Bunny shot the Panda with a Bang

Playing with shoes is fun! These lovely canvas flats are only 6 bucks at Rite Aid.

White canvas + Sharpies = Point-blank Pandas + a very high me.

Afterthoughts: HP Mendoza's Fruitfly

I was a very lucky gal yesterday. Within less than a hour upon the box office opening, the world premiere of HP Mendoza's film musical, Fruit Fly was sold out like hot cakes, or if you prefer, Girl Scout cookies advertised on YouTube (da-dum-ching!). As the co-director of the Asian American Association Film Festival in Davis I am always amazed at the popularity and success of the SFIAAFF. It's a well oiled film art machine that manages to find not only great films, but (and sadly, most importantly) FUNDING. But back to Fruit Fly...

From an Asian American standpoint, I love how the film shows that yes, Asian American artists. homosexuals, and wannabe hipster/hacks do exist. We're not all pre-med, pre-law robots. The characters show a diverse array of artists, from performance artists, painters, actors, and set designers all living together in a commune. Out of all the artists living in this commune, the film focuses on Bathesda (LA Renigen), a Filipina American who was adopted by a family in Maryland and has moved to SF to open her new show and to find "home". While I loved how HP satirized all things Filipino--probing and superstitious parental figures, Uncles named Boy, cousins named Bong, and even a wonderfully timed punchline about Illocanos. My family is from Pangasinan, so I felt some offense and did my playful "boo" with all the other Fils in the audience. The one thing that made the movie fall short was the fact that Bathesda's search for her biological mom soon dissolves into the background halfway through the film. It's an annoying loose thread in this otherwise wonderfully woven movie.

This film serves as a love song to San Francisco, especially it's lovely Castro District that has gained more popularity thanks to Sean Penn and Prop 8. The animated sequences were both hilarious and amazing. Who else but HP could even imagine building the SF night skyline using Tetris and DDR? Various hang out spots around the Castro were also featured, which brought cheers and applause from the mostly SF-based crowd. After interning in the Castro for a month last summer, I grew to love the area, so I felt the loving, neighborhoody warmth as well.

I felt bad that I kept comparing this film to HP's previous musical movie, Colma: The Musical, which was directed by Richard Wong. I could tell that HP's musical talent has grown since Colma. Fruit Fly's soundtrack sounds more smooth compared to Colma, although I feel the music in Colma to be more catchy (minus Fruit Fly's wonderfully repetitive song, "Fag Hag").But I could just be saying this because I own the Colma soundtrack and have been obsessively listening to it for the past month. A notable Fruit Fly musical moment during Jacob's (Aaron Zaragoza) song in which he has a duet with himself via his laptop playing a Quicktime movie. That scene basically sums up both Jacob and my own narcissism perfectly.

Fruit Fly doesn't really have an "ending" per se. I realize that's the point of the movie, with its artist characters being "works in progress". As an "artist" of sorts myself, I appreciated this theme. I could identify with the artist characters easily. But the lack of any kind of closure bothered me a little. I know I am a work in progress--hell, that was the theme for my high school retreat sophomore year--but there should have at least been some sort of closure. When the final musical number was being performed, I didn't even realize it was done. I thought to myself, "that's it?!" The ending should have been more pronounced. Simply saying "I am a work in progress" (despite it being a great song) is not enough. It's existential without the hope that resides in many existential readings. It makes me feel like Sisyphus--rollin rollin rollin forever and ever a damn rock. There has to be more hope than having a catchy, happy song to end the film. Fruit Fly is still a fun, endearing, and highly recommended film, but realize that you won't get the happy closure of an ending you'd expect.

Don't Cry, Asian Kid

I just discovered the funniest Yellow Fever/Asian guy fetish music video to date by a Asian American rapper by the name of Traphik titled, "First Asian Boy" which is a playful take on of the ever popular Kanye song.

Seriously, check this photo>>>>>>>>
[not that this photo is offensive, aside from the atrocious tattoo, this Asian (maybe Hapa?) guy's hot and so is the girl, but really--I know a fetish when I see one]

Ever since I watched the Wong Fu Productions classic Yellow Fever the whole Asian guy/white girl dynamic has always fascinated me. The typical premise revolves around an Asian American "nice guy" who notices something wrong--that his Asian girl counterparts can get white guys, but he fails to get white girls.

The Asian girl fetish has been present in the media for God knows how long thanks to stereotyping of the geisha in all their powdered face passivity, exotic erotica, and sexual intrigue. I know the fetish and faced it in small glimpses. Yet it's for this very reason why I (regretfully and unintentionally) feel a little hesitant when I notice a non-Asian guy checking me out...which rarely happens, but at this point, I'll take what I can get. I degraded into eye candy. Another exotic, caramel-skinned fetish that will satisfy someones superficial fantasies of the Oriental East...or the guy might mistake me for a Hawaiian (which won't suprise me), so then the islands and my hula and/or Tahitian dancing hips of fire and magic.

For this reason I feel a tiny bit unnerved when my Asian guy counterparts complain about my "innate" ability to attract non-Asians of the opposite sex, while they're relegated to the asexual martial arts master dressed in a yellow jumpsuit. With the popularity of Harold and Kumar making John Cho and Kal Penn into Hollywood hotties, I'm noticing more and more that the Asian Boy is becoming a fetish--the nice, dependable guy in glasses who majored in Engineering and has a stable job. The man can take care of ya, girl! He may appear like a total nerd, but underneath his ironed dress shirt lies a wonderfully lean yet muscular yellow (or caramel brown) piece of flesh. The ethnic fetishism of men isn't new. Us chicks have our dreams of Latin Lovers, Frenchies, Italians, NBA players... the Asian nice guy is just another addition.

This is not to say that I don't find shorts like Yellow Fever and movies like Harold & Kumar un-entertaining or offensive. These are great pieces of pop culture and Asian American media that never fail to make me laugh at the parody and notice the twinge of truth that spurred my laughter. This post is just to let my Asian and even AzN brothers know that yes, us Asian girls somehow end up with white guys, but take this social phenomena with grain of salt, or how about some MSG? Fatasies and fetishes hide underneath the coupling.

Hell, you'll be getting your white girls soon, but the same salty seasonings apply. Now that's not to say there's nothing wrong with your relationship if your significant other is non-Asian. Love is love. When it comes to the Asian fetish, I'm strictly talking about the media here. Although it never ceases to amuse me when my non-Asian friends comment on how they always seem to go for Asian guys because I don't have a specific ethnicity that I am attracted to. I'm a "whole package" type of girl. If the guy has a great personality, looks decent, and can intellectually (and hopefully physically) stimulate me, then it's all good. I don't think - "yeah he's white, ergo he's hawt". I'm attracted to Asians, white guys, black guys, Latinos, Middle Easterns, and everything in between and mixed. There's a good amount of male eye candy on the UC Davis campus, believe me.

Note to self - Never Google "Asian guy" ever again...especially with the parental restrictions turned off.

Spring Forward?

I felt it was about time I made my own "website", which means (for my HTML-illiterate self) a blog. Daylight savings time occurred as I was finalizing this very blog's layout, causing 2am to become 3am in a matter of a millisecond. My brain literally mushed inside my skull at the thought of losing an hour, not just of precious sleep, but my life and my time among other BIG concepts usually discussed during a philosophy class, and even a few film studies ones. Daylight savings never ceases to cause wonder. I know it has a purpose...farmers/crops? And it will help my sleeping patterns to not have a midday-esque sunlight bask my face at 7am. The whole concept of institutionalized time change is pretty cool. Think about it--I traveled in time from 2am to 3am. I am officially a sci-fi heroine. My first blog post and I time traveled an hour. This is going to be one hell of a journey.

Background beats: Gackt, "Hoshi no Suna"
Current movie project: 50-60% done