the groundhog day project

I was raised white. Let me just be honest about that. Born in the 70s, much of my formative development happened during the Reagan 80s and I can't change that. I can't change who I am in that regard, no matter what I do. I saw a lot of movies with hypermasculine heroes killing a lot of foreigners. I saw a lot of random women bare their breasts for a paycheck because the Internet hadn't been invented yet and that kind of thing wasn't available for free. (Weirdly, the new thing these days, in the... Twenty tens? Is showing a penis in your film because that's subversive or something. But, penises are available for free on the Internet, too, so it is a bit... Deliberate, I suppose. All those years exploiting all those young women, I supposed it's fair play that male actors have to show their penises whether they like it or not. Because fuck men, especially white men. They've had the power for far too long. Like One-Eyed Willy. I mean, who does he think he is? H...

I want to talk about Orientalism and Mr. Miyagi as stereotype, but that topic is not very novel. It's been done. Instead, I'm noticing things that have nothing to do with big topics like that. For example, when Daniel is throwing away his bike, Lucille parks her car on that side of the building, but their apartment is on the other side of the building, there are limited spaces, and her space should be on the opposite side. It's actually a weird detail because it would have been easy to fix; just have the exterior of their apartment—which we only see that first day as Daniel enters and then as he leaves to go find the fix it man—be on the same side of the building as the walkway that goes out to Miyagi's workshop, and that dumpster where Daniel disposes of his bike. Amusingly—and maybe I noticed this once upon a time years ago but not yesterday—Ali deliberately kicks Daniel's soccer ball far away when she sees that Johnny and the Cobra Kai guys are at the beach. S...

Speaking of different cultures and different viewpoints, according to Brian Ashcraft at Kotaku , before Big Hero 6 even came out, some South Koreans were upset over "alleged Rising Sun imagery" in the film. One movie, one story, many interpretations and interpolations. For example, Sharon H Chang, whose blog I cited yesterday, goes beyond just the racial makeup of Hiro and Tadashi (and the Japanese imagery throughout San Fransokyo). She writes: The film also plays sardonically with racial stereotypes in a manner much appreciated. Of course Hiro is Asian and super smart, but he's also hip, trendy and the hero . Fred, the not so sharp science groupie who just hangs around turns out to be extraordinarily and inexplicably rich; hilarious fun-poking at unearned white privilege/wealth. Meanwhile, Wasabi, cautious, smart and orderly, is thankfully far from typical depictions of large Black men as 'dangerous' and 'threatening.' (Admittedly the female characte...