The De-Asianification of "21"
This post by Jenn from Reappropriate has already been cross-posted all over, but I thought I'd give it an extra plug here.
I was quite irritated when I saw the trailer for this movie. "21" is a great, true-life story about a group of MIT students who started a card-counting operation and won millions from casinos. These were Asian-Americans whose Asian-ness was pretty central to their initial success at card-counting. Wow, what a great opportunity to show Asian-American men engaged in an exciting activity that's not kung fu! But of course the movie was de-Asianified in favor of white leads. This has been going on for so long, and it has GOT to stop. I won't be seeing this movie.
Foster Care System Perspectives
2 comments:
So the original kids (damn...when did I start referring to college students as kids...I'm getting old!) were Asian? I was really looking forward to the movie but from the trailers there is (I think) ONE Asian kid (if memory serves me right) and he is definitely not the lead. What should I google to get info on the original cast? Thanks...it's a pity that they wouldn't show something other than martial arts having such great raw materials...sad.
The book is called "Bringing Down the House" and uses pseudonyms for the group members, who were still under cover at the time. Since then, the leaders have come forward: Michael Aponte, Jeff Ma.
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