hardboiled

just nice guys?

by elaine chen and alice tse

Three Asian American directors break into the directing field and struggle to realize what obligations being "Asian American" brings for them

If their t-shirts franchise and online videos didn't emphasize it enough, Wong Fu directors Philip Wang, Ted Fu, and Wesley Chan proved themselves to be just the ordinary, nice guys they advertise themselves to be. Although this was my third time interacting with them, the reality of their normalcy was still a little off-putting, since it resulted in our formal interview slowly tumbling from something like an interrogation and then into a discussion about race, Hollywood, and the obligations of representing the Asian American community. Limited by an hour and confined in the Asian Pacific American Student Development (APASD) office, hardboiled shared a conversation with the three Wong Fu guys to get an insider's look on what it's like to be rising Asian American directors in a world where Asian Americans aren't nearly represented enough.

Although we would have loved to publish a professional, clean, articulate interview with the three guys in this last issue of the semester, the interview that we actually had with the guys largely consisted of the majority of us struggling to find the right words to express our thoughts, in ways the other party would understand. Admittedly, it was largely our faults for assuming that all Asian Americans have taken an ethnic studies course here on campus, so it was not surprising that our conversation was mostly awkwardness, fumbling, and struggling to not sound racist.

Coming into the interview, I was determined to stump them with "hard" questions, pushing the three to reveal their thoughts on the very community they represented. Did they consider themselves Asian American directors? Did they want to even be associated with that term? Was it all just a coincidence that they use Asian American actors in their pieces? Do they feel an obligation to the Asian American community with their popularity?

But I soon realized that as easy as these questions were to throw at these up-and-coming directors, they were not as easy to answer. This was made clear with my first question about Asian Americans in their films. Here is an except:

(key: hb: hardboiled; pw: philip wang; wc: wesley chan; tf: ted fu)

hb: When you guys approach your filmmaking, do you have a specific audience in mind? I notice that most of the video shorts you've done include actors that are Asian American. Is there a specific reason for that?
wc: The question is itself kind of funny because you wouldn't go up students filming and ask, "hey I see in a lot of your works you have bunch of white people, is there a reason for that?" It shouldn't really matter who we choose… Like if we choose an Asian story of course we're going to use Asians. But we are telling regular stories and "regular" shouldn't have to be Caucasian. If Caucasian people use Caucasian people you're not going to question it… but if Asian people use Asian people, why do people expect that we shouldn't?

hb: So do you think white experiences and Asian American experiences are easily transferable and similar?
wc: For the most part our everyday stories we tell are universal. There are certain bits of our characters that seem more Asian American than others: they're shy, they're kind of nice guys, right? Besides Yellow Fever, is there an Asian American story that we've told?
pw: That's true, we haven't actually targeted, at least story wise, an Asian American issue but we do try. I think how it is is that we are afraid of people just looking at us and saying that we're Asian American and we're just going to do Asian American stuff. I think that kind of pigeonholes yourself. And once you do that, it limits the potential you have to represent that Asian American community. I think if people just draw the line at "all they do is Asian American things" it kind of stops us before we are able to say, "Well look at what else we can do..." If we get those opportunities to do other things, it'll speak something for us. So I guess what Wes was trying to say was that we don't like to draw attention to it that this is an Asian American short with Asian American people.

hb: So basically you would like to de-emphasize that your characters are Asian American.
wc: Not de-emphasize, draw attention.
tf: It's apparent enough that we are Asian American, we don't have to stuff it down your throat and say "it's all about Asian Americans."
wc: When there is a story that requires us to emphasize it we will.
pw: We definitely want people to know and recognize that we are Asian American and we're very proud of that and we're proud of our audience and grateful that we represent them. We're not trying to stuff it down people's throat. We want them to look at the work for what it is we don't want people to like it just cause its Asian American like "I gotta like it cause its Asian American" even from our own community. We don't want white people to be like "oh, I don't like it because it's Asian American" just look at the story and hopefully look at it colorblind and if you enjoy it enjoy it.

It was here when I realized that representing yourself as an Asian American out in the real world is not as clear-cut as I had initially assumed. The innumerable dilemmas that Asian American directors face are made even more complicated because of the very fact that these directors are... Asian American. The supposedly simple question of "what should I make my film about" is instantly burdened with other thoughts of "what could I do to represent my community" "what issues about Asian Americans do I want to make more apparent" "how do I reach people without isolating others?" "how can I create a film that I like?"

It seems unfair that directors of color have this additional burden. Of course it'd be ideal for us to all transcend race, as Ted idealistically notes in the middle of our interview, but we can't deny the current status quo: that our race is with us from the start. Being in the public eye and having considerable influence as a director of color means you are given a whole additional set of responsibilities.

So what are the three Wong Fu guys going to do now? Although they've been in the public eye for years now, gaining larger and larger hordes of frothing-at-the-mouth teenage and college fangirls/fanboys, what can they do to outreach to the Asian American community in an "Asian American way"? Other than creating a short that sort of makes some social commentary on the phenomenon of interracial dating and infusing their other video shorts with Asian American actors, what more is being done? Can that be considered enough? During the interview, Philip earnestly asked me, "Do you think we should be doing more? Do you think we should be more vocal about being Asian American?"

Truthfully, there's no definite answer that I can think of. It's not a clear-cut line of "what is enough" and "what you're supposed to do as an Asian American anything" in order to help the community. However, what is clear is the fact that Asian American directors are placed into a unique position of needing to prove themselves as competent, capable, and artistic through their work without having to blatantly say that they even need to prove themselves as Asian Americans. All Asian American directors need to inevitably come to this realization: that as much as race shouldn't matter, it does, and as the Wong Fu guys progress through their career, they will be faced with boundless more scrutiny than any other director solely because they are not white.

Taking these thoughts into consideration, the job that the three Wong Fu guys have is revealed to be something not so simple and easy. Although the three guys are as normal as they claim, the amount of work that they are committing to, within a field that typically excludes or marginalizes Asian Americans, is of great significance at this time. Although, as they repeatedly admit, they are still new and learning, they will hopefully inspire others to follow them towards this very important arena which needs Asian American representation and Asian American voices.