films where white men win the local girl/female of color: full metal jacket, fast and the furious, james bond films, scott pilgrim vs. the world, the social network, pocahontas, avatar--which let's get real, was just pocahontas with blue paint and floating flowers, miss saigon (the film adaptation is rumored to be coming out this year)...there are more, i am certain.
know of any films? leave 'em in the comments section. the most obscure title wins the hipster award. yayyyy.
also, be sure to read diane's post on interracial dating and to see more of asian canadian comic Daniel Ha's work, check out his page at dvhstudios.com. i am particularly fond of his Casanovice series described as 'sex and the city from the point of view of 20-something men.'
-melissa
I'm so glad you brought light to this! The amount of "colonizer's guilt" or "white guilt" movies are sooo numerous but that comic sums it up in a heartbeat.
ReplyDeleteit's interesting because the so-called white guilt always plays itself out so that the white dude is the hero anyway, saving all his "little brown brothers". an empty gesture that guilt, because the whole white dominance infrastructure is still in place in these films.
Deletesame thing can be said about gender and films--it's almost always male dominated. even when films set out to portray a strong heroine, there's always the scene where she has to be rescued by the male or the story is always written somehow so that the real hero is the guy.
bugger.
Is this the same Ruchi who is my roommate? lol this cartoon reminds me of Indiana Jones as well. it's annoying and i already know the ending of the damn movie after just reading the movie description. OR like how all the colored people die off first in scary movies and it's usually the blonde white guy/girl who survive. Ugh!
DeleteMaybe too old for you gals, but Karate Kid 2 is another example. White guy in Japan, falls for local girl, local guy gets bad and they fight (of course, white guy wins).
ReplyDeleteThere's another older film (which I can't remember the title) where it was a white / italian gang versus some Asian gang. Of course, some Asian girl will fall for the leader of the white gang to bridge relations.
All of this being said, are you gals fans of Asian-American film festivals? I know there's one in Texas and the San Francisco one is starting tomorrow (err, today as it's 12:33 AM PST now....hahahah). I'm a fan though I haven't stopped by in a couple of years. Just hard to make the films and balance my work / other activities.