Better Luck Tomorrow
- I think part of the reason the main characters did the stuff they did, such as buying stuff then giving it back, teepeeing(?) someone’s house, then escalating to selling drugs and stealing stuff, is because they felt like they were being pressured to be perfect in school to the point that they regressed(?) and did all of that to release the pressure. It doesn’t excuse their actions but it might give a little insight into it.
- Another reason might be because some of their parents were gone. Some of them were working abroad, while the ones who might be home didn’t appear at all throughout the whole movie. Some of them didn’t appear to be that close to their parents, also, so that might attribute to a lack of emotional connection with them?
- I noticed that when they were killing Steve(?), the whole time Darich was trying to reassure Ben that it was going to be okay while he had Virgil hold Steve down. I can’t remember if Darich also comforted Virgil, but I feel like doing that really messed Virgil up. It looked like Virgil was the more emotional one of the group, prone to emotional fits(?). Having to take part in a murder, even being the one to hold down Steve as he was dying, was too much for him.
- I remember in the discussion after the movie, someone had said that they thought it was strange that neither Stephanie or Ben knew what Stephanie’s tattoo of her name said. I thought it strange that they thought that Stephanie and Ben did. Because for one, Stephanie’s adopted. She was raised by a white family who probably didn’t teach her what it means or that language. But despite that, she probably got a tattoo of it because it’s her real name, it means something to her. Ben not knowing what it says also makes sense because he isn’t from that culture. Also, Spanish is one of the largest speaking language group in the world. Its taught in classrooms all over the U.S. because of the large Spanish speaking population in America. It’s a handy language so it’s not really surprising that Ben knows it.
Donald Duk
- Right in the beginning, its clear that Donald has a lot of internalized racism regarding his family, Chinatown, and himself. He’s horribly rude and very disrespectful to his father and some of the residents of Chinatown, such as the Frog Twins. I feel like part of the reason why he hates being Chinese so much is because of the school he goes to. He talks about how his teacher has been to China and pretends to know everything about it. I think it’s also implied that the teacher was teaching false information because he told his students that the Mandate of Heaven was something along the lines of “The Emperor was revered like a God, like the western kings” when it meant something else.
- I can’t tell if the dreams he had were memories from his ancestors life, if he was dreaming of a past life, or if they were just dreams. The line between dreams and reality was very blurred during these parts for me.