Text: Donald Duk
- The more Donald embraces the Chinese part of his identity the more he wakes up to the casual racism around him. Donald himself even was a part of continuing the racst views of Chinese descended individuals.
- My favorite character by far was King Duk. The way King spoke, taught, and acted painted him exactly as my own father.
- The major themes dealt with in Donald Duk are multiculturalism, identity, the erasure of history, coming of age, racism, and representation in not just pop culture but history as a whole.
- Accidental Asian by Eric Liu mentions white people being able to sample ethnicity. Arnold being around Chinese culture was a choice. For Donald it was a fact of life that he was constantly surrounded by Chinese culture on one side and American culture on the other, he didn’t have a choice to sample whiteness or sample the Chinese side, they were both just there.
- A big part of the book seems to be the concept of adapting by choice vs. forced adaptation. In Eric Liu’s Accidental Asian he talks about the term Asian American being a choice they made themselves not one they were forced into.
- Another point reinforced in Donald Duk is the plight of one oppressed group being a point of relation to another group. Asian Americans learning from black and Latin movements, talked about in Hsu’s Asian American History and then in Donald Duk the flamenco music of the Gypsies and it’s raw emotional power represents this entirely with the Chinese embracing the music just as much as their own.
- The constant blending the lines of reality and dreams really reinforced the confusion going on in Donald’s head. Author able to paint a picture of just how Donald is feeling.
- “Why should empathy be skin deep?”
Film: Better Luck Tomorrow
- Coming of age story with a twist.
- The entire concept of a model minority is explored throughout the film.
- The young high school age characters being able to get into bars, casinos, buy alcohol & cigarettes, and get away with the kind of things they got away with was representing the thought that all white Americans see all Asian people as the same and can’t tell them apart.
- The newspaper article and how it all spiraled from there.
- Steph and the whole adopted identity could have been explored more, 1 movie though so.
- “Breaking the cycle”
- Problems with being depicted as “bad” vs. “good”. Is it alright for “negative” depictions to be portrayed? I think yes but only if that is not the only depiction shown. (Overall not just in one piece of media)
- The film being split up into chapters based on the Vocab words which were in-turn used to set the mindset Ben was in at the start of the next chapter.
- Film painted very real multi-cultured life of the time.
- Set in early 90’s
- Loosely based on 1992 murder of Stuart Bay
- Justin Lin directed
- Filled with Asian American actors
- Very similar to Dope wouldn’t be surprised if Dope’s director was influenced by Better Luck Tomorrow
- Playing into stereotypes
- Decisions spiraling into other decisions and then getting lost in the decisions.
- “No Turning Back”