With articles like this USC study (http://annenberg.usc.edu/news/research/c-suite-characters-screen-how-inclusive-entertainment-industry), this segment on John Oliver (https://youtu.be/fJy_OU1DPcg) and this New York Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/02/24/arts/hollywood-diversity-inclusion.html?_r=1) circulating one newsfeed to the next, there’s a greater awareness in the mainstream about how characters in movies and television aren’t reflective of the actual diversity of the communities we live in.
Ironically enough, we can have a badass female lead and her black partner-in-crime in a space opera (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2488496) that takes place in some galaxy far, far away (as well as an interracial ragtag mix of street racing car enthusiasts in a live action Roadrunner cartoon (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2820852)) – yet stories set in places like Brooklyn, Los Angeles, Toronto or London seem to lack the color that exists in the real-life versions of their coffee shops, conference rooms, and yoga studios.
With that said, I didn’t become a filmmaker for social justice or racial politics.
For me, it’s simple. It’s about creativity.
Watching movies and TV shows about the same small cadre of pretty white people gets repetitive and boring. I mean, how many times do we have to see Matt Damon getting rescued (http://time.com/4162254/cost-of-rescuing-matt-damon/) time and again? How many more derivatives of FRIENDS do we need, featuring an ensemble of middle to upper class white friends/families having the same white people problems? (And, yes, there are white people problems that while not unique to white people, are seen as “charming” by my immigrant parents). How many times do I need to see a dorky white guy earnestly ruminate on his life (and in 99.99% of films being unconscious to his own white privilege), or the beefy white guy saving the world while the cardboard cutout white princess is there as his prop?
If instead of Matt Damon, Idris Elba is trapped in Nazi territory, how does that change the story?
Stories from voices of color and women (that doesn’t involve romance tropes) really matter *and* don’t matter at the same time. They matter because gender, ethnicity, culture, and sexual identity impact the lens in which the characters see and interact, even if it’s in the subtleties. These million little subtleties will add up to a completely different tone of story. At the same time, they also don’t matter because these stories, being so specific to their experiences, become universal. Because of that very specificity. The white male experience is *specific* to a particular group, yet audiences of all backgrounds are willing to accept these stories as universal. Heroes and villains come in all colors, genders and sexual identities, and if we expand our cast of characters beyond just one hyperspecific subculture, the stories are all the more interesting. The straight white adult male – which is not “mainstream” or “normal” but a subculture just like any other subculture – on numbers alone are a minority as well.
As an audience member, I want to see more coming-of-age films about Hispanic teens in East LA. I want to see big dumb movies destroying Mumbai and Mexico City, or aliens landing in Nigeria. Why does it always have to be New York or LA? What if aliens decided Cleveland was worth invading? Imagine a DISTRICT 9 type of story where a small group of advanced aliens crash land and occupy the housing projects in Baltimore – and the tepid response (or lack thereof?) from the city. That’s the unfamiliar and unexplored territory I want to see.
As a filmmaker, I want to tell stories about fully realized, three dimensional characters who are not just mouthpieces for an agenda or soapbox for social issues. Empathy for individual can change and educate people about social issues that lecturing cannot.
And frankly, it’s more interesting to sit in the shoes of an Asian female lesbian drug addict. I trust that audiences want that too – not just to see a reflection of themselves, but to see another world unlike their own. Otherwise, why would films such as STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON become such a huge hit both domestically and overseas? Why does TRANSPARENT get the kind of critical and audience acclaim? They contain fully-realized, diverse, characters that are individual and unique. And audiences relate to them.
No more archetypes or cardboard cutouts, or placeholders.
With my latest feature film FOR IZZY, I want to explore aspects that are overlooked and misunderstood: autism, addiction, and adult romance. Yes, there are Asians with autism, Asians who have substance abuse issues, and Asians who fall in love at an advanced age when pop culture tells them that it’s too late.
And that is why I make films about characters such as these. Simply, because their stories are worth telling.