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THE SLANTED SCREEN—Asian Men in Film and Television

7 April Friday, 6pm
Jeff Adachi | 2006 | 60 min | video | USA

The presence of Asian American men in American television and film has evolved much beyond Japanese Businessmen, Computer Nerds or Evil Ninja #4 in the last several decades. Ironically, one of Hollywood’s first leading men is Sessue Hayakawa, whose career began in the 1910s. Born in Japan and a student at the University of Chicago, he pursued theater in Los Angeles where he was discovered by a film producer. He went on to star in silent film as a contemporary of Rudolph Valentino and played romantic leads opposite white popular actresses. Despite anti-Asian sentiment which would eventually lead to the Chinese Exclusion
Act of 1924, Sessue Hayakawa became a silent film superstar.
With such a beginning, it’s hard to believe that the future of Asian and Asian American men in film would be defined by simplicity and emasculation, rarely going beyond one dimension. Filmmakers Jeff Adachi and Alex Yeung pull together Asian American male actors, producers, directors, writers and other people involved in television and film production to explore how these stereotypes have come about in the first place, how they have impacted their career and how they have had to work around them and move past them.

preceeded by

PAWNS OF THE KING
Ming Lai | 2005 | 17 min | video | USA
A World War 2 zero fighter pilot, haunted by the past, is forced to confront his fears when he meets an old enemy, a U.S. Army 442nd soldier, and plays a fateful game of chess.

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