The Bitch Report: How "Harold and Kumar" Subverts Racial Paradigms

kumar isn't asian.

what continent is india located?

to say harold and kumar breaks racial barriers is stupid, they are not asian-americans, they are americans. They do not have dual citizenship. They are US citizens. Stop being rascist and labeling them cause of their skin tones. The ONLY reason harold and kumar was so succesfull is cause it was funny! Thats all. Stop expressing your racial observations, it makes you very racist

First of all 'Asian-American' is a term used to describe Americans of Asian decent not for people that have dual citizenship. Secondly they are labeled based upon the characters they portrayed in the film, which have strong roots in their Asian heritage. Have you even seen the movie? Stop calling people racist for something that is not racist you oversensitive wanker.

In the US, the term "asian" usually only refers to folks who are from chinese/korean/japanese ancestry. However, for the rest of the world, Indian's are considered "asian". India is part of the Asian sub-continent. I recall in the 80's (when I came to the US), I had to identify myself as "asian/pacific-islander" in demographic surveys. Now, there is a separate entry for "East Indian" (as opposed to west-indian's who are from the Caribbean).

Hope this helps. Angie is right in referring to both Harold and Kumar as "asians".

Coincidentally, my best friend is Chinese and I am Indian. My middle name is "Kumar" and his is "Harold". Go figure!

I'm multiracial but I've never really identified as such.

I married outside of both my parents' races to a girl who is also a different religion, but we never really identify ourselves as such.

Result? No perceived racism or anything like that.

Basically racism is often just as much a matter of perception as it is reality. Sure, there are KKK members out there who really are racist, but when someone sees an Asian portrayed as a booksmart achiever in a movie as a race issue that's just stupid. I hate to say it, but many real-life Asians are booksmart achievers :-)

It's a cultural fact that Asian parents push their kids to do well in school and go into one of the 'Big 4' careers - medicine, finance, law, or engineering. That's not an unfair stereotype, it's art reflecting reality. That's part of the joke with Kumar's doctor father pushing him into medicine. My wife is Indian, her mom is a doctor, and the same pressure was placed upon her.

Is it fair that most villains these days are well to do white guys simply because we're afraid to offend anyone? Basically when we can admit the realities of certain groups - black gangbangers, latin immigrants, nerdy asians, arab terrorists, etc - without being so sensitive as to assume that such representations are meant to characterize ALL blacks, latins, asians, arabs, etc, we'll be in a much better place.

stereotype != racism (although it can be)

Sean: "but many real-life Asians are booksmart achievers"

A positive stereotype is still a stereotype. For instance, people might stereotype the mentally retarded as kind and openly loving. It is a positive stereotype, and in its attribution of positive characteristics to the entire group it undermines the reality that they get just as angry, can be just as hostile, and be total jerks as anybody else. This is why *any* stereotype is bad - it limits the expected characteristics of a group of people to a much smaller subset of the human condition and fails to acknowledge that they are just that: fully human.

There's lots of real-life Asians who are not booksmart achievers. Why should people expect that they are?

I worked for the company (Senator International) that made Harold & Kumar. That script had been going around Hollywood for quite some time and was generally considered to be the funniest comedy writing sample in town, but completely un-makeable due to the two Asian leads.

Senator took a chance on it and was widely congratulated for having the balls to go forward with a hilarious, but likely unsuccessful, project. It was incredibly difficult to cast, and it was tough getting financing in place. But in the end, even with the necessary low-budget production, it turned out exactly as we hoped it would: one of the smartest, least patronizing comedies (stoner or otherwise) in quite some time.

I haven't worked with Senator (now Mandate) since H&K 1 came out, but I'm very excited to see that H&K 2 has finally been made and released and seems to be garnering a lot of excitement.

India is in Asia; however I don't like to generalize like that. It doesn't happen with Europeans or North Americans, yet people from African nations are labeled as African. If you are from Asia, you are Asian. If you are from North America, you are Canadian or American (silly in itself as anyone from North or South America should be able to be "American," yet only U.S. citizens are American) If you're from Europe, you identify with you ethnicity or nation, not Europe as a whole. Put a Frenchman and a German in the same group, see how that goes. I have to say that I hate being labeled as Asian as I so often am, I am half Chinese, half Irish. When people ask me what race I am, I reply "Human."
Race is stupid, its a human construct and it only exists still because it is a useful tool for discrimination.

Those guys crack me up!

I heard about this on the podcast earlier this week and found the link on imdb. Somebody submitted it after all :)

Great article

Jason Scott Lee (Bruce Lee) got Lauren Holly (Linda Lee) in Dragon: the Bruce Lee Story released in 1991. Linda was shown to be smitten by Jason shortly after meeting him in college. But, both ended up living together, marrying, having a child, establishing "The Bruce Lee Home" in Hong Kong.

It's so funny because I wanted to write about this as well. I love both movies, Harold & Kumar (1) and Better Luck Tomorrow, but the edgy, arthouse drama couldn't grab the same appeal (especially with the terrible and pathetic attempt at marketing it by MTV) as the sly, stoner comedy.

It spends time on racial issues but doesn't preach. The subtlety of H&K not wanting to attend the Asian Club party is particularly poignant, and something that may be difficult for some people to fully understand or identify with.

It's this subtlety that, for me, raises the first one above the sequel, although general consensus seems to hold the second in more esteem. However, both are great films, and milestones for Asian-Americans in cinema.

Peep this documentary (I sense the author of this blog has). It's a really good start at understanding Asians in the entertainment media (though I feel it did not focus on Indians much, if at all), even going back to the silent era.

I'm just glad to see Kal Penn doing diverse projects. The Namesake was fantastic, but overlooked compared w/other features in 2006 (in part, b/c of people not being conditioned to looking at that many brown people for that long). He seems smart enough to balance his thoughtful work w/the H&K type of fluff w/o demeaning himself. Human construct or not, race is still a device that many buy into and therefore, can't be ignored.

I thought this article was too naive. The characters of Harold and Kumar are all seen as "mostly white/heavily assimilated" characters by the average white audience person. That's why they are accepted. How anyone can applaud acceptance of assimilated people as if it's some kind of major accomplishment is baffling to me.

I'm a second-generation Chinese American who doesn't speak any Chinese, and in no way would be considered Chinese in China. It's pretty obvious to me that I can fit into white society much easier than first-generation Chinese Americans. It's also extremely obvious that first-generation Chinese Americans are discriminated against and humiliated by Americans of all kinds far more than second-generation Chinese like myself.

Two thirds of all Asian Americans are FOREIGN BORN whose primary language is NOT English, and yet all Asian Americans who grew up in this country seem to care about when it comes to cinema is depicting themselves. What gives? Have most native-born Asians completely bought into the white idea that their immigrant parents are culturally inferior and deserve humiliation and disrespect?

Harold and Kumar are funny movies but they don't "break any barriers" of significance, unless you think Dave Chappelle "broke barriers" with his comedy, too. Dave, by the way, broke a $40 million contract when he realized his show was too racist and that he was being a minstrel comedian for white people who wanted a way to make fun of black people.

Good article. I don't see what's so wrong about showing Asian-Americans as people and not stereotypes?? In regards to the comment above mine, why would Asian-Americans not want to see themselves depicted in cinema, particularly when most American films are directed by and star only white people.

And Dave Chappelle's show did break barriers. It made it ok to talk about and laugh at racism (again); the show itself was not racist, unless you think acknowledging how ridiculous stereotypes are is racist. The problem Dave had was that racist people would laugh at the show without caring that it was subverting racist ideals; only because there was a silly looking minority. To save his sense of integrity, he walked away.

I think Harold and Kumar is a nice departure from the "typical" representation of Asian Americans in the media as nerds, ninjas, or dudes with small penises. They're just shown as people, who happen to be of a particular race.

"In the US, the term "asian" usually only refers to folks who are from chinese/korean/japanese ancestry."

Wow. Cultural snobbery and ethnocentrism at its worst and patently untrue. Even among white Americans, Asia and "Asian" encompass much more than that, from Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Singapore, Cambodia, Thailand, etc.) to the Pacific Islands (Philippines, Samoa, Tonga, etc.).

Indians are Asians, people. Just because they don't have what many would consider the common physical characteristics of "Asians" doesn't mean that they're not. There are a number of Asian cultures, all very different from one another. There are also a number of ethnicities throughout Asia, and they don't all share the same physical characteristics.

What's sad is that I know other Asians who wouldn't include Indians or Pacific Islanders under the umbrella. Feh. Snobbery bordering on racism.

poop.

"What's sad is that I know other Asians who wouldn't include Indians or Pacific Islanders under the umbrella. Feh. Snobbery bordering on racism."

There does seem to be something interesting (of which I know nothing about) in the rise of the distinction in the U.S. between Asians, Pacific Islanders, and East Indians. At its basis, I think it illuminates the problematic nature of identifying "race" in an increasingly diverse gene pool, to which the only solution is to move the dialog beyond the distinction altogether.

By identifying Harold and Kumar primarily in their cultural context -- as young male stoners in the U.S. -- and perhaps only secondarily by their "racial heritage", I think HKGTWC makes some progress in doing this. The author's fundamental premise is sound.

Cheech and Chong

First, I would like to acknowledge that there are parts of Russia that may be considered more "Asian" by some people's standards than others since the Mongolian empire reached out, touched and left it's genetic marker behind. So yes, Russia is Asian. As for race being a man made construct, that would mean that someone, somewhere is secretly changing the tones of people's skin along with other "racially" distinct features. Race is not man made, you are confusing racial differences with racism and that is very racist. The differences in apperance, culture and ethnicity is something that should be celebrated because we all know that variety is the spice of life. Acknowledging that someone has a different heritage is not innately evil. The evil part comes into play when people see only the differences and base opinions and reactions on those differences without pausing to see that a different culture with different values is still a human culture.

Here in the states we like to lump everybody into these different categories. Asian, European (which somehow, Australian falls under), African, Martian, Antarctican...you get the point. But for most of us it's not an assessment done on the grounds of belittling a different culture but to understand and embrace the difference. I was raised in a mixed household within a culturally diverse neighborhood and I wasn't affraid to acknowledge the differences because again, they should be celebrated.

Harold and Kumar is bar-none my all time favorite comedy. Yes, the leads are Asian much like I am European but Harold and Kumar are no less American. Neither character portrays the "typical movie foreigner" because they aren't foreign. These are the guys I went to school with. Work with. Partied with. But to leave out the fact that they are Asian negates their heritage and I won't do that. Whites in the United States aren't classified as European Americans because it's a given. In some ways it's good but really, it makes us forget that our families started somewhere else with different values. We lose part of that since of ancestry.

The article was right about breaking ground but wrong about the ground it broke and that is the fact that looking past the skin tones eye shapes Harold and Kumar are typical American's with typical American values. Rolls that up until then was given to Whitey McBland. Typical American's are of every creed and type. Who doesn't love a good White Castle hamburger after all?

Most of you need to relax and just take the film for what it is, its a comedy that did break minor barriers, nothing extreme was broken because you dont see the leads on cbs or nbc talking about what the film did for their races. Baby steps need to be taken for bigger ones to happen, this was a baby step, in my opinion racism is the product of people who need to learn to tolerate, and here in America we have been raised on the fact that we are better than everyone else and that everyone needs us. Im a white guy and yeah i know all the stereotypes and there is a reason why they are there, because they are mostly true, so what is so bad about making fun of the truth, especially if it gets things moving in the right direction to stop it? All of you are so busy arguing that you dont realize that they are completely mocking white society as well, almost all of the stereotypes come from white guys like me and in the movie all of the problems started with a white guy instigating it and Kumar not taking it. it seems a lot of the Asian people are mad at this film, but if you really look into it, the snobish and so called "white authority" should be mad at it, because the films are true. yeah all the acts in the movies are extreme, but how it all started in the films is definitely not extreme, these are things that happen, this is just making fun of it to hopefully fix it. ever heard that if you cant laugh at the truth then you can never fix it? this is a perfect example.