http://www.thelmagazine.com/TheMeasure/archives/2009/06/05/the-white-middle-class-gets-a-free-pass-to-fuck-over-minorities Comments On: The White Middle Class Gets a Free Pass to Fuck Over Minorities by Benjamin Sutton and Henry Stewart en-us Copyright 2009 The L Magazine. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, The L Magazine readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact The L Magazine. wil@desert.net (The L Magazine Webmaster) Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:00:01 -0500 Sat, 21 Nov 2009 21:15:00 -0500 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss http://www.satinmovie.com/blog/?p=48
Posted by Benjamin Sutton]]> Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:05:20 -0500 The L Magazine
First of all, the actor playing Mr. Chow is Ken Jeong - a Korean man (who happens to be a doctor and comedian in real life). Ken's attempt at a "Chinese" accent was indeed horrific and no less offensive than it would have been if performed by Mickey Rooney or anyone else of non-Chinese decent. Just because Koreans are "Asians," that doesn't mean it's okay to use one to make fun of Chinese people. Americans tend to group all of Asia together as a uniform culture, but any Asian person will tell you - We're just as different as the different countries of Europe. Americans find it so hard to distinguish Chinese, Korean, or Japanese people, but somehow they recognize the difference between the French, Italians, and Germans (even though they all "look the same" too). It all boils down to laziness and ignorance.

Second, Ken Jeong decided to go full frontal in this movie. Apparently Ken makes it a point to joke about the size of his tiny penis in his regular comedy routine. And having watched this movie, I can report that he's not kidding. Seriously, he is a medical anomaly. That's fine. He's got a wife, and if she's okay with it, then so be it. But the rest of us Asian men don't ALL have tiny penises... really. We have been trying to overcome that unfortunate stereotype for years. Up until now, people just went along with the joke even though they didn't have any "first-hand" viewing experience. Now Ken Jeong flashes his mini-package on screen for millions of people to see, and the stereotype has been officially confirmed in many people's minds. And what makes it worse is, again, Ken does this while calling himself Chinese. Rather than just embarrassing himself and his own culture, he's dragging all of China with him and Asian people in general. He really did a disservice to a lot of Asian guys who already find it hard enough to find dates here in America.

And let's not get started about his attempt to sound flaming homosexual at the same time. I guess he was trying to offend as many groups as possible. In my case, he definitely succeeded.
Posted by newguy]]> Fri, 31 Jul 2009 20:13:05 -0400 The L Magazine Posted by Henry Stewart]]> Mon, 15 Jun 2009 22:52:10 -0400 The L Magazine Posted by Jonny Diamond]]> Wed, 10 Jun 2009 22:42:54 -0400 The L Magazine
I've no idea how you saw any of it anyway, with your head that far up your own rectum.

I'll bet you're a riot at parties.
Posted by MEast]]> Wed, 10 Jun 2009 20:22:15 -0400 The L Magazine Posted by jesse]]> Fri, 05 Jun 2009 16:13:01 -0400 The L Magazine
As for the tasers, you're right, I didn't explain my point which wasn't just that tasers kill lots of people every year, but the Taser company denies its responsibility, covering up their complicity and continuing to sell deadly products as safe alternatives to life-threatening weapons...and so depicting those products in an extended sequence as essentially harmless but fuckin' funny buzzers felt like paid propaganda from an evil corporation. And that's not funny, right?
Posted by Henry Stewart]]> Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:18:56 -0400 The L Magazine
All that said, arguing that "getting tasered isn't funny" because "tasers kill lots of people every year" sounds to me like the epitome of grad-student humorlessness. Loads of people get severely injured falling down every year, but that doesn't make it not funny in a movie. I imagine someone getting accidentally shot in the head is unspeakably horrific in real life, but that doesn't make it not funny in Pulp Fiction.

That's not to say slapstick can't turn into sadism, but you have to explain *why* it's not funny. Because no, getting tasered is *not* inherently unfunny.
Posted by jesse]]> Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:01:10 -0400 The L Magazine