H & K & G-Bay
You may have noticed in a previous post I mentioned two confessions, but made only one. Okay, here's the other one: a while back, I watched Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay. I haven't posted about it because I just don't know what to write. Did I like it? Meh. Was it good? Meh. Was it total frat boy humor? Totally.
I won't say it was total suckage, but I will say this: I really liked the first one, H&K Go to White Castle because it was so new and different, and because it featured two Asian guys who defied stereotypes. The Indian-American dude was a pot-smoking, academically-challenged, sex fiend -- so unlike any of the depictions out there of young South Asian men in the media. There were moments in the first one where I actually laughed, in spite of the predictable sexist scenes.
In this second one, those same sexist scenes were not in the least funny -- they'd gone beyond predictable to the tiresome; the frat boy humor had lost the novelty of being in the hands of South Asian and East Asian males; and the attempt at subversion by using the Guantanamo plotline seemed hardly worth the effort. Really, why bother?
So, I guess, it wasn't a big hit for me. I'd like to see more shattering of myths and stereotypes, but I'd like to see it go beyond that as well. Like, maybe moving into plotlines and character layering...
I won't say it was total suckage, but I will say this: I really liked the first one, H&K Go to White Castle because it was so new and different, and because it featured two Asian guys who defied stereotypes. The Indian-American dude was a pot-smoking, academically-challenged, sex fiend -- so unlike any of the depictions out there of young South Asian men in the media. There were moments in the first one where I actually laughed, in spite of the predictable sexist scenes.
In this second one, those same sexist scenes were not in the least funny -- they'd gone beyond predictable to the tiresome; the frat boy humor had lost the novelty of being in the hands of South Asian and East Asian males; and the attempt at subversion by using the Guantanamo plotline seemed hardly worth the effort. Really, why bother?
So, I guess, it wasn't a big hit for me. I'd like to see more shattering of myths and stereotypes, but I'd like to see it go beyond that as well. Like, maybe moving into plotlines and character layering...