Subconsciously, I think I've been preparing for tonight's JACL dinner. (Even though I still have no idea what I'm wearing...) At any rate, I watched these two Asian/gay-themed films awhile ago.In Touch of Pink, a Pakistani guy living in London has to hide his boyfriend from his conservative Muslim mother, and the ghost of Cary Grant guides him through the process. Saving Face is about a Chinese American lesbian whose mother gets pregnant and moves in with her after being disowned by her parents. They're both funny movies, and worth watching. And Kyle MacLachlan's portrayal of Cary Grant is dead-on!
They're both okay films in and of themselves, but after watching them back-to-back I realized they're somewhat formulaic -- queer kid has secret independent life away from "traditional" Asian family (whatever that means), family/heritage comes back to haunt kid, then there's drama followed by the inevitable happy-acceptance ending. The moral of both stories seemed to be "Don't make assumptions about your parents' views, they really just care if you're happy and in love with someone." Which is nice and fluffy, but also incredibly unrealistic.
Another similarity between the films is the figure of the single mother. The respective fathers of the main characters in the films both died, and they were raised by their mothers and extended families. (OMG, I have an Asian immigrant mother and deceased father! What if I'm lesbian?) I can't help but think this is fuel for right-wing views of "family values" --see what happens when children don't have fathers? It's over-politicizing the issue of course, but it would have been refreshing to have the two films be vastly different.
And now I need to figure out what I'm wearing tonight.... Or more specifically, which shoes.
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