Autobiographical Cinema Commentary: Film as a Mirror

Like all people, we perceive the version of reality that our culture communicates. Like others having or living in more than one culture, we get multiple, often opposing messages. The coming together of two self-consistent but habitually incompatible frames of reference causes un choque, a cultural collision. (Anzaldúa, G., 1987, p. 78).

To me, media will most likely always begin and end with books.

As an adopted only child, books served as constant companions through my childhood, part sibling, part imaginary friend, part magic carpet to a world beyond rural New Jersey. 

That being said, books, while simultaneously widening your world, often open to the door to a solitary adventure.

Movies were my first foray into a shared media experience.

From the beginning, film in the form of home video was baked into our family traditions. Every year, on my Airport Day, we would watch the video of when I first met my mother and father at JFK International. We would snuggle on the couch, and I would watch the grainy images of my parents crying as they first held me in Terminal 1.

Movies and TV shows continued to be frequent visitors in our family room, playing an "increasingly important part" in my young life (McCarthy & Dimitriadis, 2000, p. 170). 

As a trucker, my father was often on the road, which left my mother and me free to partake in our favorite pastime: eating dinner in front of the TV.

When I was young, before the days of streaming, I would look forward to every Friday night when we would take the 15-minute drive to our local Blockbuster to pick our three movies for the weekend. 

To this day, I can probably quote most of the words to every chick flick that came out between 1995 and 2006. 

That being said, I mostly grew up on cinema that starred white woman finding love (with the rare appearance of Jennifer Lopez). 

When asked what celebrity I looked like, Lucy Liu was named more than once, most likely due to the fact that she was one of the only Asian American actresses that came to mind. 

(Spoiler: I, unfortunately, do not look like Lucy Liu).

High school was probably the first time I came into contact with any movies that could reasonably fall under the category of films.

Mostly ushered into the world of film by my much more knowledgeable cinephile friend, I spent many afternoons sitting in his living room making our way through IMDB's top 100 and discussing the ending of movies like Shawshank Redemption and Clockwork Orange or twists in movies like Fight Club or The Usual Suspects.

In this way, movies became everything from a social currency to and insider vetting process. 

However, although it brought a host of characters, plot lines, and ideas into my life, it would still be some time until film helped to change my perspective about myself, and the world at large. 

Instead, my initial forays into film often meant that my perspective was restricted by that of that particular film's content. 

As Goodwin (1994) stated, "Any camera position constitutes a theory about what is relevant within a scene, one that will have enormous consequences for what can be seen in it later, and what forms of subsequent analysis are possible" (p. 607). 

Goodwin was discussing the power certain individuals have to shape and reframe a story, in this case by choosing what part of a piece of footage to underscore. 

I think this assertion holds true not only in a physical sense but also in terms of what content is shared in the first place.

You see, as I became to consume more and more cinema, both mainstream and independent, many of the storylines and actors only served to reinforce the messages I received in other areas of my life, namely whose stories were worth telling and what a hero or heroine should look like. Reflecting back, I more and more agree with McCarthy & Dimitriadis (2000), that "it is increasingly television and film that educates American youth about race" (p. 173). 

The rare times I did come across an Asian actor in film, I often wish that I hadn’t. Representations like Long Duk Dong in 16 Candles or Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany’s seemed to underline the idea that Asians were other, doomed to be viewed as at best, comic relief, and at worst, eternal foreigners. 

If an Asian character was featured, often they were played by a white actor, or the script was changed entirely to write them out (I'm looking at you The King and I, Ghost in the Shell, Aloha, and Dr. Strange). 

If if you did manage to find an Asian actor playing an Asian character, many times they were the wrong ethnicity, reinforcing the stereotype that Asians are physically interchangeable. 

As a Korean adoptee, I struggle to find films where I can see myself in the characters on screen. However, in recent years there have definitely been movies in the right direction. 

From direct contradictions of the model minority stereotype in shows like The Mindy Project or movies like Always Be My Maybe or The Farewell to exploration of intersectional identities in Netflix films like The Half of It and shows like Never Have I Ever, I've been buoyed by the idea that Asians may have a place in cinema after all. 

This feeling is only strengthened by movies like Up and Searching that feature an Asian main character without it needing to be the main plot. Because it was actually, #StarringJohnCho.

Now, due to the increased ease of media creation and our society’s love of documenting important moments, I’ve found myself in the role of content creator more than once. This has become even more frequent since I began my Master’s program, where pecha kucha style presentations seem to rule the day. 

Being able to sit in the driver's seat in terms of shaping and choosing a narrative has been a therapeutic type of experience, allowing me to more comfortably craft my identity, without the feeling of needing to push against or strive toward something else. 

Since I’m far from being the next Charlie Kaufman, it’s lucky that I’ve long since stopped relying on movies to define my personal narrative. 

Nowadays, I find myself adhering more to the second theory of "cultural identity" that Hall (1990) espouses, the idea that "there are critical points of deep and significant difference which constitute 'what we really are'" (p. 225). This has kept me from feeling isolated when I fail to find myself amidst popular culture. 

However, I’ll definitely continue to consume film and hope, that one day, I’ll find my own face, and maybe even my own story, staring back at me.

References

Anzaldúa, G. (1987). Borderlands la frontera: The new mestiza. Aunte Lute Book Company.

Goodwin, C. (1994). Professional Vision. American Anthropologist, 96(3), 606-633.

Hall, S. (1989). Cultural identity and diaspora. Framework: The journal of cinema and media, 

    36, 222-237.

La Force, T. (2018, Nov. 6). Why do Asian-Americans remain largely unseen in film and 

    television? New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/t-magazine/asian-american-actors-

    representation.html

McCarthy, C. & Dimitriadis, G. (2000). Governmentality and the sociology of education: 

    Media, educational policy and the politics of resentment. British Journal of Sociology of Education,

    21(2), 169-185. Retrieved September 19, 2019, from https://www.jstor.org/stable/1393323

Schacht, K. (2019, Feb. 21). What Hollywood movies do to perpetuate racial stereotypes. Deutsche 

    Welle. https://www.dw.com/en/hollywood-movies-stereotypes-prejudice-data-analysis/a-47561660

Sun, R. (2016, May 6). Where are the Asian-American movie stars? The Hollywood 

    Reporter. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/are-asian-american-movie-stars-890755