Category Archives: pop culture

Cheerios commercial stirs up controversy over mixed-race families

By | | ,
2 Comments

This awesome commercial, titled “Just Checking,” for the popular cereal Cheerios, the first snack of choice for generations of families with kids, has hit a nerve with people who object to the multicultural family it depicts.

It shows an adorable mixed-race little girl asking her white mother if Cheerios is good for the heart. Mom answers that according to the box, it is indeed good for the heart. The girl smiles impishly, and runs off. The 30-second spot ends with dad — who is black — waking up on the couch and finding Cheerios poured all over his chest.

General Mills, makers of Cheerios, has had to turn off the comments on the YouTube page for this wonderful video because of the hateful comments that appeared, which the company said weren’t “family friendly.”

It’s too bad so many people are threatened by a mixed-race family, because it’s part of who we are as Americans. Asian Americans have increasingly high outmarriage rates, as explained in detail by C.N. Le of Asian-Nation. The term “Hapa” — originally a Hawai’ian term for “half” — is commonly-used now for mixed-race people, especially mixed-race Asians.

Today on Lawrence O’Donnell’s “The Last Word” program, O’Donnell took up time not only cheering for the Cheerios commercial, but also showing the entire ad, for free, as part of his editorial content. It was an awesome moment of television commentary in support of a corporation’s honest and accurate portrayal of a modern American family.

Kudos to General Mills, and to Lawrence O’Donnell.

Japanese web star Maru the Cat celebrates 6th birthday with a compilation video

By | | ,
Leave a comment

Not many cats get their own Wikipedia entry, but Maru the Cat does. If you’re a cat hater, Maru may leave you cold. But anyone with a soft spot for furry animals in generals and felines in particular won’t be able to resist grinning over this “best of” collection by Maru’s owner, a woman who remains off-camera and anonymous, under the YouTube username “mugumogu.”

“Maru” means “round” in Japanese, which is appropriate for this fat cat — he’s not enormous, just… round. He has the normal cat’s curiosity, especially for bags, boxes and any other container, even if it’s a tight fit for his girth. The videos are charming not just because he’s cute, but because he’s so slow and deliberate about almost everything he does.

Mugumogu’s YouTube channel for Maru has over 300,000 subscribers and Maru’s videos have been viewed almost 214 million times. That’s some serious kitty quality time.

Watch this compilation, then subscribe to the channel, and join the Maru club.

Japanese ball player Munenori Kawasaki gives inspired post-game interview

By | | , ,
Leave a comment

I was nervous that this YouTube clip of a post-game interview with shortstop Munenori Kawasaki would be just an opportunity to make fun of the onetime Japanese baseball star, but I didn’t need to worry. His likable enthusiasm came through in spite of his struggles with English, and his team’s appreciation for the player came through loud and clear when one player stepped aside to allow him to be interviewed, and two others doused him as if they’d just won the World Series.

It wasn’t the championship: Kawasaki had just helped his Toronto Blue Jays win a game in the 9th inning against the Baltimore Orioles by hitting a walk-off double. Although (or maybe because) he had started the season in the Blue Jays’ minor league club (he had been released after one season with the Seattle Mariners).

I hope his Major League career continues to be as bright and happy as this day.
Continue reading →

Bravo to Bravo for stopping use of “JAP” for Jewish American Princess in reality show

By | | , , ,
Leave a comment

bravo-princesses-show

Bravo to the Bravo TV network. And Bravo to Michael Yaki, a former City of San Francisco supervisor who is now a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. When Yaki wrote to the network to complain about the use of the term “JAP” to describe a “Jewish American Princess” on a new reality show, “Princesses: Long Island,” Bravo agreed immediately to stop using the term, both in its promotions and in the show.

Yeah, yeah, bring out the anti-P.C. police, and tell me that I’m being too sensitive, and that if Jewish people wanna use the term “JAP” they have the right. Let it all out. Vent.

The thing is, not all Jews are OK with the term — even in the early ’80s when the Jewish American Princess term was widely used as a lighthearted (but still ethnic) slur, there were people who thought the term itself was offensive, never mind the acronym.

And pretty much every Japanese American I know cringes at the use of “J-A-P” even if it’s used as an abbreviation for Japan, or as an acrobym for Jewish American Princess.
Continue reading →

It’s time to take the offensive yellowface of “The Mikado” off the stage

By | | , ,
16 Comments

mikado

I recently blogged about a video produced by the City of Los Angeles – using taxpaper money – that was originally produced with good intentions: Explaining the importance of recycling water. But to make its point, the video used a ghastly, stereotypical caricature of geishas played by non-Asians with painted faces wearing kimonos, including one played by a non-Asian man. Of course, they spoke in “ching-chong” Japanesey accents.

It’s disturbing that it’s OK even in 2013 to caricature Asians with the most shallow racial stereotypes — ones that have been used to depict us for 150 years.

There’s a long tradition in Hollywood and show business in general of “yellowface” – non-Asians (usually Caucasians) cast as Asians. The most egregious example is probably the horrid character of Mr. Yunioshi in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” in which Mickey Rooney played the part to the hilt with buck teeth, thick glasses, squinty eyes and a terrible accent.

But wait, there’s more! He played a perverted lech of a photographer who keeps trying to shoot pictures of his downstairs neighbor Holly Golightly (imagine this name pronounced in a horrible fake Japanese accent), played by Audrey Hepburn.

There are many, many examples of yellowface going back to Katharine Hepburn and Marlon Brando playing Chinese and Japanese characters with their eyes taped back in classic films such as “Dragon Seed” and “Tea House of the August Moon,” all the way to last year’s big-budget sci-fi flick “Cloud Atlas,” in which Hugo Weaving (of “Matrix” and “Lord of the Rings” fame) was among the cast who played both white and Asian parts, with hideously phony-looking makeup.

It’s not just on the big screen. Yellowface has also been a tradition on the stage, and I happened to see two plays recently that used elements of the practice, with varying results.

Gilbert & Sullivan’s famous 1885 comic opera “The Mikado” is known for its social satire; the musical pokes fun at British politics and society by using Japan as the setting for its wacky love story.

But the Japan it portrays is the Japan that people in the late 1800s fantasized about: Exotic, utterly foreign and just plain strange. To ensure that it only depicts simpleminded stereotypes, W.S. Gilbert based the play on a fictional Japan that had just been opened to Western commerce, but he didn’t bother to do any research to make his portrayal of Japanese culture realistic at all.

Instead, he named the village where “The Mikado” takes place “Titipu” and gave his characters improbably names such as “Nanki-poo” and “Yum-Yum.”
Continue reading →