Yale's Mixed Company a cappella group recently got a bit of flak for the "Single Asians" video--no longer available on YouTube, probably because of what happened when people actually, uh, started watching the video, but you're not missing much since (apart from everything else) the video was lovingly produced with all the care and attention you might put into a five-slide PowerPoint presentation--which features four young Asian women dancing and singing to the tune of "Single Ladies" by Beyonce. So it wasn't amazing. But was it... racist? (Dun dun dun.)
The lyrics, if you care, are listed below (via Ivygateblog.com). It's basically a recitation of Asian stereotypes; for the first thirty seconds the song bears some tenuous thematic connection to the original "Single Ladies" and it's still possible that this is in fact a satire of stereotypes about Asians, but then it's revealed as a list of increasingly random Asian stereotypes presented without commentary. Did a lot of people hate it? Sure. Does that make them humorless haters? Well, for those people to have "missed the joke," there at least has to be a joke in the first place.
Therein lies the problem. The song doesn't really push back on Asian stereotypes or offer any subversive commentary, it's too straightforward to be clearly identifiable as satire or parody, it doesn't attempt to empathize with the Asian/Asian-American experience (whether as the object of stereotyping or otherwise), it doesn't display any particular insider Asian or Asian-American knowledge or humor--more the opposite, in fact. In the end, it's perfectly content to rest on a bunch of Asian girls dancing as they happily reiterate that Chinese people can't tell the difference between "R" and "L". So, even if for no other reason than sheer ignorance and lack of effort in both conception and creation, in the final running this work could well place closer to a minstrel show than a work of satire or commentary. Laziness dooms all intentions, people. Don't let it happen to you.
(Mixed Company claims they're "known for having a great (and irreverent) sense of humor." Which, ironically, is probably the funniest thing about this toothless song.)
Anyway, the lyrics:
All the single Asians (x5)
Now put your hands up
Library and MCDB
Test comin' up next week.
You dropped a flask,
And now I've gotta ask
If you're enough to be in a lab with me.
I need this grade
I've never been laid,
Because I live my life for med school.
I do bio-chem
On the weekends
You ain't hardcore enough for me.
Cause if you like me
Then you shoulda got an A on it.
Cause if you like me
Then you shoulda got an A on it,
An A-minus
Ain't the same as an A is it?
Cause if you like me
Then you shoulda got an A on it.
Let's make some noise
For all the boys
Who have yellow fever. [By the way, "yellow fever" is incredibly annoying.]
I'll be Lucy Liu [Seriously, the weird shit some strange dudes will tell you in public...]
Or Sailor Moon [...about how their Japanese girlfriend feared the size of their non-Asian cock...]
A geisha just for you. [...but learned it was not, in fact, too big for her to handle--yes, this really happened.]
At the restaurant
I'll taste your sauce
And you can slurp my sushi. [slurp a long cylindrical (and, it seems, inexplicably oozing) sushi roll? These girls are clearly packing a little something extra in their shorts... what the hell?]
I like it raw,
So bring it on,
And me love you long time. [I'm a Japanese dick-girl! Wait, now I'm a impoverished war prostitute! Oh, I'm so confused.]
[With faux-Chinese "accent"]
We from Beijing,
We dry cleaning, [Wait, unless we're back to discussing the Supreme Court holding in Yick Wo, that's not even the "right" stereotype--who wrote this? C'mon, folks, stereotypes are annoying enough without people blurring them all together to boot. If you're gonna hate, keep it straight: that's my new motto, as of two seconds ago right now.]
And practice viorin.
We visit Yale,
We bring peace there,
And take picture at the Beinecke.
I make the rice,
(She make it nice)
Cause I'm in charge of Dim Sum!!! [Yes, the song is really this emphatic about dim sum, even though rice isn't really, uh, the point of a dim sum spread]
I make chai tea [Don't recall if this lyric is accurate--I mean, chai tea isn't even East Asian to begin with]
I do tai chi
And bring honor to our family.
[Chorus reiterating Beyonce's lyrics in Korean]
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Laughter is the best medicine (for brainwashing)
So, Dollhouse. The main premise appears to be that young women are raped, or pretend to be in danger of rape, or are implanted with memories of rape, or get assaulted by rapists, or stand around naked and oblivious in the shower while guys stare at them with hard-ons. (The latter is what passes for a love story in this show.) Sometimes young women do other things too, like get brainwashed into having sex with dudes for money. But this is all okay because, ladies, if you suffer long enough and hard enough, eventually you will get to punch a dude in the head, or ninja-kick him or something--mainly because your handlers gave you that ability, not because you have any real agency of your own--and the audience will cheer because that ninja-kick totally makes up for everything that just happened. And then you'll forget most of what did just happen. Until next week, at which point it's back to running around in a very short skirt to be imperiled and stuff. There're supposed to be some other themes to the show, too; as the opening credits make clear, one major theme is that Eliza Dushku's character could not be happier about putting on hooker stockings and wearing the aforementioned very short skirts while listening to outtakes from the Felicity soundtrack.
Anyway, all this clearly makes Dollhouse staff (AKA the British Nationality is a Substitute for Having a Character, the Seth Green Lite, the bad cop, the good cop) active and knowing members of a human experimentation-prostitution-slavery operation. But did you know they're also funny and lovable? It's true! Why, in the most recent episode, "Echoes," everybody starts tripping balls on secret drugs: drugs which could make you crazy and suicidal, or--if you're a member of the Dollhouse staff--spout charming Whedonesque dialogue and jump on trampolines. Comic scenes ensued, and the fans ate it all up; who knew pimp-slash-rape-enablers were so wacky and adorable? Those lovable rascals! Which one's your favorite? I like the one that says "inappropriate starches!"
There's no rule that says people can't have likable aspects and do awful things to people on a daily basis. But "Echoes" in particular is more invidious than the simple and honest premise that people are complex, that a doer of evil is not simply a walking evil tower of evil 24 evil hours a day. Instead, it gives the characters a gloss of Whedon-brand whimsy. People remember the catchy lines, not the whole rape-slave-oppression-as-a-day-job part. Then again, Dollhouse is a show where Boyd the handler gets a sympathetic edit because he cares about Echo. Really cares, deep down. That's why he helps pimp her out again and again, occasionally furrowing a brow to show the depth of his concern, and then at some point during a given episode he'll descend upon Eliza Dushku like a savior angel, taking her hand and leading her out of danger to--to another round of brainwashing and pimpery, mainly. But he furrowed his brow to signify a vague moral concern on which he can't be bothered to take action, so what more do you want; he's funny and plays the piano when he's tripping on drugs! And isn't that what's really important here?
Of course it is. And isn't that the Joss Whedon touch everyone has been waiting for?
Anyway, all this clearly makes Dollhouse staff (AKA the British Nationality is a Substitute for Having a Character, the Seth Green Lite, the bad cop, the good cop) active and knowing members of a human experimentation-prostitution-slavery operation. But did you know they're also funny and lovable? It's true! Why, in the most recent episode, "Echoes," everybody starts tripping balls on secret drugs: drugs which could make you crazy and suicidal, or--if you're a member of the Dollhouse staff--spout charming Whedonesque dialogue and jump on trampolines. Comic scenes ensued, and the fans ate it all up; who knew pimp-slash-rape-enablers were so wacky and adorable? Those lovable rascals! Which one's your favorite? I like the one that says "inappropriate starches!"
There's no rule that says people can't have likable aspects and do awful things to people on a daily basis. But "Echoes" in particular is more invidious than the simple and honest premise that people are complex, that a doer of evil is not simply a walking evil tower of evil 24 evil hours a day. Instead, it gives the characters a gloss of Whedon-brand whimsy. People remember the catchy lines, not the whole rape-slave-oppression-as-a-day-job part. Then again, Dollhouse is a show where Boyd the handler gets a sympathetic edit because he cares about Echo. Really cares, deep down. That's why he helps pimp her out again and again, occasionally furrowing a brow to show the depth of his concern, and then at some point during a given episode he'll descend upon Eliza Dushku like a savior angel, taking her hand and leading her out of danger to--to another round of brainwashing and pimpery, mainly. But he furrowed his brow to signify a vague moral concern on which he can't be bothered to take action, so what more do you want; he's funny and plays the piano when he's tripping on drugs! And isn't that what's really important here?
Of course it is. And isn't that the Joss Whedon touch everyone has been waiting for?
Monday, March 2, 2009
The Nightwing Doctrine in what regard, Charlie?
So--Outsiders, yeah? Borrowed a couple of the trades and so far it's a mildly horrible book. Thoroughly approve of gorillas and the disembodied brains that love them, or vice versa, but the book conveys less of an edgy-superheroes-doing-edgy-things-that-regular-superheroes-can't-do-because-they're-not-edgy feel, more of a I-watch-Fox-TV-shows-while-high-on-Percocet feel. As amusing as it is to watch superheroes go 24 on, er, regular human beings. (See Judd Winick et al., Outsiders: The Good Fight 30-36 (2006).) But he knows where the nukes sarin canisters are, guys! And there's only five minutes an indeterminate amount of time left until they blow somebody maybe decides they should do something putting the plan into place to use them! Ooh, ooh! Can Metamorpho turn into a waterboard?
Here's the thing--say you have superpowers. Heck, say you have an entire team of superpower types, and a high tech flying ship that can do all kinds of neat computery things, and so on, and so forth--if your first and only answer to the question "Where would someone put a not-insignificant storage facility containing a crapload of sarin, somewhere in an African nation of modest size?" is "Let's grab an assistant in the office of political affairs, put on our best camo and gimp hoods, then systematically start breaking his hands and other assorted parts of his anatomy until he cracks," you are a) a fucking lazy moron, and b) in the wrong business entirely.
Let's rehash, shall we?
You: superpowers, magic soul-eating sword, giant flying ship full of fancy computers and stuff. Also, kryptonite in a box. Just in case.
Them: desktop PCs and paper. Snazzy berets.
Something about that match-up suggests that it is not, in fact, terribly hard to find out where the sarin is, as long as you don't mind having Metamorpho breeze in through a window or something and maybe pry open a file cabinet. Or, y'know, maybe you have to hack into some government files by punching in the president's birthday as a password. Maybe you might even try, um, scanning any large semi-demi-military-looking bases that happen to be sitting around in the open. Because that's where the sarin is, you know. Inside a large military-looking base. Which is sitting out in the open.
The best part is that Thunder is like, hey, um, isn't this kind of torture and kind of wrong? but Nightwing slaps her upside the head with his Jack Bauer logic (Big picture! It's all your fault! Big picture!) and then they find the sarin, sitting around, not being used, not being about to be used, and Thunder sadly admits Nightwing was right after all big picture. Terrible.
(And the less said about the Outsiders' concept of regime change, the better:
Step 1: put the current president on a desert island.
Step 2: tell the deputy minister he's in charge and he should be really nice to people. Because generally, that's all it ever takes to assert control of a destabilized nation dominated by the military and plagued by an army of rogue child soldiers.)
Here's the thing--say you have superpowers. Heck, say you have an entire team of superpower types, and a high tech flying ship that can do all kinds of neat computery things, and so on, and so forth--if your first and only answer to the question "Where would someone put a not-insignificant storage facility containing a crapload of sarin, somewhere in an African nation of modest size?" is "Let's grab an assistant in the office of political affairs, put on our best camo and gimp hoods, then systematically start breaking his hands and other assorted parts of his anatomy until he cracks," you are a) a fucking lazy moron, and b) in the wrong business entirely.
Let's rehash, shall we?
You: superpowers, magic soul-eating sword, giant flying ship full of fancy computers and stuff. Also, kryptonite in a box. Just in case.
Them: desktop PCs and paper. Snazzy berets.
Something about that match-up suggests that it is not, in fact, terribly hard to find out where the sarin is, as long as you don't mind having Metamorpho breeze in through a window or something and maybe pry open a file cabinet. Or, y'know, maybe you have to hack into some government files by punching in the president's birthday as a password. Maybe you might even try, um, scanning any large semi-demi-military-looking bases that happen to be sitting around in the open. Because that's where the sarin is, you know. Inside a large military-looking base. Which is sitting out in the open.
The best part is that Thunder is like, hey, um, isn't this kind of torture and kind of wrong? but Nightwing slaps her upside the head with his Jack Bauer logic (Big picture! It's all your fault! Big picture!) and then they find the sarin, sitting around, not being used, not being about to be used, and Thunder sadly admits Nightwing was right after all big picture. Terrible.
(And the less said about the Outsiders' concept of regime change, the better:
Step 1: put the current president on a desert island.
Step 2: tell the deputy minister he's in charge and he should be really nice to people. Because generally, that's all it ever takes to assert control of a destabilized nation dominated by the military and plagued by an army of rogue child soldiers.)
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