8 Asians

15 Comments to “International Secret Agents”

• melissak wrote:

  i’ve been following wong fu and fm for a long time and a long time reader of 8asians, and after reading this, your perspective sounds like a white person that can’t stand to see asian american artists do something different then the stereotypical stories and looks you’d like to categorize them in. i was at the show as as well with my ‘media’ pass and was proud to see these artists think outside the box and give the community something different from the dry and bitter community show i’m used to seeing in the city.

  It makes me and our community proud to see these artists providing the community and american media with another way to view asian americans

  Posted on 23-Mar-09 at 3:40 pm | Permalink

• Erik wrote:

  To be fair, the wong fu short was an extension of the short, Up In Da Club. If you didn’t see the 4 part miniseries beforehand, you wouldn’t understand it at all.
  The other videos you didn’t seem to mention much, but I thought they were well made. They’ve got so many different styles, you should check out their website to get a bigger picture of their filmmaking.

  Jin was the headliner, the guy in the “flashy gold jacket”, who has indeed broken down many barriers for AAs. He was the first AA rapper on both MTV and BET, and he is also BET’s freestyle battle champion. He moved back to HK and produced a full album in cantonese, which was very successful.
  Far East Movement have been breaking down similar barriers.

  And Jessi Malay not Asian? Let’s not start that whole, “are filipinos asian” debate.

  Posted on 23-Mar-09 at 10:05 pm | Permalink

• Kevin wrote:

  @Erik, i’m pretty sure its a common grammatical error. I think Connie meant the dancers of Fanny Pak aren’t Asian and that Jessi Malay is. It happens to the best of us.

  @MelissaK, I agree with your assessment of ISA. If there are any hints towards misogyny, it is unintentional and, I guess, “nitpicky” at best. While Wongfu may not have shown women in this particular clip, their entire video repertoire is very balanced in terms of casting, usually portraying cute little love stories from the perspective of males (after all, these guys are all… well guys), but very much involving the better half to complete these stories. Most of the women are confident, independent women that are respected (and sometimes even intimidating) by their counterparts

  I know from much personal experience (I intern for CMG… the group that manages FM/Jin) that FM, WongFu, Tom Ngo, and so on are some of the nicest people you will ever meet.

  I think the problem isn’t so much that these guys aren’t including female talent, but that there isn’t any visible female talent out there that is also Asian American (I guess I’m sort-of, kind-of, challenging you list some.) I can only think of Jane Lui, Kina Grannis, and Jazmin and they were all at Kollaboration. To say that they weren’t even considered to be on the list for ISA would be a bit ridiculous… I’m pretty sure that sometime during the planning stages these artists were part of a pool that could have performed. The three headline groups… FM, Jin, and WongFu have great fanbases that spans across the entire world (WongFu is a youtube sensation that have had shorts featured in Cannes, FM has had concerts in Korea and Brazil, Jin’s album went gold in HK), and they’ve worked to get there. This isn’t some small scale production that was put together at the last minute, it was a huge performance that sold out, even with time delay releases, weeks before the event occurred. the last batch of tickets sold out in about 13 minutes!

  Asian American entertainment is very much in its infancy, and to criticize the lack of APA female talent at ISA is somewhat fair, but in the larger scale of things? I’d take this as a great victory for the APA community. Kollaboration and ISA are two sold out performances that put the APA entertainment community on the map. I guess what I want to say is that we have to take it one step at a time, and that the female talent out there just needs to keep working and planting grassroot movements that take them to where FM/WongFu are because that’s exactly what these groups had to do years ago. I’m more than sure its already happening.

  Posted on 23-Mar-09 at 10:37 pm | Permalink

• Joy wrote:

  To Connie: Thank you for your entry. It is deeply satisfying and refreshing to see an article that does not blindly commend representation at any cost. I am new to this blog, but if the writing on this site is consistently at this level, I will be a long-time reader.

  To Melissa, Erik, and Kevin: I admit, I was not at ISA. But I also feel the need to say, respectfully, that I am not reading anything here that really refutes what Connie had to say about it. I believe Connie’s main point really comes through when she asks: Where are the women?

  If (Melissa) ISA really did present the American media “another way to view Asian Americans,” then I find it a stretch to claim that NOT representing women is really anything new. It’s old, so old. It’s so old it’s a cliché. Moreover, why does a criticism of one’s community instantly make that person an outsider? And Connie does not leave-out that she admires ISA, even while she points to its shortcomings.

  Using that same line of reasoning (Erik), I’m not sure how saying Jin “has indeed broken down many barriers” really refutes Connie’s message. Connie is saying that Jin clearly has charisma AND that she still has a problem with the way AA women are being addressed. Connie writes, “I didn’t want to be reminded my goal in life is to attract Asian men.” Yes, exactly. I mean, as an AA woman myself, I appreciate reading the shout-out from men who want their women to have brains as well as looks. But honestly, I want to SEE a woman with brains on-stage…several of them, actually. Please, give me LOTS of loud, proud Asian-American women, on-stage. I want that so much more than a man telling a woman to have brains and then not representing his sisters in the line-up. That sounds like a double-standard to me, and a double-standard is never nit-picky. It just sucks.

  Which brings me to my last point: Kevin, did you really just say that “there isn’t any visible, AA female talent out there”? That is… that is very similar to saying that there aren’t many Asian leading men in movies, because they just aren’t as good… But ok. If, for the sake of argument, we concede that the female talent is invisible, it is NOT because it isn’t there. And the point, the POINT, of creating venues for Asian Ameican entertainment is so that we, as a community, can see something new. So basically, if AA entertainment is not looking for the hidden talent, someone is not doing his/her job. Go find the damn talent. We need it. Give our girls something to dreams about.

  P.S. This is not meant as a diatribe against the females who were represented at ISA. I was not there, so I cannot in any way comment on what was available that night. I only mean to fully support what I think is the intent of Connie’s entry: a call for alternative, progressive models that aid multi-faceted Asian American female identity formation.

  Posted on 24-Mar-09 at 1:38 am | Permalink

• CSLi wrote:

  I agree with Joy and appreciate her taking the time to lay it down. And Connie, thanks for a great piece.

  I look forward to the days when people, tired of being discriminated against/put down/diagrammed as inferior/excluded from the public sphere will — in their struggle to overcome these wrongs — refuse to perpetuate them on others. I eagerly look forward to those days. Will they come?

  Posted on 24-Mar-09 at 10:40 am | Permalink

• Bo wrote:

  Joy, you basically said what I wanted to say…but way more deftly and eloquently.

  Posted on 24-Mar-09 at 6:05 pm | Permalink

• Kevin wrote:

  Please. To think that I think AA women are “inferior” or that I “put down/discriminate” against them is ludicrous and just wrong, and I’m disgusted that you think that I do.

  My argument was not that there isn’t any Asian American Female talent out there. I love the work Jane Lui is doing. Susie Suh had a great album released in 2005. There is always talent, and I gave examples in my previous comment. Yet do you know Jane Lui? Have you heard of Susie Suh? My point was exactly what you said about invisibility, and I’m sorry you read it any differently.

  Look. ISA is not a concert that promotes talent because you’re talented. ISA is a concert that promotes talent that has branched out and created a fanbase as a result of hard work and dedication. To just give out spots because they are “talented” is something that perpetuates and reaffirms all those who are against Affirmative Action. Call for the “alternative, progressive models that aid multi-faceted Asian American female identity formation,” and I support it wholeheartedly, but it is exactly that, a progression. You can’t just jump in and hope to make a huge splash, trying to get the recognition that you undoubtedly deserve but were just given.

  This is sort of hard to explain. ISA was/is at its foundation a concert for fans of a handful of well established names. To have a woman for the sake of having a woman there is, in my eyes, far more detrimental to the cause of equality than not. It is like sticking that Asian guy in CSI just because there isn’t enough AA representation in the media. If I were to achieve this goal of equal representation, I wouldn’t want it because it was handed to me, even if I deserved it because of my talent. I would want it because not only am I talented, but I worked for it and put myself there. These guys at ISA are talented, but they WORKED to get to where they were at ISA. FM has released two full length albums, they’ve been working for near a decade, and they’ve pushed to where they are now. WF has been at it for years as well, graduating from SD to just continue to work and spread the word about their passion. Until you show me that kind of dedication and hard work, I stand by what ISA did and the talent that was put on that stage.

  I’m going to ask you guys to show me that kind of dedication and hard work. I know that the talent is out there, I’ve seen it. And I know that there are AA’s out there, both men and women, that are working, hard, putting in sweat and blood like FM and WF have and that undoubtedly their time will come. But to just complain and say that there isn’t representation out there and demand that there be? That, quite frankly, isn’t fair to those who have worked that hard.

  Posted on 24-Mar-09 at 6:58 pm | Permalink

• To just recollect. « motivations. wrote:

  [...] I have to source back to 8Asians.com, which is a great blog with a lot of views and opinions.  Here’s the post. It was about ISA and how there isn’t enough female representation at ISA.  My contention is [...]

  Posted on 24-Mar-09 at 9:09 pm | Permalink

• Confuse-Us wrote:

  Joy wrote…
  I admit, I was not at ISA. But I also feel the need to say, respectfully, that I am not reading anything here that really refutes what Connie had to say about it. I believe Connie’s main point really comes through when she asks: Where are the women?

  To be fair what exactly did Connie’s article say that needed refuting? With her press-pass and smug wit I would at least have thought that she would have had the sense to actually ask one of the event organizers why there were no female artists. Why didn’t she? Instead of trying to gather facts that could actually be informative, she seems to prefer to rely on vague insinuations of mysogyny and a somewhat judgemental tone that does nothing to inform.

  Ironically, Connie didn’t even seem to make time to listen to the one Asian female that was represented at the show – the article certainly didn’t suggest that she even took time to have a meaningful conversation with Jessi Malay and if she did, why didn’t she report on it? I would have been very interested to hear what Jessi Malay would have had to say about the lack of female representation.

  Sorry to sound so harsh, but if Connie is going to make accusatory insinuations of mysogyny then it’s only fair to actually ask, listen to, and report what the “accused” have to say in their own defence.

  Posted on 25-Mar-09 at 1:51 am | Permalink

• mtn wrote:

  Confuse-us, I was wondering the same thing. What if they couldn’t get a female Asian American artist to perform at ISA because of scheduling issues? We wouldn’t know unless we asked the organizers.

  Posted on 25-Mar-09 at 11:21 am | Permalink

• connie wrote:

  Thank you all for reading and engaging in this conversation.

  Perhaps I didn’t make it clear that I was super excited and inspired to be at ISA. So much that I kept reminding my friend Ryan who tagged along with me. “This is so cool!” I told him over again.

  The energy and uniqueness of the event instigated our conversations far after the event. I’m sure the same went for many concert go-ers.

  This article isn’t meant to accuse the creators of ISA of misogyny or ill-willed intentions. Having been backstage with them and seeing them on stage, I sensed a lot of hard work and and genuine let’s-make-a-difference determination. I am in deep admiration for these fellows.

  And indeed I asked Philip, Ted and Wesley of Wong Fu Productions about the presence of women. They mentioned there were more female performers at last year’s concert in LA and that this was a question they were asked in another press interview. If Jessi Malay and the women from ABDC Dance Set were in the room, I would have loved to talk to them just like all the other performers. I would have asked why Jessi didn’t sing and instead MC’d? I made it into the audience as she was doing a little Beyonce rendition and she was great, but that was the only singing I heard from her throughout the entire night. Maybe I missed something?

  I hope to continue this conversation in hopes that we are more cognizant of our progress as organizers, artists and audiences. As much of a step forward this was for ISA and many Asian Americans in entertainment, I hope to push us further in being more critical, conscious and just of our portrayals of Asian Americans.

  Posted on 25-Mar-09 at 12:44 pm | Permalink

• Confuse-Us wrote:

  Hey Connie,

  Thanks for clarifying your position – I think that somehow all of the responses to your original post seemed to read what you wrote as an accusation of misogyny.

  That aside, I completely agree with you that we should be critical and more conscious of how Asian-Americans are portrayed. Because Asians are generally so negatively stereotyped and portrayed by the mainstream media, it’s imperative that when Asian-Americans do get an opportunity to write about their own community, that they do so with more empathy than what you would expect from mainstream media.

  That’s why I was a little disappointed when it seemed as though your article was unfairly claiming misogyny without presenting any evidence of how the individuals involved had acted from misogyny. That’s the kind of unfair reporting I would expect from the mainstream. So, again, thank you for clarifying.

  I’m also a little confused about your interpretation of the Jin “free-style” on Asian women. To be fair, I wasn’t at the show, but I don’t see how you could interpret “Ladies, it’s not all about looks. It’s about brains too. Right, guys?” as a directive to make attracting Asian men the goal of Asian women’s lives. I just don’t see it. Given that it seems customary in rap culture to refer to women as “bitches”, and “ho’s”, and to generally demean women, it’s seems harsh that you would suggest that Jin’s line is anything less than a positive reinforcement of female empowerment. Maybe, I had to have been there to get it?

  We all are tired of the mainstream media’s lazy approach to representing Asian-Americans by relying on negative stereotypes, yet it’s futile to complain about this when all too often, Asian writers seem to do the same thing. I’m not accusing you of this, but making the point as a general observation.

  Posted on 26-Mar-09 at 2:29 am | Permalink

• Natalie wrote:

  Thanks Connie for being brave and expressing your opinions about the show.

  The strength of a communities lies in how open it is to internal criticisms. While it is important to stand in solidarity, a community should not accomplish this goal by silencing criticisms and concerns within the community. As every social movement evolves, it must be brave and strong enough to become more inclusive. This piece reminds me of the fact that the point of putting Asian Americans in the mainstream is not just about assimilating to the mainstream but changing the mainstream, changing the institutions that have historically been racists and exclusionary. Your piece reminds me of the importance of inclusion- because with more people and more voices behind your cause, you can make a bigger statement.

  Great piece, Connie and very well written. From all the comments, it seems that this was a discussion waiting to happen. thanks for being brave and opening up the convo.

  Posted on 27-Mar-09 at 12:58 pm | Permalink

• Paul wrote:

  Hello Connie,

  Thanks for attending ISA ‘09 and for covering the show here on 8asians.com. I’m glad to read that being at the show made you feel “excited and inspired”, but I’m disappointed in your overly-negative commentary on the event.

  It’s very clear that you did not do the proper research necessary to substantiate your attacks on my performance as well as Passion’s. Although we both did include covers in our performances, we also showcased much of our own original material during our respective sets. In fact, three out of my four selections were original compositions that I wrote for my current album. I even went as far as announcing on stage that we were performing original material. From reading your article, however, it seems you neglected to hear me say that.

  Whether you enjoy my work or not is entirely up to you, and I humbly respect your opinion. However, claiming ownership of a “press pass” while callously passing my work off as “Jason Mraz” covers is disappointing and, in my opinion, irresponsible. You could have simply contacted me to ask about the originality of my content rather than electing to publish a cleverly-worded — but misinformed — dismissal of my performance.

  From what I understand of your article, it appears to me that you expect (or even demand) Asian-American artists to behave a certain way and create their art in a certain way: your way. It also seems that artists that don’t meet your own personal expectations are fair game for you to publicly insult and ridicule in an open forum (such as 8asians.com). Again, I have no personal issue with this. You have every right to your own opinion, and I would never discourage you from speaking your mind. However, it is difficult to ignore the hypocrisy of you tearing down the very same artists that you claim make you feel “excited and inspired”.

  Asian-American culture is developing. It may not be developing in the manner or direction in which you would expect or demand, but it is developing nonetheless. And from the overly-enthusiastic and positive responses we received from those that attended ISA, it appears that we are doing something right with our creative contributions to that culture.

  In terms of your concern at the lack of female performers at this year’s show, I must say that I agree with you. I, also, would like to see more of the brilliant and talented women of our community featured on stage. However, I’d like to remind you of the innumerable factors that are involved in the planning and executing of an event like ISA, including financial and scheduling factors. From my own personal experience of working in the entertainment industry for the past several years, I can tell you firsthand that it is definitely a great challenge to coordinate such a large-scale event.

  To the best of my knowledge, I can assure you that there was no conscious or deliberate effort to exclude female performers from this year’s show, and I’m sure that even greater efforts will be made to make the next event even more inclusive.

  But considering the fact that tickets were completely sold out the week prior to the show (and were considered valuable enough to even trade on sites such as Craigslist and eBay), it seems to me that you are in the minority in terms of your overall views on the event. An overwhelming majority of the audience members at ISA seemed to be enjoying the show very much. Perhaps then would it be possible that it is in fact you that is out of touch with Asian-American culture, rather than the artists?

  I assure you, I truly do understand the importance of sharing my heritage and culture in a responsible manner. But at the end of the day, I am merely an artist. My main priority is to put my best creative work forward, not “represent Asian-Americans”, as you say. I’ll leave the politics of intellectualizing Asian-American culture for qualified professionals to deal with.

  I do appreciate that you are passionate about encouraging members of our community to strive for their own personal best. I also appreciate that you hold members of our community to high standards. But when you publicly denounce artists to further your own personal agenda and views without putting in the time to properly research the facts to support your claims, that is when I’m afraid I cannot offer you my support.

  If there’s ever a situation in the future in which you’re uncertain about an artist’s intentions or actions, I would encourage you to contact them and ask them directly. It would give the artist an opportunity to clear up any confusion you may have, and it would also help ensure that you have the full story before posting information that could potentially damage the very energy of positivity that you strive to further within our community. In the case of ISA artists, we’re on the most part fairly accessible via the web. Give us a try.

  Best regards,
  Paul

  Posted on 30-Mar-09 at 6:04 am | Permalink

• 8Asians.com » Paul Dateh Sings Sesame Street’s “I Don’t Want to Live on the Moon” wrote:

  [...] like Paul Dateh. Really, we do, even though Paul himself may not think so after his kinda-sorta defensive comment to a kinda-sorta critical concert review of an [...]

  Posted on 03-Sep-09 at 11:31 am | Permalink

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