“(500) Days of Summer” is refreshingly good. It’s an intelligently written anti-love story, as the movie labels itself.
The story: Boy meets girl but girl this time is the commitment-phobic.
The movie is a delicate balancing act. We’re made to believe it’s the girl who doesn’t want emotional commitment.
This is not a movie review, though, so let’s point out why this movie is posted here.
In a scene at Ikea, boy and girl are fooling around on the bed, when the boy says, “Darling, don’t look now, but there’s a Chinese family in our bathroom.”
It’s played as a visual gag, but Asians I know who saw it said it was yet another stereotype by Hollywood. It’s not outright derogatory; it’s just a subtle dig that the screenwriters can get away with. Asians are just portrayed as uncool people most of the time. But don’t we have any cool southeast Asian in movies? Do you remember any? Even in the Harold & Kumar movies, it’s Harold who’s geekier, although in real life, the two actors say they’re the opposite of their characters; the actor who plays Kumar says he’s the geek in real life.
Anyway, the scene lasts for only about 3 seconds. The video from the movie here shows the couple looking awkwardly at the Chinese family.
The Chinese family shows the grandmother, parents and children. Except for the grandmother and her disapproving look, the rest of the family looks at them blankly, seemingly without expression, as if to emphasize yet again, as in so many TV shows and feature films, that many Asians are humorless beings.
C’mon, could the filmmakers at least made the kids smile? The joke would have worked differently, without the nervous laughter from the audience.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 20th, 2009 at 2:30 pm and is filed under Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.