2019: The Year of Asian Pacific Islander Representation (and Keanu Reeves)

I meant to do a nice post last month in celebration of Asian Pacific American Heritage month (which is May, if you didn’t know), but I didn’t get my act together in time so better late than never!

So in honour of this year’s Asian Pacific American Heritage month, I wanted to highlight how amazing it is to be an Asian person working in the entertainment industry right now (specifically APA [Asian Pacific American], but all Asian people of different nationalities are definitely taking part in this revolution!)! We have come such a long way in only the past four years it is utterly astounding and a sign of hope for what’s to come!

I was born in 1995. When I was a child the only two films I remember seeing that had Asians as leading figures were Disney’s Mulan (June 1998) and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (December 2000) (which was a film completely in Chinese made by and for Asians).

Of course, that isn’t to say films and television shows in western media were completely bereft of Asian representation. I remember watching the television shows The Suite Life of Zack and Cody (2005-2008) which had Brenda Song as a secondary lead and The Magic School Bus (1994-1997) which had an ensemble cast including a feisty Asian-American girl named Wanda. So it wasn’t that there was a complete absence of Asian characters, rather it was that they were always secondary or sidelined or in the background of scenes (although seeing Asian heritage people as background extras is still a fairly uncommon occurrence even today).

However, growing up in a household where none of my family members “look like me”, I didn’t mind watching media that predominantly had Caucasian actors at the helm. I never really cared or thought it was strange to relate to a character as a character first and what they looked like second. But when I was fifteen in 2010, I was introduced to Wong Fu Productions, a YouTube channel founded by all Asian American filmmakers, with their short video “Just a Nice Guy” [x]

I was intrigued. I was astounded. It was an entirely Asian American cast and crew that was dedicated to the mission of portraying Asian Americans as an entirely ordinary group of people. There was no need for heavy Asian-language accents or for chopsticks instead of forks. I had never seen anything quite like it before - Asian Americans wearing jeans and making a comedy that revolves around a simple premise: a nice boy trying to win over a girl? Unheard of. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and I demanded more. But at the time, the Internet with independent video productions was the only place to see something like this - Asians and Asian Americans behaving like normal, complex characters that weren’t just “geeks, prostitutes, or ninjas”.

It is of little surprise, however, that Asian representation in western media has been so grossly overlooked for a long time. Indeed, yellowface, the practice of actors of non-Asian heritage wearing heavy make-up and prosthetics to make them look “Asian”, didn’t go out of fashion until the 1970s, and it still appeared infrequently through the 1990s. As this article from the New York Times notes, in a retrospective due to the revival of Miss Saigon on Broadway back in 2017:

“Miss Saigon” opened in London in 1989, with an acclaimed white British actor, Jonathan Pryce, wearing prosthetics to alter the shape of his eyes and makeup to alter the color of his skin as he played the show’s leading man, a scheming Eurasian pimp called the Engineer. But by the time the show reached Broadway in 1991, Mr. Pryce had abandoned those practices, and, after he won a Tony Award and left the show, the producers changed their approach — in the years since, they have chosen only actors of Asian heritage to play the Engineer, both on Broadway and on the United States tours. [....]

[As artistic producing director Tisa Chang says] This was not the 1970s, when there was a protest against Lincoln Center for casting “Narrow Road to Deep North” with no Asian actors whatsoever — and it was a play about Japan. This was 1990, and a lot of work had been done already. Our position was not to be inflammatory, but it was a cri de coeur in response to what their team had said, which was that there was no Asian-American actor qualified to play the role. That really stirred the pot. [x]

Even Star Wars, a film franchise that owes much of its inspiration to Asian cinema as this article notes, didn’t have a lead role for a person of Asian and Pacific Islander heritage until Rogue One (December 2016):

When The Force Awakens finally premiered, the promise of more AAPI characters in Star Wars was realized… sort of. While TFA featured more AAPI actors than all previous six films combined, none of them could be considered major characters. [....] But to that point, it felt like a bounty of riches for AAPI Star Wars fans! We were lucky to get any representation, the idea that there would also be Asian and Pacific Islander heroes still felt out of reach. Then Rogue One happened. [x]

As the Guardian reported in an April 2017 article:

Asian characters made up only 3%-4% of roles in scripted broadcast and cable shows in the 2014-15 season, according to a recent University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) report. Of the top 100 films of 2015, 49 had no Asian characters, and zero leading roles went to Asians, according to another study. [x]

But four years ago in 2015 there was a decisive turn for Asian representation in popular western media. The landmark ABC show Fresh Off the Boat launched in Feb 2015, a comedy that was, “the first US television sitcom starring an Asian-American family to air on network primetime since Margaret Cho's All-American Girl, which aired for one season in 1994.” [x] Similar to how comedy television series The Cosby Show and The George Lopez Show starred families of specific ethnic backgrounds to get a foot in the door for better Hollywood representation, Fresh Off the Boat helped Asian Pacific Islanders do the same.

In fact, by May 2016 the lack of Asian representation in western media started to garner more social media awareness, with Twitter hashtag movements like “#StarringJohnCho” showcasing how Asian representation in Hollywood blockbusters, thrillers, romances, and other genres was so poor that it was shocking to see someone like John Cho as the face of an Avengers film. [x] Meanwhile, as previously mentioned, Rogue One (December 2016) saw the appearance of three leading Asian Jedis and Miss Saigon got a revival in March 2017, this time with a properly Asian cast. [x]

(On a personal note here, I actually cried seeing Miss Saigon on stage back in fall 2017, as that was the first time I could ever remember seeing a lead actress who Looked Like Me be a lead character who was not only the main love interest but also protagonist in an inter-racial love story. I so instantly related to her because of her appearance that I was floored. I had never experienced anything like it before).

Of course, that is not to say everything has been smooth going since 2015, as this article from 2017 illuminates when discussing the disaster that was Ghost in the Shell (March 2017):

In a recent University of Southern California study, researchers found that only 4.4% of speaking characters are Asian in popular American film. Meanwhile, about 1% of Academy Award nominations for acting have gone to Asian or Asian-American actors, HuffPost reports. That same pattern holds true for American television: according to scholar Nancy Wang Yuen, author of Reel Inequality: Hollywood Actors and Racism, nearly two-thirds of broadcast television shows — including those set in cities with sizable Asian-American populations, like New York City — lack any regular Asian-American characters whatsoever [x]

Yet, the Asian Pacific Islander community has continued to persevere and I think the best example of the fruits from this labor can be seen from last summer’s box office and critically acclaimed hit rom com Crazy Rich Asians (August 2018). The film was similar to My Big Fat Greek Wedding in terms of tone and style - both featured families of specific heritages coming together as sources of main comedic conflict rather than the original love story of the bride and groom. And both took advantage of showcasing a unique lifestyle (whether Greek Orthodox or “Crazy Rich Asian”) to an unsuspecting audience to show them how “other” doesn’t have to mean “different”.

Not only did it have a winning rom com formula, however, but the film was also the first by, “a major Hollywood studio to feature a majority cast of Asian descent in a modern setting since The Joy Luck Club in 1993.” [x] And on a budget of only $30 million, (a drop in the bucket for most Hollywood features that are made anywhere from $20-$90 million before “big budget” starts to apply), the box office saw a worldwide return of $238.5 million. The demand for people of Asian Pacific Islander heritage had never been stronger, but as lead actress Constance Wu stated:

Now that more people are discussing diversity and demanding more roles for Asian actors in Hollywood, Wu wants reporters to get one thing straight. “I wish reporters were more in tune to the difference between the Asian experience and the Asian-American experience,” the actress said. [x]

Indeed, although Crazy Rich Asians only begun to parse that crucial difference apart (as most of the Asian characters are considered to be “more Chinese” than Constance Wu’s Chinese-American lead), in the same month, Netflix released it’s hit teen rom com To All the Boys I've Loved Before (Aug 2018), starring Asian American actress Lana Condor. This film took representation of Asian Americans another step further. In the movie, Lana is portrayed as a girl going through the struggles of “normal teen-dom” rather than a niche “other” ethnic experience of being a teenager.

Fast forward one more year and nowadays it seems like the trendiest thing in media is being a part of the Asian Pacific Islander media representation revolution. I think this is best exemplified in the #Keanuaissance taking over the Internet by storm. A half Chinese-Hawaiian, half British, self-identified Canadian actor, Reeves is best known in popular culture for his portrayal of Neo in the revolutionary Matrix trilogy (1999-2003). However, it seems as if he is all over the place these days with the success of projects like John Wick Chapter 3 (where he plays an action hero), Always Be My Maybe (where he plays a romantic rival lead), and Toy Story 4 (where he plays a lovable daredevil toy for children).
Not to mention his up and coming project like Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure 3 (where he plays part of a dimwitted but lovable comedic duo). His career and versatility as an actor has spanned 3 decades, but his race has never been widely discussed until now. As this article put it:

There’s another part of Reeves’s star image I suspect has played into our abiding fascination with him. Until Always Be My Maybe, the most under-discussed part of Reeves’s persona was his race. Late in his slim but potent book-length essay Mixed-Race Superman: Keanu, Obama, and Multicultural Experience, Will Harris astutely writes about a particular aspect of the 2005 film A Scanner Darkly that, metatextually, speaks to Reeves’s whole career:

“To be mixed-race is to exist in a state of paradox. Race is an illusion that depends on purity and singleness. […] In A Scanner Darkly, set in a paranoid surveillance state in the near-future, Keanu plays a government agent called Bob Arctor, who because he works undercover, has to wear a ‘scramble suit’ in the office. The suit projecting 1.5 million constantly shifting representations of different people — male and female, black, white, Latinx — keeps his identity cloaked. Even the people he works with have no idea who he is.”

Thus, the fact that his work is taking the Internet by storm, and this time as a leading figure for the Asian American (and Canadian) community to rally around, seems to me to be indicative of how significant a time these past few years have truly been for Asian Pacific Islander representation in western media. Keanu Reeves may be nothing new, but his claim as a major A-list Hollywood actor who is also part Chinese-Hawaiian (as seen in Always Be My Maybe) certainly is - as Ali Wong, creator and star of the film stated:

“It was very important to me that it be someone who was Asian-American who would also be Marcus’s worst nightmare,” explains Wong. “Because if Daniel Dae Kim” — Sasha’s fiancé in the beginning of the film — “showed up, you’d be like, Ahh! if you were Marcus. It’s got to be even worse than that. So it’s got to be someone who’s internationally iconic, and someone who fits those two Venn diagrams is basically Keanu Reeves.” [x]

So in sum, let’s celebrate!

Because the fact that Asian representation is finally starting to be seen as something that is not niche, but as something that can be the face of multi-million dollar and critically successful franchises is something that gives me encouragement and hope moving forward as an Asian American working in the entertainment industry.

Captain Jack Sparrow: A Closer Look

Earlier this week my friend Timothy Lawrence wrote what I believe to be a definitive essay on the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. However, I wanted to throw my piece of eight into the bowl and follow up with a few additional thoughts to compliment Tim’s analysis, which mainly focused on Elizabeth Swann.

Specifically, after re-watching the series and reading his review, the thing I was struck by the most was the fact that Captain Jack Sparrow is the character, rather than the protagonists Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann, that usually gets ‘Top Billing’. He’s by far and away the character most pop culture associates with the franchise, he appears more than any other character from the films in the re-done Disneyland amusement park ride (modeled after the movie which was originally inspired by the ride), and is usually considered to be the main character of the series. But, as argued by Tim’s essay and the original creators of the series, he’s not (of course, films 4 & 5 don’t help in correcting this mistaken belief). Indeed, it is Will and Elizabeth’s coming-of-age journey that is the primary focus of the original three films. So why is it Jack - sorry, Captain - Captain Jack Sparrow that audiences seem to love the most?

Before I go any further, I would be amiss if I didn’t address that Jack Sparrow is to the Pirates franchise what Han Solo is to the Star Wars series. Both are gruff, arrogant captains of the fastest ship in the high seas /galaxy (The Black Pearl/Millennium Falcon), reluctant mentors to the “kid” hero (Will/Luke), smugglers with a motley crew, possessors of a seductive charisma that entices the female lead (Elizabeth/Leia), and their anti-hero, swashbuckling ways conceal the fact that they are good men when the chips are down. Everyone loves a mysterious, mischievous mentor with a legend as big as his ego and a heart of gold underneath a wayward (but ultimately true and good) moral compass. In comparison, Luke and Will (particularly their straight-laced heroics in the first installment of the series) are positively boring. Therefore, is it any wonder that as most people remember Han Solo over Luke Skywalker, everyone loves Jack Sparrow over Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann? (Also: who wouldn’t take the chance to go aboard the Black Pearl or Millennium Falcon if given the opportunity?) But more than this, I would argue that what makes Jack favoured by audiences is the fact that his character arc is the one that resonates the most with humankind’s innermost desire: to live free, forever.

Let’s examine Jack’s inner journey throughout the trilogy (I’m purposely excluding films 4 & 5 as Tim did so that 1) both of our reviews talk about the same titles and 2) because 4 & 5 were directed by a completely different people, so their artistic vision can be viewed as a separate entity):

In the first film, Jack seeks vengeance against his mutinous crew and restoration of himself as the rightful captain of the Black Pearl. Both motivations should be considered in light of two critical quotes from Jack.

The first quote is from his exchange with a cursed crew member from his jail cell: “The deepest circle of hell is reserved for betrayers and mutineers.” This shows that Jack, like Dante, knows that betrayers will have judgement cast upon them. He wants justice exacted against his mutinous crew, and his sense of righteousness is echoed in humanity calling out to God for vengeance against the wicked (Psalm 94:1-4).

Indeed, the damned sailors are truly dead men pretending to live, as characterized by Barbosa’s words about the curse, “The drink would not satisfy. Food turned to ash in our mouths. And all the pleasurable company in the world could not slake our lust. We are cursed men, Miss Turner. Compelled by greed we were, but now we are consumed by it [....] For too long I’ve been parched of thirst and unable to quench it. Too long I’ve been starving to death and haven’t died. I feel nothing.” Therefore, Jack’s triumph at the end of the film in securing justice (through the deaths of his former crew members) also mirrors him escaping from being under death’s rule like humanity has escaped in Christ (1 Corinthians 15:1-28).

However, Jack’s journey for justice runs alongside his quest for freedom. He is still imprisoned (literally and figuratively) throughout most of the film. This is exemplified by the second quote, which is from his explanation to Elizabeth about why he wants the Black Pearl after being marooned on an island together: “That’s what a ship is, you know. It’s not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails. That’s what a ship needs, but what a ship is – what the Black Pearl really is – is freedom.” Thus, Jack’s quest for the Black Pearl is explicitly tied to his longing for freedom.

In the film, it is freedom from the constraints of the world (society, earthly laws, expectations, etc) that Jack longs for. However, in a larger sense freedom from the world really means freedom from being condemned by sin and residing in the kingdom of death/the world. Consider how humanity longs for the ability to live not under the law, but under grace in the kingdom of life/heaven as Romans 6-8 discusses. In the first film Jack not only strives to live outside the imperfect institutions that proclaim to uphold the law (ie the royal navy), but also ultimately receives grace and mercy from being under the law (when Will helps him escape the noose at the end of the film). By escaping with grace, Jack is able to finally take possession of the Black Pearl and start to live in the kingdom of life (as symbolized through his life as a pirate). Thus, Jack’s quest for and achievement in gaining freedom in the first movie resonates with humankind’s inner desire to live free in Christ (Galatians 5), righteously avenged against the wicked enemy.

At the beginning of the second film, like Tim’s analysis mentions, Jack doesn’t know what to do with his new found freedom. This is analogous to a new Christian who has accepted and claimed freedom in Christ, but lacks discernment for what to do now as a new citizen of the kingdom of heaven. This is literally seen through the device of Jack’s magic compass. As revealed in yet another conversation with Elizabeth, Jack says, “True enough, this compass does not point north [but] it points to the thing you want most in this world.” However, unlike in the first film when the compass pointed true, in the second film one of the main obstacles for Jack is that he is unable to find his heading. As Tia Dalma puts it, “Ah, Jack Sparrow does not know what he wants!”

Moreover, in the second film, like any Christian, Jack stumbles in his journey as a member in the kingdom of life. He wrestles with the problem of “settling his debts” with Davy Jones, a man who has corrupted his purpose and nature in trying to live without love. Here, the idea of Jack’s debts can also be seen as a metaphor for his sins. Instead of living as if he is a part of the kingdom of life (as symbolized by a life on the seas as a pirate), Jack falls back on his old way of life under the kingdom of sin. He looks for safety on land and tries to forsake the ocean. The idea of land standing in for hell will be underscored in a dramatic fashion in the third film, but even in the second going back to land is impossible for Jack as he tries to make port on the Island of Cannibals. It is here that, although seen as a god with mortal praise, Jack is still a prisoner - and he knows it, as he pleads to Will, “save me.” Jack can not go back to his old way of life before he became free because that way leads to literal and spiritual death. This is evidenced by the fact that the cannibal natives want to sacrifice Jack to be “released from his human form”. Thus, freedom does not mean freedom from suffering. Rather, it is a freedom of choice which, although free from punishment, still comes with a price - to live well.

The film defines living well as living courageously, honorably, and selflessly - in short, what it means to live as a good person. This definition can be extrapolated from Jack’s struggle to “do the right thing” throughout the film as he faces the temptation (and often succumbs) to be cowardly, dishonorable, and selfish over and over again. But this conflict finally comes to a head at the climax when Jack chooses to be a good man and “do the right thing” when it really counts. He goes back to heroically save his crew from the kraken (which had been sent to kill him) instead of sneaking away - back to land - by himself. As a marked man, Jack knows that his choice will likely lead to his death and ultimately by dying to himself Jack is saved (although this is not revealed until the third film). This is again analogous to the journey Christians must take as Matthew 10:39 and Luke 17:33 illustrate.

In the third film, then, is it any surprise that after being freed from death once more by grace (in his rescue from Davy Jones’ Locker), Jack immediately decides to seek Immortality? Indeed, most of his journey in the final film revolves around Jack using his freedom to look for ways to obtain eternal life. However, like in the first two films, there are many examples of immortality sought incorrectly (Matthew 7:13-14).

Barbosa and Jack’s crew are unable to die, but due to obtaining their immortality through cursed gold, their insatiable greed means they feel nothing. Davy Jones and his crew post-pone death through their service on the Dutchman, but they live without love and therefore have corrupted their bodies (half-human and half-sea creature) by twisting their purpose. Finally, Lord Beckett and the East India Trading Company ignore seeking immortality altogether, but their materialist paradigm and attempt to master the seas (ie world) through their own mortal means is arguably the most soulless of the three existences.

Meanwhile, Jack is not so foolish as to seek life only in the material (he point blank refuses Beckett’s offer of employment with the remark “ As if I could be bought for such a low price”), but he is briefly tempted to gain immortality both as a cursed being (when he steals a piece of gold at the end of the first film) and by stabbing the heart of Davy Jones to take his place (although, as Tim’s essay points out, Jack would never do the duty of ferrying the souls of the dead so he is not the right choice for being captain of the Dutchman).

Once more, at the climax of the film, Jack is faced with the choice between being a good man or being selfish. For the entire film, Jack has sought to possess the (literal) heart of Davy Jones in order to become immortal. But when faced between selfishly killing Jones for his own ends or saving Will (when the latter is stabbed by Davy Jones), Jack ultimately decides allow Will to become captain of the Dutchman in order to save his life.

Thus, the film ends with Jack once more sailing the seas, having vanquished the temptation to go after hollow imitations of immortality. He is finally free to live well as a good man in search of the Fountain of Youth, or more accurately, the “Water of Life” as it is so labelled on the map. Once more, it is obvious that this literary device corresponds to seeking the True “Water of Eternal Life” (John 4:13-15). In fact, this link is further underscored by the fact that although Jack has once more lost the Black Pearl at the end of the third film, he chooses not to pursue it. He already knows he has his freedom (to live the life of a pirate on the seas) so there is no need to go after it. Instead, Jack (in his freedom) chooses to journey on towards what he, along with humankind, desire most -- to “live well” forever.

So in sum, Jack’s character arc can be described as follows:

1st Film: Begins with looking for Justice and Freedom; Ultimately gains both and is free to sail once more, having become a member of the kingdom of life

2nd Film: Begins with Freedom, but not knowing what to do with it; Ultimately chooses to “live well” as a good man, which means death (in order to have life) by going back to save his crew

3rd Film: Begins with seeking Immortality as a freed man by grace, but in the wrong places; Ultimately chooses to continue the journey (correctly) to find True Eternal Life after resisting temptation

In conclusion, this is why I believe Jack’s arc resonates with audiences. His journey is the one humankind also desire to undertake - the path towards Eternal Life as freed citizens who reside in the kingdom of heaven. Indeed, aside from swashbuckling anti-hero, Jack embodies Matthew 6:25-34 - he doesn’t worry about tomorrow and lives fully in the present. But he also knows how to die well (and therefore live well) as a good man who understands that Eternity found in the True Water of Life is what all should seek.