APAHM 2021: The Documentaries

One nice thing about writing about the movies is that they really were watched in May 2021; I did observe the month in the intended time frame.

Which is probably the only reason I was able to find the first movie.

I have been wanting to see The Problem with Apu since it came out in 2017. It was not easy to find, even searching on different streaming services. (I may have been looking at the wrong ones.)

This year I was determined to make it happen. I went to the IMDB page to check distribution, thinking that I was going to have to buy or rent a copy. It showed that it was scheduled to air on TruTV. Record!

I don't know if anything changed with distribution, but I suspect the month where we think about Asian-Americans might be getting more attention as we see increasing violence against them. That seems like a reasonable response, I guess, though it is hard to feel good about that as a reason. 

I was nonetheless very happy to find this movie so easily.

The documentary is valuable. It is very much Hari Kondabolu's personal journey and feelings. We get to hear from many other people. This shows us the extent to which the caricature of Apu is used to mock people who are either Indian or perceived to be Indian. It is more than I would have thought, which was probably (and depressingly) naive.

I think there could have been room for more critical analysis, but even though that is a thing I like, that might have made other people consider it boring. Listening to people who are actually affected by specific flavor of racism and letting them have a voice may be more valuable, and more to the point.

The other movie was Who Is Arthur Chu?, also from 2017, but only discovered recently. I don't remember how it came up. (I streamed the film through our library's Kanopy connection, so it may have been while searching for something else there.)

My love for Jeopardy! is well-established. I remember and did not like Arthur Chu then. Yes, I did find the category jumping annoying, but what really bugged me was the $5 wager on the daily double. At least do $100! It was too obvious that he was not a fan of Jeopardy!, and that bothered me.

(I understand that this could be perceived as jealousy, though I do not feel that it is.)

Anyway, I didn't like him then, but a little after I would start seeing thoughtful and good tweets from him, including some well-written essays on important topics. I started to like him then, as a writer and Tweeter.

There were some things that felt very familiar in the movie -- some from my own life, and some from other family dynamics through books or friends -- but the part that stuck me most was between Arthur and his wife at the time, Eliza. It was this question for both of them, individually, about what to do. 

For Arthur, it was more about how to do some good now that he had a platform; what were good ways to use that? For Eliza, someone creative who had a day job but also was dealing with a chronic illness, how do you balance that? For both of them, there was the question of sticking with the day job, or pursuing new things; could they afford to? Could they succeed without leaving?

These are very familiar questions. I don't have my answers yet, but many of my questions come back to what good can I do, and how much good different paths will allow.

That makes me want to circle back to Kondabolu. That there was a documentary made about him is because in his comedy he was addressing the damage that the character of Apu does. That happened after trying to use the racism against himself and his parents for laughs, and finding that he could not feel right about that.

Good on him for that; a lot of comics never get there. 

It is worse if the laughs come from making fun of people they don't care about. Ir is sad when a lot of comics don't seem to have any self-regard (sometimes also somewhat understandable), but it is infuriating that there are still people who build their acts on bigotry. It is infuriating that they still have an audience.

We need to be demanding better. I do see some movement in that direction, but there is a long way to go.

Yes, part of that is not continuing to reward people for racist humor and entertainment based on stereotypes, much of which is pretty tired and not nearly as clever as they think. 

It is also making a point of listening to voices that aren't always white and male and straight. I should watch more specials from Asian American comedians. There are more available on Netflix than you might think. Give a new author a try, or a new band. If you like something, recommend it.

Yes, we can question Hank Azaria and Matt Groening about Apu, but it hasn't done much good. That doesn't mean that the questions shouldn't be asked, but the uplifting of other voices may ultimately be more helpful.

And then sometimes it's also touching, or funny, or really makes you think. I love the windows that books and movies and music have opened to me. 

There is so much out there, waiting for us.