Yes, they’re two of ours

In These Times intern J. Peter Siriprakorn writes: Okay, so will someone please explain to me why high-rolling Hollywood demagogues insist on giving guys like Danny Leiner--the writer-slash-director of the boneheaded stoner comedy Dude, Where???s My Car --money to make more movies? I mean aside from obvious reasons, like efforts to lower our collective IQ. As if Dude, Where???s My Car wasn???t a cinematic failure solely by way of its title, Leiner???s latest foray, the unimpressively titled Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle, harps on a premise that isn???t any more palatable than that of its forebearer???s. Indeed, Leiner???s follow-up effort is even more of a disgrace because more otherwise-respectable people are liking it. To its credit, Harold & Kumar has gleaned quite a bit of positive press lately--with accolades pouring in not so much for the movie???s all-too-predictable script as for something more subversive: people have been talking, and not so hush-hush, about the fact that the two leading actors are Asian (note that the word "Asian" rhymes with "invasion"). Chuck Wilson of the L.A. Weekly calls the movie "Smart, goofy and endearing. Cho and Penn make a terrific team, and the fact that they???re starring in their own movie suggests that, in the Hollywood comedy frat house, there's finally room for everyone." Great. A frat house for my inner General Tsao. Gee, thanks. Even in less favorable reviews, critics seem to have been won over by the movie???s upturned racial card. David Sterritt of Christian Science Monitor writes, ???The multicultural cast gives a shred of substance to what's otherwise a standard adolescent gross-out flick."??? Is that all it really takes nowadays? Can a movie score points for skin-color alone? Sure, Harold & Kumar could be seen as part of a long-overdue movement toward defacing the model minority stereotype that???s plagued Asian Americans for decades, a stereotype that???s helped sweep a number of problems within the Asian American community (like domestic violence, depression, and the emasculation of the Asian male) under the proverbial rug. But does that mean Asian Americans should embrace such puerile, scatological extremes simply by default? Though I guess that???s pretty much in line with the way things work in our country--everything so neatly bifurcated, polarized into tidy pairs of opposites. Social issues are too often painted in a dearth of hues. One might think the only colors on Uncle Sam???s palette to be black and white. Meanwhile the short-shrifted gray area struggles mightily to be heard, and our voices too often fall on monochromatic-deaf ears. I guess in the end it???s probably a good thing Harold & Kumar was made. A voice is a voice is a voice, and having a voice is better than not having one at all. Ultimately, Harold & Kumar may be a step in the right overall direction, but such embarrassing, pyrrhic victories just aren???t really my cup of tea.