Were any Chinese people offended by the Chinese Character?
I thought the character was so stereotypical and I'm not Asian.
You're the garbage man No I just take out the trash
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MovieChat Forums > Sixteen Candles (1984) Discussion > Were any Chinese people offended by the ...
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no that is not korean name
shareNobody period was offended with it when it came out. These butt hurt Millenials are the ones trying to kill this film's buzz by trying to get minorities angered by its content.
shareExactly! Nobody in the 80s was offended by any teen comedy. These idiot Millenials look for racism that does not exist and then get all up in arms. They are going to be in for a big shock when they enter the real world and realize that nobody cares about their feelings.
I'll never forget, I believe I was in 6th grade, at a girls birthday party. A black kids was manning the music. He was looking through all her tapes and records. All of a sudden you see a big smile on his face. he puts on the Dukes of Hazzard soundtrack and starts singing "just the good ole boys....never meaning no harm......" We all started laughing our a-ses.
Was the black kid offended by the Confederate Flag on the car? Nope! He loved the show and did not see any racism because there was not any.
I agree with you only up to the point that people are way too PC these days and I'm sick of comedians etc. having to apologize for everything on twitter every time someone complains.
What I noticed about people's opinions on racism: people don't consider something racist unless there's literal hate and slurs being depicted. Racism occurs on a spectrum and simply being disrespectful or treating people lower than you is racist. Sure, that's much more preferable than pre Civil Rights Era racism but that doesn't make it acceptable.
To address the problem with the Asian character in this film there are a lot of offensive things that I would like to point PC or not.
First, I'll give you that is was the 80s, it was a different time, and awareness about minorities in the media and real life has grown considerably since then and we should give the film a break on that end.
1.The character is referred to a Chinaman, he's given the name Long Duk Dong which is more Vietnamese or Southeast Asian, he yells Banzai when jumping out of a tree with is a Japanese phrase and he's played by a Japanese actor. Basically, no attempt was made to specify what he was. He's just vaguely Asian and the production and audience could care less.
2.Samantha and her brother talk about him in disdain, call him weird, and generally dislike him when he shows up. He does not grow on them at all throughout the movie. Samantha is annoyed by him all the way through the story until their final interaction together when Dong drops her off at the house before driving off with his date. I guess you can right this off as him just being foreign and weird but in the 80s where all Asian guys in movies had accents and were nerds and bad guys this is just part of a bigger problem in the depictions of Asians during that time period.
3.He parties and even meets a girl at the dance which I guess you can view as good or bad since the girl he's depicted as hooking up with is portrayed as an outcast or a weirdo. But since he's supposed to be a weirdo himself I guess they go together and that makes sense.
I'm just putting my thoughts out there. I thought the depiction of this character was racist but also kind of who cares in the end. He was foreign so from an American teenager perspective, in a movie made for teenagers, that gives the movie a lot of leeway to portray him as disliked and weird regardless of race. That part of it isn't so much a problem but in a business where Asians in American movies just recently started playing actual characters in the last 10-15 years or so it's kind of sad.
I always took it as she didn't want anyone tagging along with her regardless of ethnicity. The whole movie is premised on the fact that it is her birthday and no one notices and she is infatuated with Jake and is in her own little world. The odd ballness of all of the characters is what always stood out to me.
shareActually, you're the one who's in for a shock because as the millennials enter what you call the "real world", guess who they'll be encountering? Other millennials! The real world will be increasingly made up by them and you'll be seen as the racist relative they're embarrassed to have around. It's called progress and you should be grateful because they're the ones who will fund your social security and medicare benefits and wipe your ass when you're no longer able to.
shareHalf of millenials don't enter the real world anymore.
No job, living with their parents, studying endless useless college courses like gender studies.
Exactly, to be in a position of power you have to get a job and work your way up to the top. Most Millenials live in their parents basement or have their rent paid for by their folks. They can't survive outside their "safe-space." We have had Millenials quit their first day or week at my firm when they realize nobody care about their feelings and they can save the manatee on their own time.
Ever consider the possibility that those millennials didn't quit to save manatees but because you've created a workplace in which nobody cares about anyone else's feelings? In other words, they're smart enough to know that they can do better. You should be so lucky to have employees that care about all living things enough to trouble themselves to save manatees.
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NOPE! Trading floors have been this way since, well the beginning of trading floors. You are here to produce. Our workplace is very professional and was ranked by a publication as one of the best firms on Wall Street to work.
We have had numerous millennials come here and do well, they understood that survive and make money they had to basically not behave like a typical millennial. They have to show up early, make lots of phone calls, crunch numbers and read, read, read. They actually laugh at their generation's laziness.
As for the millennials who could not survive outside their "safe zone," well I am sure they at some non-profit either doing a non paid internship or making 1/3 the entry level salary at most Wall Street firms. Ironically they will be begging those millennials who survived at mine and numerous other firms by not behaving like a typical millennial for donations some day.
No, some of those millennials who passed on you will go on to help to create the automated trading systems that are already putting you out of work. You create nothing of value. Your entire industry is based on scurrying around to pick up the crumbs left while other people conduct business. The ones that passed on you could tell that you're not part of the future. I feel badly for the ones who remained. What will they do with their "skills" when the dinosaurs of your industry are extinct?
shareYou are correct about the industry changing, I personally will be retiring from the industry soon. A new opportunity has arisen which I jumped on and will be using the money I have made from my career to invest.
I have mentored many of the interns and helped many land jobs. I have told them that trading desks are dying and many desks will be gone in 5-10 years, if not sooner. I encouraged them all to look for jobs in private wealth, asset management, accounting and to think long term. Meaning take a job that you do not like for a few years that will open doors.
Point you are missing is that an internship at our firm opens doors. I was able to help one land a job as an analyst at big pension. Another one I helped land a job at top private wealth management firm. Both of those position have huge upside and they have the potential to make seven figures some day. I have called in favors from the contacts and relationships I have and helped them land numerous interviews for the interns we have had over the years. Ironically one of the interns who left hear after a few days called us up and asked for a job recommendation and needed us to confirm he worked here. I do not believe HR complied with his request.
The issue(s) with millennials is they never want to take any job which is not to their precious little snow flake ideals. If you cannot handle a summer internship at our firm which requires you to make tons of calls, crunch numbers, get us lunch, etc. because it is not your idea of "fun" or because you are not working on some big "cause" you are not going to make it in the work force. You are going to end up doing so kumbaya type job living in your parent's basement or asking them for money for rent every month.
So you justify being a slave driver by the training it provides so people can please other slave drivers, and you wonder that the slaves hope for something else? It's normal for youth to have passions for things that the older population feels is superfluous or pipe-dreams, and it's good for them to follow those passions even though most will certainly fail. That's because they are young enough to start over several times while the older population can't afford such risk. The kids are the ones who make all the technical and cultural breakthroughs, and their failures are important learning opportunities.
Yes, a raising number of young adults are living with their parents or moving back in with them, but that's not because they're doing something wrong. They're doing that because of the crushing costs of college tuitions and the Great Recession caused by multiple financial crises created by people like you who used their wealth to lobby congress to deregulate Wall Street so they could shift their risks onto the taxpayers. Well thanks for nothing. The kids are alright and are being burdened with taking care of us even though we clearly don't deserve it.
NOPE! I would hardly call having interns getting you lunch, making calls and crunching numbers slave driving. It is the same thing they would would be doing your first year at any firm. Those who thought they were too good to do those simple things are going to be in for a very rude awakening if they ever land a job.
As for college debt, my generation had college debts too. Difference is we worked hard and paid it off. Nobody cried that it was unfair and that society should pay for their student loans. A friend of mine who graduated with over $100k in student debt said "yeah, I should have gone to a state school instead." He never once cried "it's so unfair!" He got a job and paid them off.
Millennials were protesting outside our building years back as part of the "occupy" crowd crying that they want to play guitar, make paintings, put on puppet shows (my personal favorite) and they want society to first pay off their student loans and then give them a salary so they pursue this pipe dream. If you want to be a musician, artist or puppeteer go for it. Just know the odds are heavily stacked against you and that society does not owe you anything. If you want to be an artist, make art and sell it.
They are interns? That makes it even worse. You're supposed to make it easy for them. They're there to get some first-hand visibility into fields of interest. They're definitely not there to fetch your lunch.
College debt today is nothing like it was in our day. I found it easy to pay off my debt because tuition and related costs were much lower than today and grants were more available.
The millennials know what the risks are for their careers of interest. They even seem to know better than we did because they are saving at rates much higher than we did, probably because they watched us as cautionary examples and don't want to end up in the same position.
stfu you two bickering idiots and get a fcking life instead of arguing on the internet. sheesh.
Actually, the majority of the millennials I've met are nice, sane, normal people. They work and study and they don't have time to get offended over fictional characters and situations.
shareI was offended and I'm not a millenial, but I'm African American. There was subtle waspy racism throughout the film from her bff's almost epileptic seizure when she assumed Samantha wanted to do it to a big, black guy to the brother's flippant remark to the mom about boiling the sheets after the China man leaves.
The humor in this movie reminds me of the racist back-handed joking whites used around mixed company to see how far they can go or when they get too familiar with you.
I'm Asian and it's an offensive portrayal. It was offensive back then but Asians tend not to speak up as much and when we do, people tend to discount it. And these portrayals do affect people cause you have stupid kids and ignorant people repeating these sorts of things to make fun of any Asian person they come across.
shareInteresting as my wife is Asian and this is one of her favorite movies. Just because they portray one ethnic character in a certain way does not mean they believe every member of said race or ethnicity act that way.
shareNobody period was offended with it when it came outThat is nonsense. Maybe nobody WHITE was offended then, but that generation of Asian-Americans were horrified and tormented by this movie. Here are some articles about this:
Mr. ERIC NAKAMURA (Publisher and Editor, Giant Robot Magazine): Every single Asian dude who went to high school or junior high during the era of John Hughes movies was called Donger.
MacADAM: That's Eric Nakamura. He and Martin Wong co-founded the magazine Giant Robot, which covers Asian and Asian American pop culture.
Mr. NAKAMURA: I mean, if you're being called Long Duk Dong, you're comic relief amongst a sea of people unlike you. And you're also being portrayed as a non-Asian American person. You're being portrayed as a guy who just came off a boat and who's out of control. It's like every bad stereotype possible loaded into one character.
Just the gong that, you know, appears behind them magically every time he's on the screen, gong, you know, that's awful.
...
Mr. NAKAMURA: I mean, I feel bad for the guy in the end because he's had to live with the fact that all these Asian American men hate him.
Mr. MARTIN WONG (Co-founder, Giant Robot Magazine): Yeah. It's baggage for him, just like it's baggage for us.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88591800
Played by Gedde Watanabe, “the Donger,” as he’s referred to in “Sixteen Candles,” is a cultural boogeyman to many Asian Americans, especially those who came of age in the 1980s. Jeff Yang, a Wall Street Journal columnist whose son Hudson plays the show’s young protagonist, Eddie, has written that he’d long hoped for “an antidote to a decade of Long Duk Dongs, of Hollywood images that marginalize us, make us comic relief and cannon fodder for heroes of another color.”
Melvin Mar, an executive producer of “Fresh Off the Boat,” says his personal experience with Long Duk Dong was “a lot darker” than the one portrayed in the show. He grew up in a Los Angeles suburb as the only Asian kid in a predominately Latino school, and recalls being held upside down by bullies replicating the character’s debut scene, where he greets Molly Ringwald’s character from the top of a bunk bed.
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2015/11/04/fresh-off-the-boat-tackles-a-1980s-asian-caricature-long-duk-dong/
If you grew up Asian American in the 80s, you can't help but be somewhat scarred by the racist portrait of Long Duk Dong.
http://mixedraceamerica.blogspot.com/2009/08/remembering-john-hughes.html
AsianWeek columnist Phil Chung wrote in 2005:
But if you’re Asian, and especially if you’re Asian and male, Sixteen Candles may well be the movie that made your childhood a living hell.
For those not familiar with the film, I give you the three words that traumatized a whole generation of Asian American men: Long Duk Dong.
http://hyphenmagazine.com/blog/2007/8/16/sixteen-candles-offensive-or-over-it
"Asian Americans who grew up in the second half of the 1980s complained that they were called 'Donkers' in junior and high schools," Grace Ji-Sun Kim, a researcher at Georgetown University, wrote in the book Theological Reflections on 'Gangnam Style.' "They were taunted with quotes of Dong's stilted English lines, such as ... 'Oh, sexy girlfriend.' "
http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/02/06/384307677/whats-so-cringe-worthy-about-long-duk-dong-in-sixteen-candles
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Why I Don't Go to the Movies
I was a teenager in the 1980s, and like most teenagers growing up in predominantly-white suburbs at that time, I watched a lot of John Hughes movies. The one that had the greatest impact on me was Sixteen Candles, which cast Gedde Watanabe as an Asian foreign exchange student named Long Duk Dong. If you don't know the movie, Long Duk Dong was basically a yellow Sambo, yukking it up for mostly white teenage audiences with his FOB highwaters, malapropisms, and pathetic lust for white women. He was the nadir of high school loserdom against whom Samantha (Molly Ringwald's character) measured her self-worth. In Jeff Adachi's excellent documentary on Asian male roles in Hollywood, The Slanted Screen, Korean American comedian Bobby Lee speaks the sad truth about the character:
"My nickname was 'Long Duk Dong' in high school because of that character, and I think every Asian guy that ever went to an American school's nickname was Long Duk Dong because of that character. That means that you're not going to get any girls."http://professorshih.blogspot.com/2014/12/why-i-don-go-to-movies.html
Just last night:
"There’s 17 million Asian Americans in this country, and 17 million Italian Americans. They have The Godfather, Goodfellas, Rocky, and The Sopranos. We’ve got Long Duk Dong. So we have a long way to go. But I know we can get there, I believe in us, it’s just gonna take a lot of hard work."share
-- Alan Yang, accepting his Emmy for cowriting an episode of Master of None
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/09/18/alan_yang_aziz_ansari_win_emmys_for_master_of_none_encourage_more_asian.html
So you think that John Hughes believes that all asians are weird drunkards?
shareGedde Watanabe was born in Utah and is actually of Japanese descent. There were some complaints about stereotyping but back then most people were smart enough to know it was just a joke. These days social justice warriors like to pretend to get offended about everything, it's just virtue signaling and attention seeking.
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Even back then, 1980s, Chinese folks were offended by the term Chinaman. Yeah, different times, but by then we were WAY past the Civil Rights era of 1964 (after all, AMOS AND ANDY, Japanese, Indian sterotypes, bit the Indian dust..) by the mid to late 1960s, so back in 1984 it was suprrising to me to see that...even witb Reagan, this wasn't the kind of movie he liked..if it was 1954, 1964 it woiuld be more understandable..;)
shareThere were probably a few, but in 1984 most were probably about as offended as I (a white guy) am by Homer Simpson or Peter Griffin, which is not at all, even thought they're incredibly stupid, idiotic white guys. And I'd bet anything that those few who were offended survived. I've been offended before, and yet here I am, doing just fine. It's not fatal.
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