And the Oscar Goes To....

Okay, this post doesn't have anything to do with my trip to Spain. But this entry is more timely so I thought I'd go ahead and post it now.

While channel surfing in my room in Spain, I came across this report from BBC World and watched with interest. According to the article, in the seventy-seven-year history of the Academy Awards, some 300 or so nominations have been handed out, but only 13 or 14 of them went to black people. Obviously, the overwhelming number of those nominations went to white people. When Denzel Washington and Halle Berry both won "Best Actor" awards in 2002 -- signaling the first time in history both "best" awards when to black actors, and the first time ever the award went to a black woman -- the media proclaimed a shift in attitudes toward recognition of black Hollywood. The BBC article, like many others, notes that "while some think this year’s nominations may finally reflect a more diverse Hollywood, not everyone is convinced."

I don't know about the BBC World definition of "diverse," but recognizing black achievement at the Oscars shouldn't earn Hollywood the accolade of fully "diverse" just yet. No disrespect toward any of the truly talented black performers, filmmakers, and other behind-the-scenes black talent in Hollywood, who in fact truly deserve the awards for which they are nominated and for which they receive their awards, but America, before proclaiming any of its prominent institutions truly "diverse" in terms of adequate representation of minorities, needs to start looking beyond black and white.

In its 77-year history, only a small handful of Asian Americans have won Oscar awards. Among them are Miyoshi Umeki (Best Supporting Actress, Sayonara, 1957) and Haing S. Ngor (Best Supporting Actor, The Killing Fields, 1984). In addition, James Wong Howe, nominated multiple times, won for best cinematographer in both 1955 (The Rose Tattoo) and in 1963 (Hud). Where's the cry for "diversity" with respect to Asian-American Hollywood? Black actors/filmmakers/Hollywood types (rightfully) applaud the greater representation of black talent at the awards; why does no one notice that diversity in the United States encompasses so much more?

No Asian actor has ever won a "Best Actor" award (male or female) in the history of the Oscars. Ain't no diversity if the Asian population in this country isn't represented.

"But," you protest, "there aren't that many Asian actors out there! How do expect them to win if they barely exist?"

If you actually said that, then you've actually pinpointed the problem with Hollywood: In the same way that black actors were historically marginalized in early Hollywood, Asian actors are in the same boat now. Where blacks used to be consistently relegated to acting roles such as slaves or waiters/busboys, Asian actors are stuck in roles that involve their mastery of the martial arts. (Infuriatingly often, by the way, even this stereotype is being taken away from Asians, because lately white people have been able to better the ancient Eastern masters of the crafts. Witness The Last Samurai -- whose title character appears to be a white guy who kicks Asian ass at an ancient Asian craft.) Either that, or they run Chinese restaurants in some broken English faux-Eastern accent. (See my previous brief post about this phenomenon.)

Asians seldom take lead roles which aren't race-specific. I mean, obviously if you're casting a movie about the ancient kings of Europe, you can't cast an Asian in the role of King Phillip II. But where the race of the main characters isn't terribly important to the plot, and could be filled by anyone of any race or ethnicity, Asian actors are almost never tapped to fill the roles. In fact, the very first movie to feature Asian characters as title characters was Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, starring John Cho and Kal Penn. (Kal Penn is of Asian Indian extraction; his name birth name of Kalpen Modi was Anglicized, probably at the insistence of Hollywood types.) Even Chinatown, a movie whose title suggests an Asian flair or theme, doesn't contain almost any Asians at all in speaking roles.

True, there have been blips on the Hollywood radar as resepcts Asian actors and Asian-themed movies. In 1993, The Joy Luck Club hit the screen with a majority Asian cast. Then, in 2002, we got Better Luck Tomorrow. Aside from those two, though, Asian Americans weren't well represented in mainstream American cinema. Worse, even when Asian characters were cast in Hollywood history, they were played by white guys in yellowface, complete with buck teeth and faux accents. See, for example, Mickey Rooney's shameful performance as "Mr. Yunioshi," Holly Golightly's cranky and irritable upstairs neighbor, in 1961's Breakfast at Tiffany's ("Miss Go-Right-ree! I going to cow poreess!"). Even in Sayonara, a man named "Nakamura," a kabuki dancer, is played by none other than Richardo Montalban -- he of Fantasy Island fame, and clearly someone who is not of Asian descent! As it currently stands, it seems to me that when I want to see Asians or Asian-Americans in the movies, I have to look to more "independent" releases (such as Bend It Like Beckham, Monsoon Wedding, Hero (which is a Chinese movie that somehow has Quentin Tarantino's name prominently attached to it, even though Tarantino really had absolutely no hand in its creation) and House of Flying Daggers. I have to frequent web sites like this one.

Of course, this subject is closer to my heart because I'm Asian-American. I haven't done the research, so I don't know how many Hispanic/Latino actors and actresses out there have been represented at the Awards, nor how many truly Hispanic-themed movies have hit it big as Hollywood blockbusters. Hollywood's been a white man's world for a long time. The same goes for any identifiable minority group in the United States who deserves recognition and notice as an integral and important part of this tapestry of the country. Only when more of us are better and more fully represented can we truly proclaim that Hollywood has succeeded in its recognition of the "diversity" of the industry.

But in the end, the problem is the same. Hollywood was and is busy patting itself on the back in the name of "diversity" for finally giving some black actors the recognition they deserve. Measuring themselves by a black-versus-white yardstick, sure, progress has been made. But there's got to be a more representative yardstick out there that needs to be used to recalibrate the assessments.