Two weeks after getting an award for spotlighting Asian businesses in the San Gabriel Valley, The Fung Brothers on Thursday released a satirical sequel to their popular music video, “Boba Life.”
Andrew and David Fung are comedians who create YouTube video blogs and music videos. With about 87,900 subscribers and more than 8 million views, the Seattle-born duo are well-known for cracking jokes about the young, Asian-American identity.
“The Fung Brothers took a creative approach to promoting the region’s business, culture and diversity while increasing a sense of pride for the SGV, or should I say, the 626,” Monterey Park Councilman Mitchell Ing said at the 10th Annual San Gabriel Valley Awards Gala on Sept. 6.
As winners of the San Gabriel Valley Economic Partnership’s Innovative Marketing Award, Andrew Fung, 24, said the brothers hope to reduce the uncomfortable feeling some people get when they “drive down past Las Tunas (Drive)” or new Chinatown: San Gabriel, Alhambra and Monterey Park.
The brothers are following in the footsteps of people like Wong Fu Productions, KevJumba and Ryan Higa (aka Nigahiga), all of whom were early YouTube adopters who blazed the way for a new generation of young, Asian YouTube content producers.
“Why they did it was because there was no other outlet for us to go out there and get our face out,” said Andrew, from Monterey Park. “There was no young, Asian voice anywhere. A lot of it started just as fun, and they realized this is the only way (for them to enter the media world). Asians got to act ‘normal.’”
Mainstream society is tuned in to Asians stepping out of stereotypic roles. Comedian Nigahiga is the No. 9 most subscribed to channel on YouTube with about 10.3 million followers, reported VidStatsX. Makeup guru Michelle Phan ranks 38 and comedian KevJumba is No. 87, not bad when considering they are also competing with major media networks on YouTube.
Yet Asians are making incremental strides toward acceptance in Hollywood. Some 69 percent of the available roles in major studios is reserved for white actors, reported a December 2006 UCLA report. Asians captured about 4 percent of the roles, beating only Native Americans, Middle Easterners and multiracial individuals.
Plus many of the mainstream media acting jobs available to Asians reinforce stereotypes that started in the early 1900s with the advent of “yellowface” or the xenophobic practice of having white actors play Asians, said Vincent Pham, co-author of “Asian Americans and the Media.”
While actors such as Sessue Hayakawa and Anna May Wong found success, Hollywood prevented Asian-American actors from performing more fully-formed, complex characters, Pham said.
So Asian-American stereotypes became rampant in society. Asian women are hyper-sexualized Dragon Ladies. They can also play the role of a lotus blossom or Madama Butterfly — submissive, obedient women who do whatever is required to maintain their honor. Asian men are represented as emasculated, asexual men, really nerdy or undesirable, Pham said.
“Probably the most well-known instance of yellowface is Mickey Rooney’s character in ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s,’ ” Pham said. “The character is a Japanese photographer who is particularly enamoured with the lead character. He is there to provide comic relief.”
While some might say Hollywood has moved away from the racism found in movies filmed decades ago, others would disagree.
Matthew Moy’s character in CBS’s “2 Broke Girls” is kind of a throwback to a stereotypical 1960s emasculated man, said Jasmine Trice, an assistant professor at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. Brenda Song is oversexualized in Fox’s “Dads,” she said. And many Asians have taken offense to the way they are represented in the music video “Asian Girlz” by Day Above Ground.
The list continues partially because of “racebending” or changing the ethnicity of a character. Others call this phenomenon “whitewashing,” but the results are the same. Roles written for Asian people of color such as Aang in “The Last Airbender” and Khan in “Star Trek Into Darkness” are rewritten and assigned to white actors, Trice said.
Certainly Fox’s “The Mindy Project” shows how Hollywood is warming up to Southeast Asians, but many other Asian actors are relegated to simplistic roles that make it impossible for viewers to relate with, said Marissa Minna Lee, co-founder of racebending.com, a grassroots organization for entertainment equality.
“People who are Asian-American grow up to learn and experience the stories of people who are different from them,” she said. “But if you’re a girl or woman or if you’re Asian or black, you don’t have as many experiences of seeing yourself or your story told. You don’t have the benefit of others seeing stories about you so that people could learn to relate to you.”
Although YouTube content producers such as The Fung Brothers highlight the Asian-American lifestyle, some criticize them for misusing their microphone with videos such as “Boba Life II: Pearls Gone Wild,” “Things Asian Parents Do” and “Asians Eat Weird Things.” Not only are they putting Asians back into a box, they objectify women, said Calvin Lam, a UCLA undergraduate.
“Their checklist way of promoting Asians reduces the rich diversity of Asians to the few, numbered characteristics they describe,” said Lam, 19. “Why call the videos ‘Things Asian Guys Like’ if it only applies to the Asian guys they observe in their own life? Their broad usage of ‘Asian’ reinforces the interchangeability of Asian-Americans when in fact Asian can be Japanese, Vietnamese, Indian, Chinese, etc.”
Andrew and David Fung admit they stereotype people, but they said they use generalizations as a tool to target their audience and to help a large group of people figure out their Asian identity. They are sparking a discussion, they said.
“There are traits of Asian culture that are different from Western culture,” said David, 27. “Certain people are still coming to terms to how different we are. I understand people saying Asians aren’t a monolithic group, and Chinese doesn’t represent Asian. For the most part, we’re trying to create a discussion, spark dialogue. We’re immigrant children. Our parents come from Asia, and we’re all trying to find our place in Western society.”
YouTube — especially before Google allowed the mainstream media networks into it — has made videos more democratic, Pham said.
“Instead of having only one type of representation primarily done by say three TV networks, we have a variety of Asian-American representations. Some are going to be great and progressive and challenging the way people think about Asian-Americans. Some can be equally or more damaging that what you might see in network TV, but at least they’re having an opportunity to do this.”
At the very least, San Gabriel Valley YouTube artists such as David Choi, Just Kidding Films and Joseph Vincent show society that Asians can do more than ace tests.
“It exposes the populace to the way Asian-Americans think and also shows the creative side of us,” Councilman Ing said. “We’re not just the math nerds and the science nerds. It exposes mainstream (society) to the fact that Asian-Americans are creative.”
