Did You Know That Asian People Laugh
LOS ANGELES — On a warm November night at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre on Dusk Blvd., a room of more 300 people watched as a cart conveying a frosted canvass cake was rolled on stage.
"Information technology's a yellow cake with white frosting," comedian Will Choi appear as he led the room in singing "Happy Altogether" to his fellow performer Jenny Yang, who was celebrating her birth month alongside three actresses Choi and Yang had spent the nighttime making digs at: Scarlett Johansson (whose proper noun Choi borrowed for his sold-out UCB comedy show, "Scarlett Johansson Presents: Opening Night of Doctor Foreign"), Emma Stone, and Tilda Swinton.
The joke, Choi said about naming the one-act showcase, wrote itself. In May, Choi produced his showtime "Scarlett Johansson Presents" testify to coincide with Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. The championship, he told NBC News, was an effort to telephone call out the whitewashing in Johansson's upcoming role in the 2017 film, "Ghost In the Shell."
"I didn't have to sell the show at all," Choi, who co-hosted the November show with "Gilmore Girls" actress Keiko Agena (the two donned wigs to portray Johansson and Stone, whose role as Allison Ng in the 2015 film "Aloha" is another still-fresh example of whitewashing), said. "Anybody was on board because it was then pertinent at the time."
The "Scarlett Johansson Presents" prove in May sold out, prompting a second show in November that took place the aforementioned dark Curiosity's "Doctor Strange" opened in theaters. Swinton's role every bit The Aboriginal One in "Doctor Foreign" had been some other dart on the wall of Hollywood missteps when it came to casting actual Asian Americans in major pic roles meant for Asian Americans, and Choi saw an opportunity to continue highlighting Hollywood's problem in the manner he knew all-time: through comedy and performance.
"With the 'Scarlett Johansson' evidence, it's showcasing all these amazing Asian Americans on stage and letting them have the chance to perform in front of an audience that really resonates with them," Choi said, "and for the audition members to encounter someone onstage that looks like them and to be empowered to feel like, 'I tin can exercise that too. I tin can brand a change as well.'"
Pushing Dorsum
While Choi's philosophy isn't a novel concept, the number of opportunities to respond to misrepresentation (and not-representation) in the media showed almost no sign of slowing down in 2016 — from Chris Stone's "joke" at the Oscars involving three Asian-American kids to continuing concerns of whitewashing on the big screen.
"I feel similar a lot of 'asshattery' happened," Yang, who appeared at UCB'south "Scarlett Johansson Presents" evidence as Swinton/The Ancient 1, told NBC News. "I experience similar there's so many low points [in 2016] that have gathered together."
RELATED: Oscars 2016: Twitter Reacts to 'Asian Joke' at Academy Awards
For Yang, the "low points" this twelvemonth were part of the fuel for her bursts of creative fire. In September, later on Bon Appétit published a piece on "how you should be eating pho" that featured a white chef demonstrating the "right" style to brand and eat the Vietnamese dish, Yang responded non just with outrage, but with satire.
Yang'due south "How to Eat Pb&J" video, which directly mocked Bon Appétit's have on pho — or, as information technology'southward known online, the "Columbusing" of pho — makes wild assertions about the proper way to consume and appreciate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and ends with a "pro-tip" on non telling Asians how to consume their ain food.
Since it was posted online, Yang's video has nearly 900,000 views on Facebook. Bon Appétit has since removed their original video and amended their commodity to include an explanation.
Although this style of one-act isn't new for Yang — she's appeared in numerous BuzzFeed videos commenting on the Asian-American experience — she says 2016 has given her confirmation that creating laughter could also create modify in a meaningful way.
"I love that we are actually creating the kind of fizz and racket in media that is making mainstream media take detect."
"What I experience very privileged to be able to practise is to use this wonderful format of comedy to say something that I feel similar actually gets to the heart of what I intendance about, what I think well-nigh, and the kinds of thoughts and feelings and values that the people I know care about," Yang said. "It's satisfying because I know for a fact that I'chiliad hit a nervus or I'k hitting a stream of discourse, a stream of conversation that hasn't been elevated to a more mainstream conversation."
I month later, Yang was back at it once again, responding to a segment by Fox News correspondent Jesse Watters which saw Watters using stereotypes to poke, what Watters and Play a joke on News called, "gentle fun" at Asians in New York City'due south Chinatown. The segment, which was decried as "racist and offensive" past civil rights organization, included references to karate and questions about North korea.
RELATED: Chinatown Responds as Fox Reporter Defends 'Tongue-In-Cheek' Segment
In a video for Fusion, Yang responded by going to Beverly Hills, where she mimicked the style and tone of Watters' segment, merely turned the tables on interviewees with stereotypes nigh white people.
"I feel similar I've developed a make," Yang joked. "If they need an Asian face to brand fun of white people… 'Let'due south become Jenny Yang!'"
'In the Driver's Seat'
Whether it'southward been through improv or satirical videos, the media's lack of responsible representation of Asian Americans continues to showcase the need for the kind of piece of work Yang and Choi have brought to both phase and screen. It's the kind of work that player Neal Dandade, who performed in Choi's "Scarlett Johansson Presents" testify in Nov, says is essential in changing the manufacture.
"Making your own work puts y'all in the driver's seat," Dandade told NBC News. "To a sure degree...you lot are a product, yous have to present yourself in a certain mode. And then people who'd like to human activity in things that others write, a great way to get to that stage is to evidence people how to write for you. And you're the person who tin can tell people how to exercise that most accurately."
Dandade, who was most recently seen on TV in ABC Family unit's "Kevin From Work," got his start taste of the theater while in college, studying both theater and pre-med. After graduating, he moved to Chicago where he worked as a researcher in a lab, but as well began taking classes and seeing improv shows at night.
"I was very lucky in Chicago. I found some really cool people to make videos with, that's commonly how a lot of great videos get-go: it's just people having fun," he said.
Forth with his theater and television set work, Dandade has appeared in videos for Funny Or Die and the Second City Network, the web portal for The Second Metropolis, whose alum include Tina Fey and Steve Carrell. Dandade himself is an alum of Stir Friday Night, a Chicago-based Asian-American comedy troupe that besides boasts impressive alumni — for starters, actors Danny Pudi and Steven Yeun, who Choi cited as one of his biggest inspirations for getting into comedy.
"I hadn't seen longform improv before and I'd never seen an Asian person doing improv," Choi recalled of Yeun, "so when I saw him [at iO West in Los Angeles], I was similar, 'Wait. That guy looks like me and is doing something that seems so fun and scary and just really cool…'"
In his own creative career, Choi has found success in existence, equally Dandade puts it, "backside the driver's seat," with projects such as The Comedy Comedy Festival (produced alongside Yang) and "Drunkard Monk Podcast" (which he co-hosts with Keiko Agena). At the cease of November, Choi and comedian Mike Lane debuted UCB's get-go mainstage, all-Asian-American show, "Asian AF."
"Depending on how successful that is, hopefully information technology'll go a monthly run," Choi told NBC News at the beginning of November.
Ane week afterwards, tickets for the show went on sale; four days later, it sold out.
Not Playing Information technology 'Safe'
"The only style nosotros can shift civilisation is through civilisation is through creating culture, and that'due south through fine art."
If you ask Choi, Dandade, or Yang why they use one-act to respond to moments that bother them, their answers vary, but they all share similar philosophies: it'southward the best way they know how to process what could easily turn into rage. Through tools similar social media platforms and YouTube, "there'south been a full general loosening and freeing of our voices," Yang notes, adding that the best way to reach people by "beingness able to movement people emotionally or through humor."
"Not only are we speaking up about issues that are happening in general, but we are as well feeling more empowered to speak up about problems that affect united states of america, especially in regards to representation," she said. "I love that we are actually creating the kind of buzz and racket in media that is making mainstream media take notice."
And without traditional "gatekeepers" online to put the brakes on every piece of commentary, the possibilities, Dandade says, tin can be endless. "It'due south a identify to try out your ideas, to see what works, to neglect," he said. "If you put something on the web, you take the entire world [in front of you] in a way, so you lot tin see what kind of ripples your video makes."
Ane of those videos in 2016 making ripples came in May, three months afterward rapper Dumbfoundead saturday downwards to watch the Oscars and — as he says in his vocal "Safe" — saw that "the merely yellow men were all statues."
"The title 'Condom' is a reference to how I felt Asians and Asian Americans were being perceived: the model minority that'll accept it and grinning, the punching bag of America," he told NBC News at the time.
RELATED: With New Video, Rapper Dumbfoundead Challenges Hollywood 'Whitewashing'
Dumbfoundead'due south music video for "Prophylactic" went viral in the start few days of its release. And while he uses humor by superimposing his confront into iconic picture show scenes (it's a artistic move also used in the viral hashtag #StarringJohnCho, which superimposed actor John Cho onto movie posters as a lead role to push back on those who might suggest Asian actors weren't leading men, co-ordinate to hashtag creator William Yu), the bulletin is deeper: "What you talkin' 'tour there own't no infinite / Guess I gotta get and brand more space," Dumbfoundead raps in the vocal.
RELATED: New Twitter Account, Hashtag Re-Imagines Films #StarringJohnCho
"We can't wait," he said in an interview with the LA Times in June. "If you expect information technology's gonna take forever. Yous only take to write these stories."
Make 'Em Laugh
Ahead of the release of "Ghost in the Crush" in 2017, Choi already has a third "Scarlett Johansson Presents" bear witness scheduled — this time, in Feb on the opening night of "The Bang-up Wall," an action moving picture starring Matt Damon that has Damon's character saving Red china from dragons.
"ATTN: ASIANS - See at the UCB Theatre on Feb 17th, 2017. Matt Damon is coming to save the states all," the Facebook event reads.
"It'south non like I'm proverb, 'Cold-shoulder this film,' or any. Information technology's already getting made," Choi said of both "Ghost in the Shell" and "The Corking Wall." "It'due south merely a fashion to empower people to stand up up for whatsoever they don't think is correct."
RELATED: 'Correcting Yellowface': One Woman's Project to Fix Whitewashing
Choi's committed to that model of letting his opinions speak through his art: with some other "Asian AF" testify lined up already in the new year, he hopes to use the stage to aid comedians and performers catch the eye of agencies and producers who claim to be on the lookout for diversity. "Let this place, this testify, exist a identify where you tin notice that talent," he said.
"Making your own work puts you in the driver's seat."
And while every joke in Choi's shows or Dandade'southward web videos or Yang'southward sketches aren't always direct jabs at Hollywood's fumbles, having the platform and opportunities to create — to perform, to watch — and to laugh at an industry that however hasn't figured out how to properly support variety is as important as whatever other means of enervating change.
"As a storyteller, equally a comedian, every bit a writer — to create videos that really move people, at the minimum, through humor is very powerful," Yang said. "We can legislate all we want, and we know this through history: people can say from up loftier, 'Be a certain way.' Merely every bit a culture, if nosotros besides don't shift our exercise and our mindset, things don't change. And the only way we can shift culture is through civilisation is through creating civilization, and that's through fine art."
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Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2016-year-in-review/if-you-can-t-beat-them-laugh-them-how-asian-n698401
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