soft-spoken and compliant. She made the cover of Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. But the reason she's here is because she's everywhere I look. She was on TV as a guest host with Kelly Ripa; cooking with some famous chef on the Food Network or walking down the red carpet witco-h husband John Legend. Last I looked, she was in freezing New York hosting a show on New Year's Eve dressed in a mini-skirt. She's outspoken, fun, irreverent, funny (most of the time) loud, brash and she's managed to make a living by just being "out there." Read her tweets, Instagram or her food blog. (NOTE: She had to discontinue her Twitter account because of death threats from ultra-conservatives.)  Maybe this award should go to her agent?

Arthur Chu

Best villain:
Early in 2014, Arthur Chu stirred a lot of controversy because of the way he played the TV game show Jeopardy. He played an aggressive game, finding those double-doubles by going after the toughest questions first instead using the traditional way of playing bf going down the list from easy to hard questions. He was pretty good at it, winning 11 straight games totaling almost $300,000 in prize money, among the top-four amounts in the game show's history. His critics said his aggressive strategy was ruining the integrity of the game. Puh-leese. Integrity on a game show? He drew a lot of flack, a lot of which was  borderline racist. What I liked about Chu is that he defied the stereotype. Yeah, Chu is a self-professed nerd - he calls himself a "loser" who got lucky. He was picked as the Angry Reader of the Week by Angry Asian Man. He didn't back down from his haters. In fact he embraced his role as villain and continued on his winning ways, laughing all the way to the bank.

Front and center, best Broadway diva:
Not a difficult choice, here. There's only ONE, count them - 1, numero uno, ONE Asian American woman in a lead role in a Broadway musical. That would be Ruthie Ann Miles, the Korean American actress and singer playing the role of Imelda Marcos in Here Lies Love. Finally, someone besides Lea Salonga is front and center on the Broadway stage. She has been getting rave reviews for her performance. She plays Imelda from the time she was beauty queen from Cebu to her rise in power with her marriage to Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos. With the popularity of the Broadway production, it looks like Ms. Miles will be around for awhile giving Lea Salonga some company under the bright lights. So while we await Vanessa Hudgens' debut as Gigi or the aforementioned Salonga in Cinderella or Allegiance, there will remain only one actress deserving of this award. 

Ruthie Ann Miles

 in Here Lies Love

Production that hired the most Asians:
Hands down - this should be no surprise - this award goes to Marco Polo, the dramatic retelling of the exploits of one white man in 12th century China. The Netflix answer to Game of Thrones employs hundreds of extras, an all Asian/Pacific Islander central cast to tell the fictional account of real-life explorer Marco Polo. Shot in Malaysia and Kazakhstan, the $90 million production is epic in every sense of the word. I hope it survives the rating wars because it interprets history from a non-European perspective, an experience that might be a little uncomfortable to its American audience, who have been spoon-fed history from a Eurocentric point of view so long they actually believe America has already reached America's lofty ideals. At any rate, Marco Polo is not without its flaws  and the hoity-toity critics have not been kind, but you have to understand that its historical FICTION, not real history. At its worst, it drags a bit with all the behind-the-throne intrigue that goes on. At its best,  it is visually stunning with the landscape, architecture, costumes and battle scenes popping out of the screen. For the sake of the huge diverse cast and for the presence of Asian faces on America's TV screens and consciousness, let's hope that it gets renewed for a second season.

Let's play "Where's Marco?" In the cast of hundreds, the lead character is often not the main protagonist.

UPDATE: Wouldn't you know it, the day after publishing this post, Netflix announced that Marco Polo's journey will continue into a second season.

That's it for this year, friends. Due to my limited budget and time, I wasn't able to watch or read about all the performances of Asian American actors, singers or dancers. I'm sure there are people or performances worthy of an EDDIE that I left out. Should Lucy Liu's Watson in Elementary be included? What about the romance between Maggie and Glenn in The Walking Dead? Who or what performance would you have nominated for an EDDIE? 

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