It’s been a long way since Sixteen Candles.
In it, we found Long Duk Dong, the male Asian actor, portrayed a Japanese exchange student who wrecked the host family car on a night out
“what auto-mobile?” he asked laying on the front lawn at mid morning the next day.
Fast forward to today and the sentence of Madoff.
We found judge Denny Chin, arrived from Hong Kong at age 2 and lived in Hell Kitchen in Times Square, to rise to a federal judgeship. His high-profile case today provides a catharsis for the blood-thirsting public.
There have been a slew of Asian men moving into the lime light: Ang Lee (BrokeBack Mountain),
Ray Young (GM’s CFO) and David Li (Recipe for disaster, wired magazine) who came up with the formula to slice and dice CDO’s (should have been COD’s).
Sociologists have noticed an interesting pattern in interracial marriages: White male-Asian female, Black male-White female, but not Asian male-Black female (some how it’s at the opposite ends of the spectrum).
But the American racial landscape has evolved a bit, since the Japanese internment during WWII to today’s sentencing.
It’s a white-collar crime, and the country origin of the judge has not been an issue. During this Recession, we find
Ling (now working for a private equity company in China), Chin and Young all came across as
“could hold the water”, a long way since the days of Sixteen Candles’ “what auto-mobile??”
I forgot if it were a GM car or not, but it certainly was a Detroit huge car given the early 80’s time-frame.
Time has changed. Hyundai and Fiat will soon be as popular as the 90’s SUV’s. Wait until the QQMe arrives from China. At least, marketers should know enough to avoid pushing pink cars to Asian men or any male.
Thang Nguyen 555 