My latest post over at Change.org:
Red Dawn: A Contemporary Remake of Yellow Peril Hysteria?
Recently, I blogged over at Reappropriate.com about why I am boycotting The Last Airbender and Prince of Persia: both films reinforce backwards racial stereotypes of good and evil. But perhaps no film this year will be more racially divisive than the remake of Red Dawn, slated for release this November.
For those of you who missed the 1984 original, Red Dawn follows a group of American teenagers who face the sudden invasion of their tiny Colorado town by allied Cuban and Russian Communist forces. After surviving the initial attack on their town, the teens learn to survive in the surrounding Colorado wilderness. Ultimately, they form a rebel militia dubbed the “Wolverines,” and resort to guerilla terrorism to resist the Russian and Cuban occupying forces. By the film’s end, the Wolverines have morphed into American freedom fighters and patriots.
The 1984 Red Dawn film has been simultaneously praised as one of the best right-wing films of all time, and criticized as ”xenophobic,” “survivalist porn” that caters to crazed militiamen. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that MGM decided to remake the movie, betting on the cult classic status of the original to draw in contemporary viewers.
Except this time around, the new villain is China.
“The film fails to cast an Asian actor as one of its American protagonists, and in so doing, it effectively paints all Asians as un-American (a stereotype still held by most Americans). Perhaps producers of Red Dawn thought that American moviegoers would be confused by images of patriotic Asian-Americans alongside the villainous Chinese army?”
I guess even the alluring prospect of creating the absolute least amount of understanding possible isn’t worth trouble of the such obscure research as IMDB and wikipedia:
Kenneth Choi as “Smith”.
“In October it was announced on the official movie website, that Avatar star Matt Gerald and Ken Choi would play as soldiers within Andrew Tanner’s group.”
Also featuring Ron Yuan and Cindy Chu on the American side of things.
But hey, what’s a little omission when we’re dealing with people who were born evil, pretend like they have something worth defending, and slur those who have every right to the ownership of 2 billion people.
Brandon — I did not include Ken Choi’s casting, because his character does not appear in the 80’s original, and it is unclear if his role is heroic, or if he even has a speaking role in the film. The same is true of Ron Yuan and Cindy Chu’s casting; as best as I can tell, they are townsfolk who may not even make it through to the final version of the film.
I was speaking of the fact that none of the Wolverines were cast as Asian. If anything, upon re-reading the post, I could be criticized for not having written “The film fails to cast an Asian actor as one of its [MAIN] American protagonists…” but, that only necessitated a comment from you that the writing required clarity, not an accusation that I am deliberately misrepresenting the film.
“But hey, what’s a little omission when we’re dealing with people who were born evil, pretend like they have something worth defending, and slur those who have every right to the ownership of 2 billion people.”
I’m not even sure WHAT you’re trying to insinuate with this paragraph. Who, exactly, are you accusing of being “born evil”?
Why, the common Caucasoid of course. What other people could, merely by not assigning to one of their own race MAIN representation of a country that they comprise less then five percent of, paint the entirety of said race as otherly and inhuman.
Whereas the very script for “Machete” is public and includes more unambiguously ennobled, nakedly tribalistic violence aimed solely against a given race and their traitorous apologists then any film one can recall, we mustn’t have any of the same “questions” posited about it that we would a film that may or may not use members of the satanic breed as the only primary protagonists and dare not to portray the considerable multi-ethnic complexion of the PLA (not to mention their informed point of view).
Who else is deserving not only of presupposition, speculation and conjecture, but obfuscation and inconsistancy? Only a people born of a reducible but ultimately unsurmountable moral inferiority can be so uniquely and innately deserving of such suspicion and antagonism.
Hopefully, with the help of brave and thoughtful people like yourself, we’ll all realize that someday.