|
|
 |
Hooray for Harold and Kumar,
a Stoner Movie with Asians
Youth Commentary
By Nelanjana Banerjee, Pacific News Service
When Hollywood gets its hands on minorities, movie viewers often
cringe. But Neelanjana Banerjee, 26, got a buzz watching two Asian
American actors play the stoner leads in Harold and Kumar Go To White
Castle, released Friday, July 30.
 SAN
FRANCISCO- July 30, 2004-At a recent Asian Pacific American (APA)
community sponsored screening of "Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle,"
New Line's latest release about two dudes in search of the perfect meal,
the line of young APAs stretched down the hall and wound up the stairs.
The same conversation was echoing throughout the room: Is this it? Are
we going to recognize these two guys, or are we going to come out of
this movie embarrassed, dejected and angry -- like we usually do after
seeing ourselves through Hollywood's eyes?
I saw an old co-worker of mine sitting a few seats away in the crowded
theater. He and his group of friends, Chinese Americans in their early
20s, were worried.
"It's cool that it's so big," he said. "But couldn't it have been a
better topic?"
Personally, I feel like I have been waiting my whole life for this
movie. Not only was "Harold and Kumar" a mainstream, Hollywood
production starring two Asian American men in the lead roles, but it was
a stoner movie.
In the suburban Ohio town I grew up in there was a movie theater that
played the 1993 Richard Linklater movie "Dazed and Confused" every
Friday night at midnight for years. My friends and I would attend,
quoting back the famous lines (Wooderson: "You got a joint kid?" Mitch:
"No, man." Wooderson: "Well, you'd be a lot cooler if you did.") and
cheering on the Texas teenagers in their quest for the ultimate high.
Sure, none of the kids in the movie looked anything like me, an Indian
American, but I was right there with them.
Like other classic movies in its genre, "Harold and Kumar" is an
adventure story riddled with mishaps and guided by the love for
marijuana. The great thing about stoner movies is that they become
legendary -- made to be watched over and over and quoted eternally. The
idea that kids across America will be quoting two Asian American guys,
slapping Harold and Kumar stickers on their drug paraphernalia and
watching this movie over and over makes me feel like we have arrived in
a whole new way.
There is no lack of "diversity" in stoner movies. In fact, people of
color seem to be holding it down in this popular film genre. From Cheech
Marin's over-the-top portrayal of a cholo smoker in the classic, 1970s
Cheech and Chong movies to 1995's uber-popular Ice Cube/ Chris Tucker
hit "Friday," the weed seems to be growing in abundance in marginalized
communities. Magical marijuana even helped Redman and Method Man get to
Harvard in the bizarre 2001 movie "How High." But many of these
drug-induced caricatures seemed to be equal parts empowerment and equal
parts minstrel show. In Cheech's drunken ditty "Mexican American" from
"Up in Smoke," he sings about how his people are like everyone else:
"Mexican Americans don't like to just get into gang fights, they like
flowers and music and white girls named Debbie too."
So, in "Harold and Kumar," when we are introduced to Kumar, played by
Kal Penn, and he is sitting in a medical school interview with his tie
askew and interrupts his interviewer to answer his cell phone and cajole
Harold into smoking the sticky weed he has back at the apartment -- I
couldn't help but applaud. I thought: A new hero for the stoner
generation, and he could be my brother!
What "Harold and Kumar "achieves, beyond the typical weed-fueled,
buddy-movie plot of most stoner movies, is to bring to life Asian
Americans in a way that has never been seen in Hollywood before. Harold
and Kumar are underdogs, sure -- the white guys at work dump on Harold,
and the extreme sports losers intimidate Kumar and call him Apu -- but
they are normal, horny, weed-smoking dudes. The writers, Jon Hurwitz and
Hayden Schlossberg, say they based the characters on friends they grew
up with in New Jersey, where the film is set. From Kumar's doctor father
pressuring him to go to med school to the black men they encounter in
jail whose only crime was the color of their skin, I thought the film
tackled issues of race and stereotype in a more complicated way than
anything I've seen before -- especially from Hollywood.
Even though Kumar might be my new 420 hero, the movie wasn't perfect.
For as much as APA men and issues might have been humanized, there were
sexist and homophobic jokes aplenty. I know, these are integral parts of
the stoner movie formula, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.
After the screening, as the APA masses poured out of the theater, the
verdict was apparent in the huge smiles and congratulatory feelings all
around. A few small puffs for Harold and Kumar, one giant leap for Asian
America.
Other Readings of Interest
Banerjee is an assistant editor for
YO! Youth Outlook,
a publication by and for San Francisco Bay Area youth, and a PNS
project. |
