Black Chic watching

I went to a library event tonight called "Black Chic Watching." Basically it is about how black women are portrayed in the media and how that is different from how Latina or White women are portrayed. The presenter, Amber Knight, started with a picture of Mammy tying up Scarllett O'Hara's dress (corsette?)
And then went through a bunch of stereotypes and problems with how black women are portrayed and how white women are portrayed. All this was done in an entertaining and funny way too. So actually it was like a fun night out away from the kids. Plus I got to see how someone else presented at the library.
Then she showed some examples of shows that broke that mold. Like Merlin, which has a black Guinevere. And Scandal. She mentioned how some people have an issue with  this character but that she likes her, and since the audience at Library events tends to be small, there was more back and forth in the presentation than there usually would be.

At the end she did a section called Blank-blank watching. Where you can  say things you notice in the media. At first, I thought I didn;t have much to say because I was not as upset as everyone else about the Emma Stone Aloha thing. But then I noticed that I do kind of watch for half Asians, but a lot of the women just pass sort of, and Brandon Lee, and Russell Wong, were portrayed pretty well and since there isn't a lot of portrayal in Hollywood, I would just watcha ton of TVB and Hong Kong movies.

But I did realize that I do this thing. I watch for Chinese portrayal in Hollywood films, and white guys speaking Chinese or mixed guys in Hong Kong films. There is the guy that played Dai Fei (he's half white but doesn't even know his white father, that kind of deal.) Then there is Michael Wong (I think that he is actually Russell Wong'r brother.)

But the Chinese and Chinatown, and Chinese culture in general in Hollywood opened up a can of worms for me. And then I started thinking about Charlie Chan and all the stuff I read about that. Now don't gt me wrong. I didn't have that much trouble with the fact that technically Charlie Chan was played by a White guy and there is a lot of racist stuff going on there. But when you look at the history of Asian American men, that in the Silent film era there was this Japanese American star that white women were losing their minds over, and how that had to be stopped. And then later we have Bruce Lee, and then Brandon Lee. And then Jason Scott Lee in the movie about Bruce Lee by Linda Lee, and how I remembered how that love seen made some of my teachers really uncomfortable, that got me thinking.

And actually when you juxtapose all that with Cameron Crowe's portrayal of the Asian male in 16 candles. Now that is a WTF moment. So nah I don't have a problem with Emma Stone being cast as a Half Asian in Cameron Crowe's Aloha. But I'm sure there are other issues with the movie. And yet, it was almost as eye opening for me to watch 16 candles in the 2000's for the first time as it would be to watch a foreign film.

All in all a fun night out and I think it would have been cool to have seen such an event at my high school when I went there. It would have sparked some interesting conversation.