Community- The Asian Spanish Teacher

NBC's new half hour comedy Community hasn't received too much hype, even though it airs in the channel's coveted Thursday night comedy block. Personally I only thought to give it a try because Joel McHale is funny, but just as soon as I decided to watch it, I forgot about it completely. But I happened to catch Yvette Nicole Brown's interview on The Wendy Williams Show and promptly set my dvr. And thank god I did, because this shit is hilarious.

Sadly, I then immediately forgot that about it again (am I too young for senility?) and missed the second episode. But I was lucky enough to catch the show on Bravo thanks to NBC's media domination. And if it was possible to top the introduction of Abed, the Indian dude with Aspergers, and Chevy Chase as creepy older hippy Pierce who has a bit of a thing for Shirley (Brown), they did so with this little nugget of fabulousness. Meet Senor Chang (Ken Jeong), the Asian Spanish Teacher:

In his first appearance Senor Chang lays it down, getting right to the heart of your Asian stereotypes and the supposed incongruity of having an Asian man teaching Spanish. Because I can't find the clip anywhere anymore (damn NBC and their copyright protections!) I've decided to transcribe it for you.... Seriously! It's that good.

Every once in a while a student will come up to me and ask Senor Chang, why do you teach Spanish? They say it just like that. Why do you teach Spanish? Why you? Why not math? Why not photography? Why not martial arts? I mean surely it must be in my nature to instruct you in something that's ancient and secret like oh building a wall that you can see from outer space. Well I'll tell you why I teach Spanish. It is none of your business ok? Now I don't wanna have any conversations about what a mysterious inscrutable man I am. [plays with imaginary long, white beard] oheheheheheohohohohoh I am a spanish genius. En espanol my nickname is el tigre chino [pretending to bite Shirley's neck] because my knowledge will bite her face off. So don't question Senor Chang or you'll get bit, ya bit, ya bit!... Ok, Friday manana...

At first I wasn't sure where this monologue was going and I am a bit lost on where it ended up. But the more I listened the more I realized that Senor Chang was blowing my mind. All of a sudden, he was killing me softly and I was on the floor dying laughing. "Why not karate?" The "mysterious" Asian man... oh sweet lord in heaven, you like me and this proves it!

Senor Chang's outburst says a lot about how we understand race, nationality and language. I've talked about this before but this dude is so funny that I had to do it again.

Why do his students get all confuddled about having an Asian Spanish teacher? Well, you know... he's Asian first of all. Shouldn't he be teaching Japanese or Cantonese or, you know, some Asian language?
That has got to be one of the dumbest sentences I've ever had to write just because it requires looking at the world with such massive blinders I don't know how you don't run into multiple walls.

But also because comments like these presume that only Asian people speak Asian languages, only Latinos speak Spanish and only someone of a particular racial group should teach that language. This also supposes that you've never looked around you and seen what different kinds of people lay claims to what it means to be an American. And everyone from Norcal knows that when you're in high school you have two foreign language options, Spanish or French. And if you know like I know, Spanish is just barely a foreign language in some parts of the U.S.

So douche... why Senor Chang?

Why the FUCK NOT?

...and we're B(l)ack... or the Disney Corporation doesn't care about Black people... part 2

You would think that with all of the storms weathered in the creation process Disney's new movie The Princess and the Frog would be a genius, racially sensitive, illuminating but lighthearted fantasy for children to enjoy. I mean they did get the fabulous Anika Noni Rose to voice her. And...well, um... maybe, kids like all kinds of things like... playing in sand and some even enjoy bugs. But, if you're going to be the adult shepherding tots to see that movie... watch out!

Seriously, I'm not even joking, let's consider the trailer. The first time I saw this I thought "Wait a minute, that didn't just happen, lemme watch it again." And the second time I saw it I thought, "Ugh, maybe the girls can just go see it without me or, even better, they won't want to see it." Now, the last was actually really hard for me to say. I love my nieces and I love animated movies so pair them up... (We just went to see Up and I completely cried, and laughed, and stole some of Sierra's candy!) But this looks a hot mess and I'm not the only one who thinks so.

Some people are complaining because the princess turns into a frog and others are saying get over it. I can definitely see both sides of the issue. As a person commented on another site, if she turns into a frog and stays that way for most of the movie how is that better than the Lion King. Touche my friend! And the answer is that it's not. I mean, part of the outrage with that old chain email was that Disney seemed to equate Black people with animals and so it would seem that maybe they haven't shaken that off.

But then on the other hand, one could effectively argue that what Disney is doing is trying to revamp a tired (and let's face it, not that interesting) fairy tale, where the prince is turned into a frog who can only be turned back by the kiss of a princess, blah, blah... true love! So, by turning her into a frog, Disney is saying no maybe there's another lesson to be learned, something more for her to see. Like maybe, being a frog is how she was really meant to be and her prince is the one who loves her just as she is even when the sun goes down and his donkey.... wait a minute. That's Shrek!

So... maybe it's not so inventive after all...

Oh and then there's the voodoo. Come the frak on, Disney! Throw me a chicken bone... oops. This is such a mess. The villain in the movie is a voodoo priest (Papa Legba?) who's probably/obviously cursed the prince and is scheming to marry the princess (wait, was that the plot of Aladdin?) and his schemes are foiled by... I don't know... true love... and Christianity? Why is it that when white people think of Black religion they think of voodoo (and Baptist church ladies with big hats, huge digression!) and when they think of voodoo they think of dark magic. This is so played out for a variety of reasons.

First, voodoo is not, I repeat not, dark magic and if they're going to talk about it I would suggest that one of those trifling story editors do some research. Voodoo began, like Candomble and other related religions throughout the Caribbean, as a clear response to the dehumanizing effects of slavery. Those who practiced voodoo did so as a way to hold on to those cultural and religious practices that their enslavers attempted to take from them. So if you're going to deal with voodoo, you damn well better deal with slavery and the brutal racism that made it a necessity. But oh wait, Disney couldn't even get Pocahontas' husband right (easily accessible in pretty much ALL American history books), so the amount of time it would take to read a book on voodoo (a day, or less if you just read the damn introduction!) apparently couldn't be spared.

But that doesn't mean that I think that everything about this movie is some nefarious plot. The movie IS set in New Orleans during the Jazz Age (late nineteenth century into the 1920s), so I'm just going to excuse all the dancing Black folk. It just be's that way sometimes.

But here's what I'm not excusing. Someone on another site talked about the use of Black vernacular in Disney movies and how offensive it is and it brought back the old pain: Dumbo! I grew up loving Dumbo. I wanted a pet elephant (who could fly), I knew all of the songs and let's face it, that movie is wonderful. Well at least I thought it was until I was in the double digits. I was maybe 12 or 13 when Dumbo came on tv and I was so excited I settled in with a snack to watch. And I cried when Dumbo lost his mom. And I awwed at how all the animated little animals were freaking adorable even the little elephants who, I now know thanks to the Discovery channel are not cute at birth. In fact, no animals are cute at birth 'cause they're covered in goo! EW! (I'm including humans in that, btw.) Anyway, I digress, so I laughed and laughed when that spunky little mouse (from the NY?) got Dumbo so drunk that he woke up in a tree (that's so not legal right?). But then my mouth dropped when he met the crows.

Ooh I used to love those bad boys when I was a kid and knew all the words, but as an (almost) teenager they were not fun and all I could think was what.the.mother.fuck?

"I be done seen 'bout everything when I see an elephant fly!"

And did you know that the lead bird was named Jim Crow? I shit you not! Those are some jive ass turkeys! (I can't believe people said stuff like that...hehehe)

Look, like I said, I loved Dumbo and I also loved Peter Pan, so when I grew up and realized just how horrible they portrayed people of color, especially without offering any sort of alternatives, I was hurt. And it's this pain that I want to keep my nieces from. It's sad that there are so many movies that I grew up loving that I just can't bear to watch now (wat'chu say Shirley Temple?). Or those others that I've decided to ignore the lack of people of color and questionable images because... well I mean... it really could have been worse (oh Hayley Mills, I think you tried to make up for it on Saved by the Bell, with their one Black cast member).

There are lot of problems with this movie for me.

I have a general problem with movies that are historical (as pretty much all Disney movies are) and shit on that history. And this has nothing to do with my being a historian and everything to do with the fact that I respect people enough as HUMAN BEINGS with feelings, emotions and desires to not try and deprive them of a full and rich history. And you can yell all you want that this isn't what Disney's trying to do and this isn't their job, but when you're talking about kids that's exactly their job. My niece doesn't get European history in the second grade, but she damn sure understands that if there's a Queen of England, there damn sure better be some princes and princesses floating around her CASTLE! These movies convey to children what we can not; rich visuals of the world that surrounds them and that came before. So when you make a movie like Pocahontas and you tie that character into commercials about preserving the land and forest conservation (I remember those PSAs) you can't say that Disney doesn't have a message. And if Disney does have an agenda you have to look at their movies as a whole. And as a whole I'm disgusted.

So I finished this trailer on a sour note. That poor old woman near the end who bellows "dis gone be good!" pretty much does it for me. No ma'am I'm not sure that it is...

So what's the final verdict? What have I concluded at the end of this (hours long?) tirade. Two things. First, I'm almost certainly going to see this movie with my nieces because they're little Black girls who deserve to see a Black princess and know that girls with brown skin can be beautiful too. (If that isn't the message at the end of this movie I am going to go off!) Second, even though I've had an almost 20 year feud with Barbie dolls, and their generic knock offs (I'm looking at you Black Barbie and Bratz!) I'm going to make sure that the girls get a Tiana doll if they want one because one of the reasons I hated Barbie was because she was white (and I would never look like her) or the Black best friend with no real storyline and looked just like Barbie (but chocolate!). So they have the chance to have a doll with a (better be) fully developed storyline who isn't the forgotten best friend, or the token Black girl in a sea of white faces (maybe there's a silent Asian girl to keep her company huh Gossip Girl?) and I won't deprive them of the super expensive doll to go with it. Because, Tiana, this first Black Disney princess is a star!

And when it's all over I'll make sure that I ask them what they thought about the movie and the characters (silently searching for any hint of damage) and whenever they're ready I'll talk to them about our family's history in Louisiana, and I'll buy them jazz cds when they're cool teenagers rebelling against the top 40 music their friends listen to, and when they're old enough I'll give them books that present intelligent and interesting discussions of Black people in this country (and elsewhere) and I'll try and mitigate as much of the damage as this movie and all of the other media images of Black people have caused. I'll do what the adults in my life did for me and what I hope their forebears did with them.

And maybe that's the real tragedy...

... a long time coming, but maybe we shoulda waited a little bit longer...

So a few years ago I got one of those massively forwarded emails from god knows who that was apparently a letter that a (Black) grandmother sent to Disney after taking her grandchildren to Disneyland (or was it DisneyWorld, whatever). Essentially, the grandmother wanted to know why there weren't any Black Disney princesses. The company's response was that Disney had tried to represent all of the continents with their movies, so the U.S. had (among many many others) Pocahontas (they were trying to make a point), Asia had Mulan (I liked that movie, but the sequel was horrible) and Africa had The Lion King... hahahahaha (I laugh because I hurt)

Now, I don't know if this was real or just the product of someone's amazing imagination, but it sounds so believable. I mean, let's not play the game, Disney has a horrible, horendous, atrocious history of blatantly racist cartoons.

I mean you can not understand how my face fell when I sat down to watch Peter Pan with my niece Sierra and had to snatch the dvd out of the machine because of the red Indians with big noses ready to scalp somebody! My niece was disturbed at first but you know, she was three, she got over it when I put Cinderella in.

I wish I could say that was the end of the whole situation but it wasn't. Sierra has an intense love of all things Disney princess, which grosses me out (it's all so pink! and frilly!) but we indulge because I believe that if she can make a decision on her own she should be allowed that freedom (within reason). So when she started school and her mother asked her what backpack she wanted, she chose the princess bag. That night however, I got a phone call from my sister-in-law telling me that Jasmine was gone! She has a sister named Jasmine so I was momentarily confused but eventually caught onto the fact that she meant Princess Jasmine (from Aladdin fame, best Disney soundtrack ever! Peabo is that you?). Somehow, overnight it seemed, Disney had taken Jasmine off of the Disney princess merchandise which left Cinderella, Ariel, Snow White, Belle and Aurora (that's her name?) from Sleeping Beauty.

We were confused to put it midly, not least because not all of those chicks weren't princesses, or at least they weren't before they married the dude who saved them from some generic misadventure (god I hate these movies now). In fact, as far as I can reckon, the only one of them that was a princess was Ariel. So why these princesses and not... say... Jasmine, Mulan and Pocahontas...


Let's not play, we know what it was, even if that's not the official reason. Right from the beginning Pocahontas (a real princess) was only ever sometimes on the merch. Mulan also got the short shrift. And Jasmine (a princess as well) had been unceremoniously axed. This was all about 4 years ago and, to be honest, my 3 year old niece didn't care not one bit, if she even noticed. But we did (we being the adults meant to take care of her physically and emotionally). We realized how problematic it was for a little girl to crave white dolls, especially if she ONLY wanted the white dolls. So my sister became obsessed with finding Black dolls for her daughters and even branched out to those few Asian and Latina dolls (that's another post) so that the girls could have as many positive models of beauty as possible, because let's deal in the real, these are where our girls get their understandings of beauty from and for little girls of color that almost always, on some level, means that they understand beauty (outside of their family) to be white. (I realize this situation is immensely complex and not just about race but, like I said, another post.)

So a couple of years ago, I believe right after Katrina, Disney announced that there was going to be a new Disney movie, after a hiatus on Princess movies of about ten years if Mulan was the last movie (not counting craptastic, straight to dvd sequels and shorts). And Black folk were happy... and then really damn angry!

In the earliest drafts the first Black Disney princess was going to be a chambermaid named Mammy... I mean Maddy. hahahaha (again, it's hurts). And the first I heard the movie was going to be called The Frog Princess. People raised all kinds of hell! And thank god they did, because seriously Disney, wtf! I hope someone lost their job on that one, because that is no way to build a better relationship with the Black community! People who probably don't even care about this issue should have been ashamed on the company's behalf. Pathetic.

So Disney did an about face and has since changed the film's title to The Princess and the Frog and the princess is named Tiana (did they strike down Kameelah, cause I would have accepted that as well...)

Now I'm not following the whole issue, but the next controversy I heard about was that the prince was not going to be Black and it seems that no amount of hullabaloo would change this one. When the movie is released this fall/winter, Princess Tiana will be courted by Prince Naveen of the ambiguously raced, brown/sort of tan people with a name that I just can't place so he could be from anywhere just as long as you know that he's not white... and not Black... I guess...

At first glance I was like, whatever, what's the big deal. It's not like Disney hasn't gone interracial before (what's up Pocahontas and John Smith from the completely inaccurate and problematic 1995 movie). Besides, I've got my own issues with the way that interracial couples are (not) shown on tv, especially those concerning Black women, so at first I was all for it. But then, while googling the controversy for this post I came across a yahoo answers question about the situation. (Seriously, I don't know if you needed to post a question about it, just get some friends and take them out for coffee!) And some lady, who I assume was white based on her avatar, made a really great point. Just as there's never been a Black Disney princess there's never been a Black prince. Damn! That lady messed my whole analysis up, because she's right. So I wondered, why is no one as upset about Naveen's ambiguous, but not Black-ness as they were about Mammy... uh Maddy (oops)?

I think the answer is clear and sad all at the same time. I would imagine that most of the people complaining about this are the mothers (or aunts!) of little girls who love these movies. Little boys are not the intended audience, even if they will, whether they want to or not, see this film. (My nephew's the baby, he will probably have watched all of the Disney princess line by the time he's 5!) Does the muted outrage about Naveen mean that we don't care that our boys have positive role models in children's films? To be honest I can't even name an animated movie with a Black male lead (but again, I've got nieces who can be really girly, so it could be my blind spot covering most things male). It seems clear to me that if we're going to be outraged at Disney let's not stop halfway, let's take it there. Just as Nala aint good enough to represent Black women, neither is Simba, both of whom were, to my intense irritation, voiced by white actors! (Moira Kelly, Matthew Broderick and Jonathan Taylor Thomas) Seriously! yall got Ming Na-Wen but couldn't think of two Black/African actors to voice the leads in your most popular movie? (to be fair though, Niketa Calame voiced young Nala and she's Black). But still, whatever...

to be continued...