On December 18, Rafu Shimpo published a statement from MANAA criticizing the casual racism found in the movie “Licorice Pizza”, and asked film critic associations to withhold nominations for awards this season. The reaction has been swift, with a number of media outlets echoing MANAA’s concerns and quoting from the statement, including: Entertainment Weekly: “Asian…
Due to the casual racism found in the movie “Licorice Pizza,” the Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA) believes that Paul Thomas Anderson’s film is not deserving of nominations in the categories of Best Picture, Best Director, or Best Original Screenplay, and is asking other film critic associations to pass over it this awards…
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MANAA Condemns Sony Pictures And Cameron Crowe For Continuing To Erase Asian/Pacific Islanders In “Aloha” Film LOS ANGELES– Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA), the only organization solely dedicated to monitoring the media and advocating balanced, sensitive and positive depiction and coverage of Asian Americans, is calling out Sony Pictures…
After a quest for White Castle burgers and a trip to Guantanamo Bay, the comedy duo of Harold Lee (John Cho) and Kumar Patel (Kal Penn) return for a third go around to celebrate (or ruin) the holiest of holidays: Christmas. This isn’t as strong of a film as the first ‘Harold & Kumar Go…
LOS ANGELES- MANAA, the Media Action Network for Asian Americans, is pleased to announce one $1000 scholarship for currently enrolled graduate and undergraduate students interested in pursuing careers as filmmakers and in television production (not broadcast journalism). Formed in 1992, MANAA is the only organization solely dedicated to monitoring the media and advocating balanced, sensitive,…
For those who want to know what’s been going on with Paramount and “The Goods” — Paramount sent a written apology to the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) right before the protest happened. Though the protest went on as planned, Paramount deserves some credit for actually responding with an apology, and a pretty well-written one…
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: (909) 869-3899 MANAA Announces Its Seventh Media Scholarship LOS ANGELES- MANAA, the Media Action Network for Asian Americans, is pleased to announce its $1000 scholarship for currently enrolled graduate and undergraduate students interested in pursuing careers as filmmakers and in television production (not broadcast journalism). Formed in 1992, MANAA is the…
Despite the beauty and iconicity of the film Breakfast at Tiffany’s, there was one thing that stuck out as being a terrible mistake, particularly to Asian Americans—the character of Mr.Yunioshi. Played by Mickey Rooney, the role called for using makeup and prosthetics to transform the White actor into a caricature of a Japanese man. This…
Q&A with Mark Young about MANAA’s participation in a segment on the new DVD release of Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
Why did you decide to do the Mr. Yunioshi segment?
Well to begin, I work with my brother Eric Young, his company is called Sparkhill. They actually produced all the extra bonus material for the DVD, so I was the producer on this one and it was his idea. To him it was obvious because of the Mickey Rooney character that the film just had, for its time, a mistake that was made. Now with the perspective since then it needed to be addressed. It was almost was like the proverbial elephant in the room that needed commenting on. He presented it to Paramount as part of the overall proposal for the DVD. They encouraged him to go further and see how it would turn out. When they saw the final product they were pleased with it and were happy to put it on the DVD. We were very proud of it, you know. Breakfast at Tiffany’s is such an iconic film and it just had this mistake right in the middle of it, this character, and here we are in a more contemporary era—it just begs to be addressed and discussed.
When you first proposed it to Paramount there was no resistance?
I wasn’t part of that presentation, but Eric indicated that they were willing to give it a try and see how it worked out. Do the interviews, put the piece together and see how it came across. They were quite pleased with how it was put together.
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The Washington Post wrote about the Airbender controversy, including quotes from MANAA’s Guy Aoki — as well as casting director DeeDee Ricketts. It’s nice to finally hear someone from the production side respond to the criticism, but of course it still seems like they’re going to populate their world with Asian extras and White heroes.