And yes, I have Asian friends who think this whole argument is ridiculous.

Of course hate crime isn’t funny, but does that it mean it can’t be exploited for parody?

If you want to readily protest taboo subjects, watch South Park. As mentioned above, “The Producers” totally makes a mockery out of Hitler.

But in defense of the film, the CHARACTERS ARE RACISTS. (and if you want to avoid films or TV shows that shouldn’t be made because of racist protagonists, stick to Sesame Street). This is the source of their attempted comedy. This doesn’t make the scene itself racist… it wouldn’t even be construed as comedy if the audience assumed Dr. Ken was responsible for Pearl Harbor. Its the ridiculousness of this idea, of outlandish prejudices, that is being portrayed.

The scene isn’t encouraging anyone to go beat up an Asian any more than Airplane inspired someone to become a pedophile airline pilot.

Seriously, I mean David ok, consistently he’s like that, but everyone else too.

I’m not trying to be a jerk, but do you guys have friends of color and does the topic of race ever come up and do they think these kinds of jokes are funny? To be in LA I find this this kind of group think mindset in one group pretty mindblowing. Not that you can’t think it, but wow, it’s just amazing. It’s like going back to the 80s or something.

Maybe you should take a look throught the Angry Asian Man’s site. It’s pretty informative and entertaining, just so you guys can get how poc might feel about stuff, yeah we get how you feel, but can’t you just try to have some empathy?

Browne

I actually do agree that racial stereotypes of Asians have been frequent and even still exist and are all too tolerated. But, again, in this trailer the filmmakers aren’t stereotyping the Asian character, but the ignorant white guys.

Keekle, I don’t see how the Harold and Kumar reference is any different. Jeong’s character is mistaken for somehow being responsible for Pearl Harbor, just as they’re mistaken for terrorists.

More importantly, I don’t foresee that this scene is going to inspire anyone to go out and beat an Asian man or woman for any reason. What it did do was inspire me to watch the horrible trailer and give what will likely be a bomb anyway a bit of free publicity, which it desperately needs.

Your Harold & Kumar analogy only works if the lead characters were Middle Eastern. In H&K 2, the characters are Korean and Indian respectively who are MISTAKEN for terrorists.

@MattMason:

You miss the point. The sequence is offensive because it uses a hate crime scenario.

The examples you cite are offensive because they perpetuate stereotypes. Perpetuating stereotypes – like Long Duck Dong in “Sixteen Candles” for instance – can be offensive to people (both the offended minority and empathetic others), but while it may embolden some knuckleheads to think that seeing it in a mainstream movie makes it okay to say racially offensive comments it doesn’t do what “The Goods” sequence does which is utilize VIOLENCE against a minority for comedy and then offer up a racially offensive excuses for the hate crime. Nobody is being physically battered in “Airplane” or “Borat” or any Lainie Kazan movie. In “The Goods” the whole sequence in question evolves around the BEATING of Ken Jeong’s character. (This is very different than a jive talking sequence in “Airplane”.)

The first amendment also protects jozjozjoz right and anyone else to say they don’t like something and to ask that it be removed because it is offensive. If people don’t write posts like jozjozjoz people who are ignorant of the scene and the message might give the film money.

This film won’t be getting any of my money and I’ll be sure to pass this around to my circle of friends.

Standing up to ignorance isn’t easy, but it’s something that must be done, because if you don’t you have things like Prop 8 passing…see this is all connected…people who think that it’s ok to vote on things like should we make it official that gay people don’t have the same rights as straight people also think hate crimes are hilarious, in the right context.

You desensitize people to other people by marginalizing them, see Birth of Nation as a demonstration of this.

Don’t you find it odd that the people who usually bring up the first amendment first are always the people telling you how you shouldn’t have said something.

Browne