I viewed the film... and regret it!

So your contention is that he is portrayed as an unworthy partner, and -- as a symbol of Asian men -- signifies the unworthiness of Asian men as partners? Is that about the size of it? Of course he does turn out to be extremely wealthy as well as handsome, but never mind. What all this boils down to, as usual, is the notion that Fay Ann Lee, as a woman of Chinese descent, has no business getting a crush on John F. Kennedy, Jr. Caucasian American women can get in line if they want to, but Asian women, no.

Alas, it's a fact of life that Asian women, black women, white women and and quite a few men who never thought they'd be stirred by anybody who shaves his chin had a crush on John John and still do. This is a fact well understood by most people, which is why the Asians I saw the movie with at Tribeca absolutely loved it, and why the students in Beijing that Lee showed it to loved it as well. Only when you superimpose on the actual film a political agenda including the item that films by Asian directors need to validate Asian men as love objects and power figures do you get this kind of nonsense.

I'm no stranger, as a gay man, to self-appointed moral intelligentsia among minority groups. Lesbian feminists with a hate on dildoes, gay male activists who think every poor actor in Hollywood ought to be dragged out of the closet, lesbian separatists who want other lesbians to stop volunteering at AIDS hostels, gay men who want the movement to cut off transexuals from its agenda and shove them out to sea, gay people of color who attack other gay people of color for sleeping with white gays or having them as friends, gay Republicans screaming at the "left wing agenda" of the Human Rights Campaign, gay activists who demand that movies and television never show homosexual men attracted to straight men -- these are types I'm familiar with.

They hate QUEER AS FOLK because the lesbians aren't prominent enough, or because not all the characters are settled down, or because somebody uses drugs occasionally, or because it has an urban setting, or because the core group is white. They hate BIG EDEN because the lead male has a crush on a straight friend. They attack THE BROKEN HEARTS CLUB because there's only one black guy in it. They attack THE L WORD because the women aren't butch enough. They hate THE BOYS IN THE BAND because the guys are unhappy. They attack THE FLUFFER, TRICK, THE VELOCITY OF GARY and a host of other films because they show gay men being too interested in sex.

And with respect to miscegenation themes, it's hardly just a few Asians with a chip on their shoulder and a propensity for selective and agenda-driven pseudo-exegesis. For every artist with a personal history to extrapolate from, a story he's passionate about telling, a talent for getting it told, a drive to get it disseminated, and finally -- the goods -- there are a hundred thousand know-it-all armchair critics with a political template the thing doesn't happen to fit, a desire to dragoon artists into conformity with a New Consciousness, a boycott petition in one hand and a bullhorn in the other. It's interesting that the Asians (and others) who actually make films aren't generally the people who scream about other people's work. It isn't the people who make the films you actually approve of who denounce the films you don't. It's usually the people who have never gotten closer to writing a script than making a grocery list, or any closer to a movie camera than an Instamatic.

The occasional exception is somebody like Spike Lee, who wants to personally dominate black filmmaking and wants scarce capital diverted from everybody else's work to his own. Most people who understand how art is made, and how difficult it is to make it To Order are more tolerant of stories they want to see fewer of, and less prone to demand that everybody else get to work on stories that they do. If there's a story they want told, they simply tell it. Because they can. The rest of us either enjoy films for what they are, to the extent that we can, or complain, complain, complain of what they are not. Never mind, Ninotchka, that Asian woman filmmakers are already as rare as hen's teeth -- discourage them, if they run afoul of your 5 year plan. The latest mass trials have been a great success; there are going to be fewer but better Russians.

Whatever. It's a romantic comedy. I found it romantic and touching, and it made me laugh. Sue me. And Lee. Oh hell, sue the world.



e**You must be old and wrinkled to have that type of reaction. - Liana***

I presume you've never crushed on a celebrity, since you claim the right to throw a stone. I personally think that's a little sad, but hey, that's me. Fanlove for Gale Harold has just as much business on a board for a Gale Harold movie as pseudo-exegesis on Marxist lines by people who haven't seen the picture. And the line about DNA was obviously tongue in cheek, and I'll bet you knew it, too.

The Republican Plan: repeal all reform; collect payoffs; go yachting (but not in the Gulf).

duc, before you just brush off these criticisms, you aren't examining things from a minority point of view. When TV, film, and commercials constantly show WM/AF pairings, at the exclusion of the other half of Asian America, it really is interesting that Asian men haven't gotten violent like White or Black men would have (or, in the case of White males, *have* done in the past).