The Slanted Screen

Funding for this program has been provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional funding has been provided by Robert Chan, Stanley Adachi, Derek Chin and Camille Perez, Dan and Barbara Gonzalez, and others, a list is available through PBS. Non-Asian actors doing Asian roles, they look ridiculous. We have to challenge a stereotype. You mind if I sit over here? I was married to Linda Cooksy. No, why don't you sit over there? I prefer that. Mainstream America, for the most part, is uncomfortable with seeing an Asian man portrayed in a sexual powerful light. You know what I said? If you're a white, you'd be hell of a big star. We are not uniques. I mean, I played a unit in the last emperor, so I know that it's very clearly different. My last name is Lee, Bruce Lee. Wow, man. I mean, this guy is like, God. People would come up to me. Hey, man, do you know Karate?

No, but it's because of Bruce. People think that I know Karate. To say that it doesn't affect us? That's a lot of bull, man. Let's fight to conquer it, but what's the strategy? When we're casting fast and furious, I remember even though the studio really wanted the lead to be Caucasian, I had to go in there and fight to fight and say, look, we need to have a colorblind casting session. If I'm going to choose between a wimpy businessman and playing a bad guy, I'm going to play a bad guy because I got balls. Yeah! I've got a problem. This is the destiny of full management. From the earliest days of the Gold Rush, Asian men played a leading role in transforming the American West.

They built the great transcontinental railway and the levies that made California an agricultural paradise. Asian men were pioneers whose contributions made possible the American dream. But when they tried to pursue the American dream for themselves, they faced ignorance and prejudice. One of these pioneers, Seshu Hayakawa, set his eyes on the great American dream machine, Hollywood. Seshu Hayakawa was born in Japan in 1890. He immigrated to the United States and became one of the best-paid and most respected stars of the silent screen. Hayakawa played leading romantic roles as well as villains and starred opposite some of Hollywood's biggest female stars.

Many people know Rudolf Valentino. He was a sex symbol of earlier Hollywood. But don't forget, Seshu Hayakawa was prior to him. And according to some researcher, Seshu Hayakawa was the first sex symbol of Hollywood. Seshu Hayakawa had Saturday, Matinee, theaters full of white women coming to see an Asian male like, you know, overpower them. I recall having a meeting with executives of Warner Brothers about David Carradine portraying a Chinese character in Kung Fu. And I remember this vice president said, if we put a yellow man on the tube, audience would turn the switch off in less than five minutes.

And I got really red in the face and I said, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. And I went back to this point of Seshu Hayakawa, you know. But I guess he was too young to remember. Maybe his grandmother would have said, yes, Seshu was my idol, you know. Did you know that Seshu Hayakawa had a little theater in little Tokyo before he became a movie star? And they would do shows. Seshu Hayakawa played Latins. He played American Indians. He played Chinese. He played all kinds of things, all kinds of races, things that we can't do anymore. We can't even play ourselves anymore. Sad.

Hayakawa would eventually star in over 90 films, some of which he produced himself. But in spite of his tremendous notoriety, Hayakawa would not only be the first, but one of the last Asian leading men to star in Hollywood production. As the motion picture industry grew, caricatures of the inscrutable oriental dominated the big screen. And Hollywood usually cast non-Asian actors to play these nefarious roles. My boy, if silence is golden, you are bankrupt. Two forces, the universe, one magnificent, the other sinister. It is said that the devil plays for men's souls, so does Dr. Fu Manchu, saving himself, evil incarnate. Well, Asian men, and usually it was in yellow face. Now these are typically white actors who are portraying Asian men or Asian American men. We're seen as having these predator natural powers, especially over white women. You have no will, no mind of your own. You will do only what I command you to do. Even to death.

They could induce them to all manner of indecent acts through drugs and through Asian mind control and other forms of suggestion or auto-suggestion. And in that sense, they had a great deal of power and clad, but of course they were in yellow face, so the audience knew that they were actually white people dressed up as Asians. I think, you know, portrayal of Charlie Chan and also characters like Mr. Motel, I think sort of paved the way, even to this day, to some of the filmmakers and writers and producers back of their mind, they still see that, replay that stupid damn thing, you know. So much that has an hypnotism. I think another of your oriental tricks. When Japan allied itself with Nazi Germany, Hollywood ratcheted up hostile images of Asians as enemy aliens and provocateurs. World War II and Cold War propaganda films provided steady work for Asian actors who would play the enemy.

I used to play hooky from school and go see, you know, a lot of old movies. I did see a lot of, you know, Hollywood war films. And there was Richard Lou and Philip Ahn mostly, you know, those two were sort of playing prominent so-called Japanese soldiers parts, you know. And I thought to myself, there it is, you know. Anyway, that was my reaction, but at that time I wasn't thinking about becoming an actor, you know. I could do better than that, you know. Sometimes Asian American actors were able to rise above the limitations of the genre. That's why even an actor like Richard Lou, when he did a film called Steel Helmet, where he portrays a Japanese American soldier involved in a Korean conflict. To me, that was the best thing that he's ever done.

Ah, you know, a country we have rules, even about war. Were you one of those idiots who fought in Europe for your country? 442nd combat team, and you know what? Over 3,000 of us idiots got the purple heart. You can't figure that out major, can you? No, that's what I don't understand. They call you dirty jet rats and get you fight for them. Why? I've got some hot infantry news for you. I'm not a dirty jet rat, I'm an American. And if we get pushed around back home, well, that's our business. But we don't like it when we get pushed around back. Ah, knock off, before I forget the articles of war and slap those rabbit teeth of yours out one at a time. In 1957, Silent Screen Idol Sessu Hayakawa returned to the limelight in the bridge on the river Kwa. We're one of my favorite films of all times, the bridge on the river Kwa, you know, where the Japanese officer played by Sessu Hayakawa is, I think, his character is really three dimensional. And I really have sympathy for him, even though he plays our enemy.

I do not think you're quite aware of my position. I must carry out my orders. My orders are to complete the bridge by the twelfth day of May. Hayakawa was nominated for an Academy Award for this performance. He was also nominated for a Golden Globe and received Best Actor Award from the National Board of Review that year. Nine years later, the young actor Mako became the second Asian American to be nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in the sand pebbles. Too much coal decide. Supposed coal decide. Any man, no can fight. Will you plenty time fight Chinese man? How you know fashion fights star skis? Skis, no saying. Once I decided to become an actor, my objective was to be as good as Ma'am Brando, a Lawrence Olivia, you know. Mako's career span 40 years. He performed on Broadway and acted in 80 feature films and over 100 television shows. Mako also founded and directed America's oldest Asian American theater company, the East West Players.

You're going to try to hurt you. Forget what color he is. You want to come back ship? You fight. Fight. And in a handful of groundbreaking films made by Maverick Hollywood directors, Asian American actors portrayed complex individuals grappling with racial prejudice and social taboos. Talk about Asian man not doing the leading role romantic leads, that is. You know, director like Samuel Fuller tried it in a picture called Crimson Kimono. Will James she get her? Well written, small film, but again I think a bit ahead of it's time. He actually wrote it around a real life Japanese detective on the LA police force. He and his well-made fall for the same pretty blonde girl. We know it was in his mind all these years. Kind of cracks he made when I wasn't there.

Never worked out of course. If he feels like that, what can I expect from you? Everything. Could I love you? Well, he wound up with a girl. In Hollywood being one of the first images, I think that was very important just to acknowledge that Asian men have some sort of sexuality, you know, that we are not unique. James she gave to played leading roles in Hollywood at a time when there were very few Asian actors. He starred in a number of films that dealt with interracial dating and marriage, themes rarely depicted on film and television. The critical acclaim came from British to the Sun. It's based on a true story. But Teri Terasaki, who was an at-the-shay to the ambassador in Washington DC, just prior to the war.

They had married against her aunt's wishes. One breaks out and they find that the embassy is going to be closed. So they almost all go back to Japan. And he insists that his wife stay here. She's in America. But she's in love with him and she said, no, where you go. I'll go with you. So against his wishes, she goes with him. I was given the predecessor of the Golden Globe Awards as a outstanding, outstanding newcomer of that year. James she gave to also starred in Hollywood's film version of Rogers and Hammerstein's Broadway musical, Flower Drum Saw. Popular movie broke new ground in American musical history by featuring an entirely Asian cast.

Even as the civil rights movement of the 60s advanced the agenda of racial equality, Hollywood films of the era resorted to pernicious racial stereotyping, delivered with a wink and a nod. Recently I saw a film on television called Thoroughly Modern Milley. It was directed by a very respected director, George Roy Hill, who did butch cast in Sundance Kid. And it stars some of my favorite actresses, like Carol Channing and Mary Tyler Moore. In a scene, of course there's a dragon lady played by Beatrice Lilly. And she got two henchmen, one of them is Pad Maria. That's what I call it, a very racist film.

Actor Jason Scott Lee describes the impact of Mickey Rooney's character on a young Chinese American actor Bruce Lee. Jason Scott Lee plays the aspiring action hero in the biographical feature, Dragon, the Bruce Lee story. Lord Holly and I are sitting in the theater and we're watching a breakfast at Tiffany. This character kind of ogre like whatever comes on and he's got these big buck teeth and the big glasses. And he's portraying what supposed to be a Japanese old man or something. And he's basically playing somewhat of a caricature on that person. There's this expression that I have on my face that takes into account maybe the humiliation of being put on screen portrayed in that light. Such experiences would fuel Bruce Lee's meteoric rise to fame. By the early 1970s, the Kung Fu film emerged as a popular genre with action star Lee as its undisputed king.

What Bruce Lee achieved in his short career changed forever the image of Asian American men in Hollywood and all over the world. Of course growing up as a young man, the influential actors were cleanies to a charged broads. For me it was always the action heroes that left a great impact in my life. But at the same time I realized something that was missing. I realized that all the hero figures that I was looking up to were Caucasians. And I did not really have a strong model until this gentleman came on board called Bruce Lee and I said wow he's like me or I'm like him. He was the epitome of cool. He was James Dean. He was Michael Jordan. I just felt proud to be Asian because I saw somebody up there on the screen doing what he did.

As you know, it was a television series, Green Hornet. And Bruce Lee was a new phenomena at that time in terms of television industry. And I wanted to work with it. I'll kill him as I would to fight. More big talk. This man is your leader, your hero. He backs down like a woman. Enough. Bruce Lee definitely made it harder for Asian men. In terms of the bar or what people saw you as, it's like people would come up to me. But no, it's because of Bruce. People think that I know karate.

Bruce, you are the best. I gotta eat more Mongolian beef. Bruce Lee is a stereotype, unfortunately. The Chinese Americans born in San Francisco, born in the Chinese opera tradition. But if he wants to perform here, he has to wear a mask, drive the white man's car, and wash it. Never mind the custom car shop, Kato. Claudia Bromley has been kidnapped. And only gets to attack on command from the white man. Sick him, Bruce. No. If he wants to take off his clothes and be a man, he has to go to China. He has to go to Hong Kong and do it. Well, whether Bruce Lee created or clung to stereotypic image of martial artists through whatever he did, I don't know. I mean, that's why he approached it, I believe, you know. And it certainly drew worldwide audience, you know, because of his work.

And until then, that type of martial arts film was a schleppy, Southeast Asian market, only kind of a thing. It became a kind of a household. Have you seen enter the dragon? No, I saw twice. You know, he created that kind of a sensation. And I think in that sense, I don't think he created a stereotypic image. I think my question is, had he lived, whether he would have ventured into different image of what he can do? We have to be proud of legend, Bruce Lee. It gave a lot of Asian male pride.

We were able to walk down the street with our heads up. That's the reality of it. Even today, I mean, he's been gone for 25 years, yet he's still a legend. All right, what are the legends that we have in Asia that we could say that to? I'm saying. But Lee's tragic and untimely death at the age of 33 left avoid. Leading roles for Asian American actors remained few and far between. In a modern twist on yellow face clichés, Hollywood typecast Asian actors as waiters, servants, and gangsters. I mean, all the full-man Jews, I mean, really, I mean, I think that's pretty redundant, you know, because everybody's seeing them. You know, and everybody's offended by them, I'm not saying a bananza. I mean, we couldn't win, man. What are you doing in Hopsing Kitchen? I just brought your life back, Hopsing. That's so little boy, take knife, a big boy, take a donut, bad boy, very bad boy. I mean, there's a movie that I really cringed, just recently.

You have Clint Eastwood's movie. Pardon? Oh, you sit. You eat, please. This guy won't part of my master plan. I'm waiting for someone. Oh, he must eat, too, please. You will, we will. When we're going to, well, order the, and we'll order half the minute, just not now. Maybe that's him disguised as a gentleman. He was like, wow, that's not right. And Clint, I mean, you know, I looked up to this guy, and I think he, yeah, he did directly. And for him to do that is like, wow. Pushing lawnmowering machine, so grandpa's hyena don't get disturbed. Hurrier! Oh, yes, yes, yes, in D.D. Hebe, he does the dishes and helps with the laundry, you bitch. Well, my nickname was Long-to-Dong in high school because of that character.

And I think every Asian guy that ever went to an American school's nickname was Long-to-Dong because of that character, that means that you're not going to get any girls. Don't get into stereotypic image, you know? Stereotypic image is the simplest and easiest way to do it, but you will not get performers will not get satisfaction out of doing it. Only satisfaction, maybe, your bank account, maybe little fatter. That's about it, you know? Is that worth having that kind of a record on your soul? We don't often see rules for Asian men. It's just not there. I think that definitely there's the stereotypes in Hollywood of Asian men doing action films. There's not, or doing stereotypical rules if you're called for a Chinese waiter or whatever. There aren't as many good rules for Asian men in film. For any group to be marginalized in terms of their power, one strategy to enact is to de-sexualize them.

And indeed, that's the case for most Asian American males, Asian American men, are de-sexualized. Mainstream America, for the most part, is uncomfortable with seeing an Asian man portrayed in a sexual light, in a powerful light. I think it comes back to this xenophobic fear that we're a threat and that we're going to take everything over, and we're smarter than everybody else, and we got more money than everybody else. We work harder than everybody else, so you better, you know, emasculate the Asian male image to keep them from doing that. For instance, I was in a theater watching the film, like, Fargo. Well, what about you, Mike? Are you married? You got kids. Yeah, well, I was married. I was married to... You mind if I sit over here? I was married to Linda Cooksy. No, why don't you sit over there? I prefer that. When you see Asian men trying to, you know, romanticize a white woman, people to hold the whole feeling broke out into laughter.

I mean, they're laughing not at a scene, but at the guy at a situation. There's a film called Romeo Must Die that I think is very telling of what we're up against with regard to getting Asian American or Asian strong Asian male characters on screen. And that's essentially a retelling of Romeo and Juliet. Of course, there's a love story, one of the most famous love stories ever told, between Jet Lea's Romeo and Alia as Juliet. It's a, you know, martial arts crime picture, genre picture. The original ending of the film had Jet Lea kissing Alia, and they tested it with an urban audience, and the urban audience didn't like it. They tested so poorly, the studio changed it, so that there is no romantic attraction. And this is Romeo and Juliet. There's no romantic attraction between Jet Lea and Alia. And for me, that really points to the challenge that we're up against in getting strong, fully developed Asian male characters on screen. The Trail of Asian American men and Asian men in the medium, you know, in television and film, I think it does affect us, you know.

I think some of us grow out of it and rise above it. Some of us rebel and fight it, you know. To say that it doesn't affect us. That's a lot of bull men. Asian kids really had two different areas of sensitivity. First, they were simply quite aware that it was very rare for them to see anybody Asian on television. And they were quite clear that that felt disempowering, that it felt invalidating, that if they didn't see someone like themselves on television, that it really suggested that Asians were not important. They also were clear that when they did see Asians, it was all too often in very stereotypical ways. Because one girl complained when she sees Asians, they're either nerdy or they're doing kung fu, so that it limits the aspirations of who they think they can be when they grow up. Because not seeing role models in a diversity of ways illustrated on television.

It affects their behavior. It affects the way they view themselves. It affects who and how they want to associate with certain groups. Some of them will consciously stay away from other Asian Americans because of some hurtful sort of conclusions that they've come up with. I think that as a kid, you know, you're going through so much and you're trying to find who you are. I was always very conscious of, again, being an immigrant, so I was always very conscious of perception. I feel like that will always be a part of who I am. I'm never going to be someone that fits imperfectly. Some of them experience or indicate a high degree of racial self-hate. And it comes from these images of perhaps Asian American men as being powerless, impotent, and desactualized. It comes from these notions of white men, white people being in control and in charge. The lack of images is definitely doesn't help people empower themselves.

I mean, in the sense of you talking Asian faces being projected out there. Yeah, you know, because also bad images will create that feeling. And what they say, pictures worth a thousand words. I was involved in this film called The Replacement Killers. In the original script, the villains are not Asians. But the studio said, since the hero is an Asian, we need to have some kind of balance. And therefore, the bad guys have to be Asian or Chinese. The boy will die, John. As well as your family. Don't eat your lifetime. They feel very, very uncomfortable to have a hero as an Asian. But bad guys are white people. They feel very, very unhappy about that.

They say, if you want me to make this film, the bad guys have to be Asian. I've been criticized for playing bad guys by different people within the Asian and Asian American community. Because they feel that it puts us in a bad life. In Hollywood, you up to this point before Pre-Jasons got lead. We had a choice of playing wimpy business men or evil bad guys. The worst thing I could do is play a bad guy and be a wimpy bad guy, which is what I grew up with. And my intention was, if I'm going to choose between a wimpy business man, playing a bad guy, I'm going to play a bad guy. Because I got balls. I got balls. And I want kids to grow up to know that Asian men got balls. Your brother's soul is mine. You will be next. To me, it's about how to effectively create change.

If it means we have to pass through this to get there, then I'm willing to go that far with it. I have a purpose. It is to make change. And if it means playing stereotypes at this moment, I'll do it. And we're going on. We're not stopping. Carrie Tagal is not going to end up with a star in Hollywood Boulevard. That's not my goal. My goal is to affect the change of our images. I would be the most boring movie to go watch, you know, to spend two hours to watch like these angel perfect people walking around just so that people can say, oh, you people are good people. That's like falling into the whole model minority myth, you know. And I think, you know, we have to, as a community, really kind of talk about what it truly means to be positive or to be negative. Kids told us that they pretty clearly expected to see white people cast in roles that generally would have positive attributes, either wealth, well-educated, leadership roles, the boss, the doctor,

whereas they expected to see particularly African Americans and Latinos cast in much more limited roles, for example, as the maid or the janitor. They didn't expect to see Asians cast at all. The OC is a great example. A good friend of mine was given one episode to write, and he decided to introduce some diversity into the cast, where some of the main characters met some cool new kids that came to their high school that were Latino and Asian and of color, right? It turns in his episode, the showrunner took it and rewrote the entire thing and removed all the ethnicities and made them all white. All the new characters made them all white. And offered no explanation other than, well, I don't think so and so and so and so and so and so should hang out with anybody who's, you know, of color. I think they hang out with white kids. Well, I always wrote about Chinese America, Chinatown, early on. I saw nobody was doing it.

Nobody, those who were, they were really saying, I'm not really Chinese. I'm really white. I used to be Chinese, but I was raised in America. Really, I'm white inside. I don't know Chinese. I don't like Chinese. I don't eat Chinese food. I don't go to Chinese school. I don't have Chinese friends. I wish I didn't have Chinese parents. So I'm really 100% American Christian. Just like you. I bothered. I'd always bothered. I, uh, what's wrong with being Chinese? Rats, right? Goody-goods, um, cowards, failures, cry babies. Nice, Charlie Chan's. We respect Charlie Chan. He was superior to whites because he always kept his hands at his side and never said, I, me, or we.

We are different, remember, friend? Confucius was Chinese. You must be proud to be Chinese, my dear. Many other pioneers. You and me. Junior Texas Rangers, right? I don't want to be a pioneer. It's the writer. Just see my name on a book by me about things I like writing about. Screw the pioneers. One of the old pioneers that we've done for us. For me. I'm not fighting nobody. All I've got is a few words. They come at me. Be Chinese. Charlie Chan or nobody to the whites. And a mad dog to the Chinatown. One of the reasons that I got into the film business because, um, all the heroes that's been portrayed on the screen were everybody other than Asian Americans. The teacher also learns from the students.

Today, you have a chance to be the best martial artists in the world. Something was burning inside of me saying I need to change this. Is it possible, kid? Twenty-six year old Tommy Lee bring the American team back from a seven-point deficit? I just didn't want to have somebody dictate my destiny. So I said, you know, I'm going to go make it on my own. This is where the Asian's hanging out. Yup. I really was close. Even the camp of a belief that as long as a filmmaker feels like they're empowered to do what they want, that's always a positive. I just personally choose to go in to these meetings and I do try to fight for Asian Americans to take non-star typical Asian American roles. So there's a stereotype. And let's fight for it. Let's fight to conquer it. But what's the strategy? Now how do we really go about this battle? And is it really a battle outside of ourselves? I always try and think, is there a way to change a role

and bring in an Asian actor or bring in an African American or some other ethnicity just to make things a little bit different and to open it up? But there's not a lot of call for it. And I really think that it comes from ultimately, people need to write non-racial specific or be open to writing that way. And the more Asian writers that are writing for the screen, there will be more well-defined Asian American roles. My role in 21 Jump Street, it was a breakthrough for me for sure and at the time I had no idea that it was going to be that to me it was just a job. I remember the role was not written Asian interestingly. They had this concept of four of their young hip undercover cops. My real name has been Van Tran. It was 14 years old in April of 1975.

And I lived in Saigon. It was five days before the fall of the city. The way that the Vietnam episode came about was that they realized after the first season they have a Vietnamese actor on their hands now. And the executive producer Patrick Hasbro came to me and said, you know what? Originally we didn't know the difference in your character was Japanese American. You had this Japanese American name. But you've eaten a maze. Thanks for the support, Captain. So he came through with this pitch where my character's Harry Ayoki's identity as the INS caught up with him and realized that he is really a Vietnamese American who took the identity of a dead Japanese baby.

I would have thought you of all people, Captain, would understand why I'm coming from. Why understand where you're coming from? I spent 13 months there. The problem is I don't know who you are. Of course that goes back to why he did it. And it came back to how he was a little child and escaped. Vietnam came to America. Wanted to become a policeman. But, you know, being a minority, he felt he had no chance, especially Vietnamese American. Had no chance of getting into the police department. And a lot of Vietnamese Americans would write in to me. And they were very thrilled that the show was handled very well. It wasn't that Vietnamese as VCs hiding in the bush, shooting at American GIs. That's sort of the general image that most Americans at the time, especially after the war had, have Vietnamese people. You constantly have to fight, you know, for the position.

For example, if actors, Asian American actors who just go out and say, well, I want to be seen for Asian American roles. Yeah, I'm going to have that many opportunities. You have to go out there and say, I want to go and be seen for an acting role of any kind. Dante's Peak, you know, film I did, is a fine example of it. Look at this nice little town. And that's so awesome. That can cause you right against the mountain. Yeah, just like Pompeii. The character that I went in for was not even written. I just went to read for a role. And they said, hey, this guy can be a vocal knowledge just too. Why not? Let's write him in. That role did not exist, not even on the first day of shooting. And now, one time, in the story, or on that set,

that my ethnicity was of any importance. We're not going to walk on God's big show, right? Not a chance. So in that sense, it became monumental because I'm being seen as an American. Which is what I am. That's important. You're killing me, Dalton. Get your gear up. Hold on. Now's not a good time. Now it's out the car. Lotion is coming. Damn, really? Let me tell you what. Let me tell you what. It was written for a Caucasian actor. I'm sure it was a big fight for Joseph Khan and some of the other executives to make him Asian, because I don't think that was the norm. So to me, I felt like this was kind of a big deal, because we haven't seen many characters be American.

Nice bike. Nice ass. Got a name? I wasn't trying to change the world, but the things that we talked behind the scene was, you know, like, hey, man, wouldn't it be cool if we could just put somebody we grew up with or you or exactly how we are on screen without twisting it in any way? Like, that's revolutionary. When I got mad TV, I wanted to confront the stereotypes. But I didn't want to, like, be the stereotype. I wanted to be against it. Hello. So we developed these sketches called Average Asian, which is me in situations, which has happened in my life, where people say, like, the most mundane, crazy, stereotypical thing. What took you drift, it was funny, because when I read the original script, there was no real idea.

I wasn't interested because there was no Asian-American or Asian character that I felt like was worthy of anything, you know? So I went in and I crafted this character Han for a song. Come on. And I remember it got to the point where the character was getting so juicy and good that the studio came back. We love the character, but can we just make America and America and we can cast so and so and so? And that was, became another fight. And I think, you know, as a filmmaker, you know, I have to go in there. And it's, again, it's a very personal thing, you know, and I felt like it was worth it for me to go and fight. Get all those people down there. And they follow the rules for what? They're letting fear lead down. What happens if I don't? Life's simple. They make choices and you don't look back.

In the movie Crash, at the end of that movie, I think the Korean family were selling like tie refugees, you know, in the back of a van. I've never seen that happen. I've never heard of anything like that. But still, at the end of that, I didn't walk out of the movie mad. I was just like, maybe the director or the writer knew a Korean couple that did that. You mean, I don't know. And did it, hey, we were in the movie. I mean, we were storyline in the movie. I mean, it's a movie about race. We were in it. And that's that. We have to challenge a stereotype. We haven't gone out and discovered exactly what is a stereotype. We have to tell people, tell ourselves, define the stereotype. We have to prove that the stereotype is false. To prove the stereotype is false, we have to recover the history and the culture that the stereotype displaced or displaces. We have to, and that's a lot of work. In order for Asian Americans to have a substantive presence in film, in television,

they must enter into the ranks of producers, directors, writers, executives, as well as being performers. They need to be there where the decisions are being made. They also need to create alternative channels, parallel channels to the dominant media systems if they are to be able to make an impact for themselves, for their communities, and to benefit the larger US American society with the diversity of programming that we need in television and in film. Hey, the Chinese are all over the city. Why are you tripping so heavy on this one dude for, man? Because he's a friend. Is he really a friend? He's a friend. In the late 70s and early 80s, a new generation of Asian American independent filmmakers emerged. Many banded together informed organizations to provide training and encourage more Asian Americans to join their ranks.

What a wonderful movie that was. The early pioneers of Asian American independent cinema, included directors Wayne Wang, Stephen Okazaki, Lonnie Ding, and Peter Wang. Their bold and unconventional work broke new ground by featuring Asian American actors and films that celebrated Asian American identity and culture. This legacy has inspired the new generation of filmmakers to work outside the Hollywood system. You know what to do with this? It's for making babies. Not just to have fun with. You mother cries every day. Dad, I don't think we should discuss this. I am your father. I don't think it's any of your business. I'm not pressuring you, just asking. If you don't feel like having children when you're young,

when are you going to have that? What happened when we feel like this? We'll feel like it now! The first thing I saw was a real eye-opening experience for me. Up until that point, we would have to go and watch a film from China or Japan or Hong Kong in order to see an Asian man play a hero or a king or a lover. Here was an Asian American movie that was doing that. It all starts with the writing and the directing, the shaping of the vision and the story that you want to tell. Are you married me? Sweet Jesus. Easy now, baby. Are you, baby? Of course. Upcoming Asian Americans now wanting to share their experience of what it's like to be an Asian American in this country in a very fresh perspective.

Oh, baby. The debut is one of the first Filipino American feature films ever produced. And it takes place all in one night, centers around a character named Ben Mercado and all of the crazy things that happened to him at a sister's debut taught party. Over the course of this one extraordinary evening, all these things happened to him that caused him to challenge his notions of himself and also how he relates to his family and to the world around him. The stories that I wanted to tell didn't need to be tailored to fit what other people out there were doing that they could be, you know, following in the path of Wayne Wang and other Asian American filmmakers. So what do you say, was he mad? He knows we're just friends. He knows I don't talk about that right now. A story that is about love and about sex, it's possible. And if the movie moves them and if the movie accomplishes whatever critics like it

or whatever makes a movie a successful movie, the official stamp of goodness, a nomination, for instance, other filmmakers will be out there and say, you know, not just Asian filmmakers. Other filmmakers will be out there, other television executives will be out there thinking, well, the story actually reads that I can clock these dramatic beats and it's on the shoulders of an Asian American man. The goal in creating Barrelock Tomorrow was to serve the characters and the themes and the arcs. You know, when I went to go and try to raise money for Barrelock Tomorrow people were saying, well, no one's ever going to buy this movie, no one's ever going to see this movie. You know, you just change the characters, you know, it's a good script, change the character of white characters and you'll sell. You know, you'll get millions of dollars to make it. What happens is if it hits, then these white executives go, well, we've got to make more of them. And that's what we need.

We need them to go, we need to make more of them. It's all about money, man. My advice to young people, young Asian Americans want to get into the film industry is to prove that you're worth it. You know, I got constantly, I got calls or faxes or letters from Asian American filmmakers and actors wanting me to help them. But when I take a look at their films or the things written, they are terrible. I mean, first of all, you've got to be good. I mean, you've got to compete with yourself and then you have a chance of making it. You know, I'm a pretty optimistic guy. I think it'll work out if we all kind of contribute. And once we do, we're heading on the right direction. It's a worthy challenge to go out and really hone your skills and then I think the next challenge is to be able to tell the stories you want to tell but then even after that is to be able to make these films on level playing field. That's something that has not been achieved yet, you know.

I think that to be able to go out and truly make a film without the limitations that are set there and to be able to foster the talent to be able to kind of cross over. That is my hope and I think that if we can all, you know, we can share these experiences and grow together, I think it's possible. Every time we go to talk to a group of kids, I say, if you want to be an artist, your parents aren't supporting you, don't listen to your parents. It's all right to be rebellious. It's all right to be creative. To me, rebelliousness, you're talking about stereotypes in American society. Then one of the stereotypes is that Americans aren't rebellious. If we want to be not seen so much as stereotypic Asian and quiet, be rebellious. You know, the other part of rebelliousness is creativity, be creative. I think our generation of guys hopefully will do it. You know, and if it's not our generation, because we're really close now, I think that, you know, Margaret Cho, John Cho, and I, us three have deals at networks. Big deals, you know, I mean, and that would have never happened five years ago. I mean, you have three Asian guys with the huge deals that networks is a big deal.

You know, I mean, it's, it's an amazing, and I was thinking about the other day, I couldn't sleep. I mean, that is crazy. That means that networks want us on TV shows. You know, I mean, and who knows in 20 years what will happen. You know, by that time, you know, I'm going to be like, old, but hopefully I'll be able to see it. The vision I have for myself, and the vision that the younger generations have, maybe a different, maybe the younger generation is more success oriented. Once I make it, I can make things happen, you know, that type of attitude. But Mike, word of advice to them is that one man alone cannot do it all by himself. I think you need collective effort to rectify the injustice that have been piled up among and buried in our past, you know. Indeed, in the past few years, a new generation of Asian-American filmmakers

has begun to redefine the Asian-American male on their own terms. These filmmakers have refused to limit themselves to stories involving identity alone, and instead are choosing to tell stories that go beyond the ethnic milieu. The success of these films has shown that Asian-American actors and themes have tremendous appeal to both Asian and non-Asian audiences. After so many years of being typecast and having to portray stereotypes, Asian actors are entering the mainstream. Truthful portrayals of Asian-Americans are finally beginning to emerge. These were goals shared by Sessu Hayakawa, James Shigeta, Mako, Bruce Lee, and many others. These actors took what they had, a slanted screen, and paved the way for future generations. Music Music

Music Music Funding for this program has been provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional funding has been provided by Robert Chan. Stanley Adachi, Derek Chin and Camille Perez, Dan and Barbara Gonzalez, and others, a list is available through PBS.