Fascinasians

10x10 with the Director & Cast of Flat3

Jesifiable here, hijacking Fascinasians for a post. If you haven’t checked out Flat3, the latest webseries to hit the web from New Zealand, then you probably should right now. The next story following the trend of quirky female comedies, Flat3 is a webseries that follows the unique perspectives of 3 Chinese-Kiwi women in their 20’s as they try to figure out who they are, what they’re doing in this life, and whose turn it is to buy toilet paper. And I got the lucky chance to interview these amazing women behind the new show—Roseanne Liang (Director/Writer), Perlina Lau (“Perlina”), JJ Fong (“Jessica”) and Ally Xue (“Lee”). Check it out!

How did Flat3 come into fruition and what have been some of your inspirations for the series?
Roseanne Liang: JJ sent me an email one day asking if I might be interested in helping them write a webseries. I said yes. Then they asked me if I wanted to direct. I was actually planning to tell them that they weren’t allowed to use the script unless I also directed it - but I acted all nonchalant and shrugged ‘sure. Whatevs’. And then I told them I had edit it or else I would run away with all the footage.

For me, the inspirations for the series are Sex and the City, Girls, 30 Rock and maybe a little Flight of the Conchords. Oh and Louis CK’s Louie. Freaks and Geeks, my all -time favourite TV show. Seinfeld, Monty Python, The Office. Basically every comedy show I’ve loved and wanted to copy. It’s not plagiarism if you say it’s homage! It’s homage, by the way. In terms of webseries, I discovered Awkward Black Girl fairly late in the game. Also Natalie Tran’s Community Channel, but we’ll never be as quick or cute as her. We can try, but we can’t.

Perlina Lau: For Jess and I, it was a combination of boredom, restlessness to an extent and unnecessary self pity which kicked this project off! Also just our own experiences combined with shows we like watching ourselves. This was the foundation for most scenarios!

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Addressing Racism Within Our Communities: Conference Edition

This past weekend, I was lucky enough to go to a student conference in New York City. Overall, it was a fantastic and very well put together conference with very educational workshops, mind-blowing performances by talented artists, and opportunities for Asian American leaders and students to meet and bond.

Tumblr user gabrielarising wrote a really good piece on MAASU a couple years ago and Traphik’s performance. And just as they said, as with any large event there are bound to be a couple problems. I’ve been to ECAASU before and know that the conference board who put this year’s conference together worked very hard and diligently to ensure the success of this year’s ECAASU. I know they had the best intentions and most likely vetted the speakers so nothing like what happened at MAASU would occur at ECAASU. 

However, no one could have expected one performer, David So, to veer in the direction he did. This is a video of his performance, the problematic jokes start at around 12:30 and peak at 12:50.

“I dated a Latina girl once. Mexican chicks are by far - they’re like the aphrodisiac. There’s something about those girls that, I just can’t get over it. The problem with you guys is: every time you date a Mexican chick, they always involve you in their fights. Like I don’t appreciate that at all.”

I went with my first instinct and yelled “RACIST” at him. My friend next to me joined for a second time, where David So then reacted by saying “Shut up, that’s all over.” and continued on to his next joke.

This is an entertainer who made his name mocking racism and racists with his parody song of Alexandra Wallace’s infamous video about “Asians in the library”. He opened explaining that joke and slowly moved into more and more problematic humor. 

Like gabrielarising, I felt something as soon as he said that. Racism within the Asian community is notorious. Anti-blackness is notorious. Anti-anyone-but-white-people is usually the most common. I know this from personal experience. This is wrong though, very very wrong. The speakers before David So came on talked heavily of coalition building. To me, coalition building is more than just a set of buzz words thrown together when talking about social justice. It’s about realizing that oppression is connected and what strikes one group of people down is related to our own lives. That means standing with my Latin@ family, my black family, my Native family, etc against comments and humor that reinforce white supremacy. That means speaking up when stereotypes like the “sexy Latina” are reinforced and fat jokes are wrapped up in a clusterfuck of “Youtube humor”.

I’m going to take an excerpt from gabrielarising’s post on MAASU:

Misogyny within a space of empowerment for Asian Americans made the situation slightly contradictory. By starting the conference off with this performer, it reminded some women in the audience of their positions as sexual objects and their secondary status. One woman, after he performed, yelled, “SEXIST!” to assert her voice as an individual who refused to take the verbal abuse lying down. I stupidly yelled in conjunction, “FUCK YOU!” not knowing what else to say. He replied by acting like he did not hear her, and just laughed it off. Apparently, he has done this many times in other venues, and when womyn confronted him, he would disrespectfully ignore them. Discussions with other folks later made me feel defeated at how easily everyone acquiesced to this verbal abuse. One man said it was merely, “Fun and games,” and that it should not be a big deal.

This is exactly what happened here. I refused to take the verbal abuse as a woman of color and I’ve gotten quite a bit of backlash for what we did. Most people joined in him laughing when he told me to shut up, and most people still lined up to meet him during and after the conference. Some told me that it was the wrong place and time to publicly call someone out on this. Some told me that I’ve gotten too radical and use too much alienating language.

Maybe they’re right, but if they are I think I’d prefer to be wrong. My philosophy is that if I don’t speak up, who will? If I don’t call someone out right when they fuck up, how many of the 1200 conference attendees would have questioned that humor? My friends have a saying. That saying is “struggle with love”. I might be in this without the friendship and/or support of established organizations, but I do what I do with a passionate and undying love for my community. 

And again, just as gabrielarising said in their post, 

It is up to members of next year’s MAASU and event planners of other APIA events to understand the importance of finding real performers who work to positively contribute to the community. By simply finding any wannabe artist with the least bit of talent is counterproductive to the mission of these events.

We want to counter the structures that bring down marginalized communities, but we cannot do that if we do not recognize what is disempowering us. The first step is to transcend our internalized oppressions.

Recognize all forms.

No one has the right to oppress others based on race, genders, sexuality, ability, and beliefs.

This article on ECAASU and its current form is a worthy read, especially the last paragraph. Though ECAASU no longer receives funding from the military and is a stand-up organization that provides amazing resources and opportunities for Asian American students, I think that this post was a necessary post.

Again, props to ECAASU National Board for their continuous work and to ECAASU 2013 Columbia Conference Board for putting together one of the best conferences I’ve been to. 

C’mon, Asian Americans. We can do better.

Addressing Misogyny within the APIA Community

gabrielarising:

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to attend the Midwest Asian American Student Union Conference in Minneapolis. It was, overall, a wonderful conference where I met some very progressive people of color and activists. I was also able to help conduct a successful workshop on the dysfunctional immigration system and how it has negatively affected members of Asian American community. As a city, Minneapolis was awesome and I hope to come back one day. Another important thing to note was that this conference was NOT funded in part by the military, which is unlike other conferences we know of where military funding caused a great deal of controversy.

Just like any other large events, however, there will always be some problems…

One of the first performers to come on stage during the variety show was a hip hop artist and comedian named Traphik. The first things he says for his spoken word speech is that he would, “Choke a slut.” The worst thing that happened afterwards was that almost everyone in the audience started laughing. He went on to say really degrading statements about women, which can all be seen here. In case it is not clear, he also rhymed about getting away with statutory rape, jabs at Mexico, and “throwing away” women who “smelled bad.”

After hearing this, I felt heaviness in my chest. I didn’t know why at first. I later on realized that it was pain. Now that I am sitting here writing, I realized that it reminded me of my own mother’s experiences and the stories of women I have worked with at a local domestic violence shelter. It also reminded me of the countless women who face violence everyday and the endless cycle many of them are subjected to.

I thought about the time my mom revealed to me in high school that the reason she disappeared one night when I was 4 years old was because she was hospitalized after my father beat her during one of his drunken rages. 

I thought about the women I worked with at the shelter who live in fear and have to remain in hiding as their exes roam free, due to the faulty criminal “justice” system that does nothing to protect women.

I thought about the stories of the undocumented women from the SB1070 racial profiling hearings I attended who were too afraid to call the police when they experienced domestic abuse, our of fear of revealing their immigration status.

The way this person nonchalantly said these things, as if it did not mean anything, made me think about our current culture that advocates for violence against women. It reminded me that it has been normalized, even in my generation, as can be seen in music, magazines, and television. While many have convinced themselves that it was not his intent to advocate for violence against women, his actions DID advocate for violence against women. The fact that the audience laughed at his comments, indicates that many attendees clearly do not see that “slut” is a derrogatory term, and that violence against women is wrong.

Misogyny within a space of empowerment for Asian Americans made the situation slightly contradictory. By starting the conference off with this performer, it reminded some women in the audience of their positions as sexual objects and their secondary status. One woman, after he performed, yelled, “SEXIST!” to assert her voice as an individual who refused to take the verbal abuse lying down. I stupidly yelled in conjunction, “FUCK YOU!” not knowing what else to say. He replied by acting like he did not hear her, and just laughed it off. Apparently, he has done this many times in other venues, and when womyn confronted him, he would disrespectfully ignore them. Discussions with other folks later made me feel defeated at how easily everyone acquiesced to this verbal abuse. One man said it was merely, “Fun and games,” and that it should not be a big deal.

Real artists go against mainstream devaluing of women and spit rhymes that speak of the resilience and fierceness of their APIA sisters. Traphik is not a real artist, and it is apparent that he will never get it.

It is up to members of next year’s MAASU and event planners of other APIA events to understand the importance of finding real performers who work to positively contribute to the community. By simply finding any wannabe artist with the least bit of talent is counterproductive to the mission of these events.

We want to counter the structures that bring down marginalized communities, but we cannot do that if we do not recognize what is disempowering us. The first step is to transcend our internalized oppressions.

Recognize all forms.

No one has the right to oppress others based on race, genders, sexuality, ability, and beliefs.

In understanding that violence against women is not a humorous matter, here are some statistics:

Domestic Violence

• 41 – 61% of Asian women report experiencing physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner during their lifetime.¹ This is higher than the rates in a national study reported by Whites (21.3%), African Americans (26.3%), Hispanics of any race (21.2%), people of mixed race (27.0%), and American Indians and Alaskan Natives (30.7%), and Asians and Pacific Islanders (12.8%).²

Domestic Violence-Related Homicide

• In a six-year period, 160 cases in Asian families resulted in 226 fatalities, of which 72% were adult homicide victims, 10% were child homicide victims, and 18% were suicide deaths.
• 68% of victims were intimate partners (current, estranged, or ex-partners), of which 111 were women and 14 were men.
• 83% of homicide perpetrators were men, 14% were women, 3% unknown.
• Children were the second largest group of victims, and the parents of wives and girlfriends were the third largest group.

Sexual Violence

• 56% of Filipinas and 64% of Indian and Pakistani women had experienced sexual violence by an intimate in a study interviewing 143 women.

Stalking

• 68% of Filipinas and 50% of Indian and Pakistani women reported being stalked by an intimate partner.

Trafficking

• 5,200 – 7,800 Asians and Pacific Islanders comprise the largest group of people trafficked into the U.S., out of an estimated total of 14,500-17,500 individuals trafficked in 2004.

Children’s Exposure to Family Violence

• 70% of Cambodians, 61% of Chinese, 80% of Koreans, 79% of South Asians, and 72% of Vietnamese men and women reported being hit regularly as children.
• 28% of Cambodians, 18% of Chinese, 30% of Koreans, 8% of South Asians, and 27% of Vietnamese witnessed their fathers regularly hit their mothers.

Source: http://www.apiidv.org/research/violence-against-api-women.php

(Note: Stats refer to Asian immigrants)

can we also add how these hella famous asian dude youtube stars are homophobic, transphobic, fatphobic as hell? not to mention they use black & brown men as props &appropriate from black ppl to prove they’re “gangstas”/not demasculated

I was just about to go back to edit it to mention these things :)

They use oppression of other people to get ahead like the rat race of white supremacist patriarchy they happen to thrive in.