Author Archives: Evan

In Defence of Han and Gisele’s Relationship in Fast Five [And Other Thoughts About Hollywood and The Asian Male]

Posted on April 17, 2015 | 7 comments

Congratulations Are In Order

First thing’s first, I’d like to extend all the congratulations in the world to Em Liu of Fiction Diversity for having one of her articles hosted on The Hooded Utilitarian. This is thrilling to me for a number of reasons, listed in no particular order: she’s someone I follow and who I’ve had conversations with between our two blogs , The Hooded Utilitarian is one of my go-to places for pop culture critique on the internet, and the topic she wrote on is one that is very near and dear to my own heart, namely: “Hollywood’s (Real) Problem with the Asian Male”.

-1I very, very strongly recommend that you read it in its entirety, because with the sole exception of one small portion I’ll be addressing I believe it to be the gospel truth. If you still absolutely refuse to for some absurd reason, and I’m going to ask you to check it out again before moving on . . . the post catalogues the portrayal of Asian men in American cinema, specifically in terms of their desirability. It was particularly eye-opening to me in that one of the earliest examples goes back to the late 1950s with The Crimson Kimono [poster on the right, obviously].

After elaborating on how things have mostly been downhill from there, Liu takes care not to shy away from the fact that one of the cultural reactions to this trend has been “a troubling emphasis on the need for the Asian male to simply ‘get the girl‘ onscreen.” Allow me to take a brief, and very relevant segue to discuss how strongly that idea resounds with me, and how badly I once wanted [and oftentimes still do want] this.

The Thirst Is Real [Leonard Nam Should Be In More Stuff]

I very vividly remember being in my early teens and watching a trailer for 2004’s The Perfect Score-

To stop you before you get there, yes, it is funny that Chris Evans [aka Captain America] and Scarlett Johansson [aka Black Widow] appear together years before their stints in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And yes, in her dream sequence she does imagine becoming a leatherclad ass-kicker, life is weird, isn’t it? Carrying on- Continue reading →

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Posted in Asia, feminism, language, race, relationships, sex

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Ms. Marvel, #14: A Comic Book Review

Posted on April 16, 2015 | 2 comments

msmarvel14Before we really delve into this review, can we please pause for a moment and gush over its cover? Jake Wyatt returns after providing art duties for issues 6 and 7 last year, reminding us that if he wasn’t doing his own thing with his creator-owned Necropolis we would fully welcome him back with open arms. No offence to Alphona, of course, but Wyatt’s about as great a fill-in artist as you can get for whenever the Canadian needs to take a break.

Which of course isn’t to deride current artist Takeshi Miyazawa, because he is likewise killing it. We’ll get there when we get there, though, because this latest arc, “Crushed” is a ride.

Yes, the very handsome Kamran is very much still a factor, and yes, he is also an Inhuman. Just in case it wasn’t a big enough deal that he is also a nerdy Pakistani-American it just so happens that he too was given powers by the Terrigen Mist that gave Kamala the ability to embiggen, etc. How his story intersects with our heroine’s and proceeds is fairly straightforward, so I thought I would draw your attention to two parts of the narrative that can be told given who Ms. Marvel is, specifically. Continue reading →

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Posted in comics, race, relationships, religion, review, writing

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2 Broke Girls, S4E17 “And the High Hook-Up”: A TV Review

Posted on April 13, 2015 | 13 comments

highhookup

This is a bad episode.

In all seriousness, though, this episode is awful. I honestly don’t think I’ve been as unsatisfied with an installment of 2 Broke Girls since “And Just Plane Magic”, where I listed off what happened in bullet points to avoid actually writing out what happened in multiple paragraphs. A bunch of stuff took place this week, sure, but to seemingly no end whatsoever. It says a lot that the writers were able to introduce a new recurring character [who will be reappearing in three more episodes] in such a thoroughly unforgettable fashion.

Anyway, I’m getting a little bit ahead of myself. The new character in question is Nashit, a handsome young man played by Austin Falk whose name is attributed to his being half-Indian and half-Irish [he very clearly isn’t]. Joedth, the joy which I get out of typing her name being the only saving grace of this review, hires him as a new waiter at The High. His stunning good looks create a ruckus and also causes Max to lust after him with a tenacity and passion she only ever devotes to . . . being snarky, I guess. Continue reading →

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Posted in Comedy, review, sex, television, writing

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2 Broke Girls, S4E16 “And the Zero Tolerance”: A TV Review

Posted on March 30, 2015 | 4 comments

tolerance

Did anyone else know that this is the second episode of 2 Broke Girls that Fred Savage, of that-little-kid-being-read-the-story-in-The-Princess-Bride fame, has directed? The first being last week’s. I don’t think there’s been any discernible spike or dip in quality, but it is kind of neat. I also feel like I need to mention that he’s 38 years old and his Wikipedia picture is of him at age 13.

This week the show decides to completely do away with the “Current Total” at the end of each episode by blindsiding us with the fact that Max and Caroline’s account is below zero. I’m going to spoil two of my feature at the end of this review to just lay it on you, because they go from a Current Total of $975 to a brand new low of -$14. And no, there are no solid explanations as to how this happens. Caroline mentions that their business loan payments are eating away at them, but the fact that she mentions it in passing makes the fact that they lost almost a grand in a week pretty jarring. Continue reading →

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Posted in Comedy, lgbt, review, television, writing

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Why The Fast and the Furious Franchise Has the Superior “Comic Book” Movie Shared Universe

Posted on March 27, 2015 | 1 comment

This isn’t going to be the longest post for two reasons: 1) I made a bet with a friend and am only eating leaves for the entirety of today [this was my breakfast] and am therefore weak in mind, body, and spirit, and 2) this is a very straightforward assessment that two other other writers have already broken ground on already. Let me take a single step back, though, and remind you of what happens in a week’s time and why I’m writing this.

Furious 7 comes out.

I know I used my love of comic books to springboard my post on Flash Boys, the novel Aaron Sorkin refuses to write a screenplay for because “there aren’t any Asian movie stars”, but here we are again. Well, sort of. See, comic books only reach so large an audience. Comic book movies, on the other hand? They find themselves as two out of the top five highest grossing movies of last year [four of the top ten]. Everyone wants to get in on that business, to the point where a shared universe of larger-than-life characters was one of the goals of the truly awful Dracula Untold. Here’s the thing Universal, you already own The Fast and Furious [referred to as FF from this point on] franchise which has been going hard since the early aughts.

Remember at the end of Iron Man when Tony Stark meets Nick Fury for the first time and your nerdy friend gripped your arm so hard you thought they would snap it and whispered directly into your ear that “it’s happening“? The FF movies have been pulling that same move for years without the help of a narrative that’s been ongoing since the 60s. Every one of their reveals is builds on the preceding films,and the fact that they’ve managed to make this viewer drop his jaw is worth mentioning in and of itself.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Comedy, comics, family, film, race, relationships, writing

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2 Broke Girls, S4E15 “And the Fat Cat”: A TV Review

Posted on March 23, 2015 | 1 comment

fatcatwhatever

There were a lot of great things in this episode. First and foremost, the A-plot, which involved Max and Caroline trying to blackmail venture capitalist Owen Charles Boyd after his cat impregnates theirs. The fact that I could wrap it up in a single sentence underscores its simplicity. Once you’ve established the premise you’re free to concentrate on jokes and the absurdity that spins out of it, and the former has some wins [the latter I’ll get to].

While we’re staying positive, it was nice to see them back up the fact that the two girls live in a bad neighbourhood. They’re always going on about how horrible their life is in their enormous apartment, so having honest to goodness evidence that what lies outside of it is women screaming [which, let’s face it, is pretty uncomfortable] and men running away [presumably from some recently committed crime] and garbage literally everywhere is nice. It’s the closest the 2 Broke Girls has come to “showing vs. telling” in a long time, even if it is undercut by the fact that they still reference stuff off-screen. I guess that’s my cue to get into a little bit of criticism.

chestnut

Those legs. Yikes.

Remember Chestnut? He’s been around since the first season but didn’t make an appearance until he absolutely needed to, for the Victoria’s Secret models to fawn over when they visited [S4E6]. On a similar note, we haven’t seen Nancy, their cat, since early last season, in “And the It Hole” [S3E8]. I totally understand that it’s hard to have live animals on set, but if it’s that difficult why bother “casting” them at all? To have a pet not appear for 30 episodes, or more than an entire season of the show, feels especially strange when one of the minor conflicts between Max and Caroline is how the latter is not a fan of said pet, while the former is.

To restate the first paragraph, I really do like the premise of the episode. I do. My problem is that someone in the writers’ room came up with it and they then had to sort of create a status quo out of thin air to support the narrative. Up to this point most of us had honestly forgotten that Nancy even existed. Except for me, of course, because- Continue reading →

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