The Asian (Lack of) Excellence Awards

So one of the things I'm really into is Asian-Americans in media and entertainment. I could go all day long about the injustices Asian males face in the American entertainment world but for now I just want to address the Asian Excellence Awards 2008 which occurred in late April, was shown on E! in May and is now available On Demand for the remainder of the month. Anyway, I decided to watch this show On Demand, and I was excited. Last years show was decent, and was hoping to see an even better show this time around. Well let me say I was WAY DISAPPOINTED. I know a lot of Asians who agree with me as well.

First of all, the show was missing some of the most respected Asian actors/filmmakers among Asian-Americans. Where was John Cho, Kal Penn, Justin Lin, Michael Kang, Parry Shen, Ken Leung, Aaron Yoo, Leonardo Nam, Sung Kang, Dustin Nguyen, and others that I can't think of right now? The only people that made appearances that I was excited about seeing was Will Yun Lee and Roger Fan.

Second of all, and this is one that really irks some people, a special achievement award went to Rob Schneider. Really? Is that the best we could do? Rob Schneider who played a demeaning Asian caricature in I Now Pronounce you Chuck and Larry and had Asian stereotypes perpetuated in European Gigolo ? We are really giving and achievement award to someone who has hurt Asians more than he has helped them? He did start out by apologizing for a couple roles he did in the past, which is respectable. But he said it so fast that it is difficult to gauge his sincerity, and then he goes on to make some demeaning remarks about Filipinos (of which he is half). In addition, Rex Lee also won an award for his role on Entourage, which is another role that has created a stir within the Asian-American community. Lee also acknowledged this in his acceptance speech but basically used his victory as an 'see i told you everything i am doing is fine' outlet.

Another thing I have a problem with is awarding Sharon Leal best actress in film. Okay, my take on this one might be slightly more controversial, but it's how I feel and this is my blog so here it is. Sharon Leal is half Filipino, half African-American. You can sort of see some Asian in her if you look hard, but really it's not very discernible. Its definitely something you would be more likely to notice after someone told you. While I admit that the lack of her looking Asian does bother me somewhat, the real problem lies with the role she played. Her award was for her role in This Christmas, a movie where she plays a 100% African-American character. Now, I'm sure she did a fine job in the movie, but for the Asian Excellence Awards, there had to be much, much better options.

I am mostly disappointed that this was a missed opportunity to showcase some of the best Asian film in the past year. I wanted the show to spotlight movies such as Undoing, Finishing the Game, Shanghai Kiss, and Harold and Kumar. This could raise awareness among viewers about these movies, hopefully at least inspiring a few more DVD rentals. Instead we are giving This Christmas and Rob Schneider the spotlight. All this makes me wonder if there was some kind of boycott to the show, and that's why there was no Justin Lin, David Ren, Parry Shen, etc. I don't know if there was one or not, but I do know that if I was an celebrity, I would seriously consider not showing up for the awards show had I known how it would go down.