GoldbergBlog

You Don’t Have THE GOODS When It Comes to Activism

I really like the site Racebending.com because it is a crime that M. Night Shaymalan, an Indian director, feels it’s okay to cast his adaptation of the multi-ethnic cartoon series “Avatar: The Last Airbender” with a majority of white actors.  You can throw all the excuses you want for not casting Asian-Americans in roles originally intended for that ethnic group: acting ability, martial arts ability, time constraints for casting, but that’s all bullshit.  Acting and martial arts can be taught and if you can’t cast the roles then you need to fire your casting director and broaden your search because I refuse to believe there aren’t two Asian-American child actors who couldn’t possibly learn acting and stage combat and that the film had no other choice but to go with two no-name white actors.  Oh, but they did have a role for Dev Patel, the charming and charismatic star of the smash-hit “Slumdog Millionaire”.  He gets to play the villain.  That’s nice.

So I was checking back in on the site today and they were  mentioning a protest held this past weekend at Paramount Studios.  That’s no problem.  Paramount is producing and distributing “The Last Airbender” and even though “The Last Airbender” (the dropped “Avatar” from the title due to James Cameron’s upcoming film of the same name) doesn’t hit theatres until April, they want to make their voices heard and I applaud that action.

But they were protesting not “Airbender”, but a movie called “The Goods”.  “The Goods” is a raunchy, intentionally offensive R-rated comedy but the outcry is against the film’s all-audiences trailer where a couple of the big jokes come at the expense of a character called Teddy Dang who is played by the constantly hilarious Ken Jeong.  Their point does have some merit in that what people will see is an Asian-American getting beat up and then having a bank bag explode in his face.  Is it wrong for Paramount to sell the film that way?  Not really.  Here’s why:

“The Goods” is supposed to offend.  I suppose you could argue why only the Asian-American is the butt of the jokes and why they don’t spread the un-PC jokes around.  But does that make things better?  Is it better to sell the film with more minorities getting ridiculed?  I honestly don’t know.  But I do take umbrage on two matters:

1) It treats Jeong like he’s a patsy and that he doesn’t understand humor or he just sold out his heritage for a joke.  I find THAT offensive.  Jeong is one of the best up-and-coming comedians today and this film coupled with his role in “The Hangover” is going to raise his profile.  But I why do that when there are so many Asian-American comedians in starring roles?  Best to just assume he’s a chump.

2) Racebending notes how at the end of the scene where he’s getting a beat-down for being Japanese for Don Ready’s (Jeremy Piven) speech about Pearl Harbor, Dang notes how he’s actually Korean and sarcastically responds that it makes it okay for the rage directed at his character.  But what’s still in the trailer is Ready saying that what they just did was a hate crime and they should say that Dang came at him with a samurai sword and Chinese throwing stars, a stereotype so over-the-top that the joke is that you’ll notice it and find Ready’s excuse laughable because it would never be made in a film that exists as an accurate depiction of reality.  To say that last part of the joke is offensive is insulting to Asian-Americans because it assumes they’re too stupid to understand how comedy works.

Now the finisher of the joke (which is after Ready’s throwing-stars-remake, but isn’t in the trailer but since Racebending brought it into the argument, I’ll respond) actually highlights how Americans think all Asians look alike despite their various countries of origin.  Secondly, Dick (Charles Napier), the angry war veteran, who starts the attack is bigoted not just against Asians but against all groups.  He’s sets the tone for the film when he wistfully remarks, “I remember when men were men and women were dolls, and negroes were…well, negroes.”

Oh, and while we’re mentioning moments that aren’t in the trailer, here’s another one: Dang is the one who saves the day when all hope seems lost (it’s not a spoiler; that’s how the end of a second act works).  But if you want to bring the red-band trailer into the mix (the one that sells the film more accurately), David Koechner’s character walks in on Dick doing lines of Cocaine after Teddy Dang has learned the lesson of car salesmanship: “Lie, Loan, Leave!”

If “The Goods” were intended as a PG-13, all-ages comedy where they hid the offensive nature of the jokes, then I would be on board.  But this is a comedy intended to be offensive.  I don’t know how they get up to that line without going to red-band territory but you can’t be upset that the film is making that intention clear just because it’s your minority who gets made fun of.

Oh, and just as an added note, I’ve seen the film twice now and the beatdown on Dang isn’t funny because he’s getting beat-up.  It’s funny because of the nervous look he gives Dick as everyone’s chanting “Never Again!”  And it was hilarious both times because Jeong has impeccable comic timing.

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