Refried Screens

The guy who plays Hiro on Heroes, Masi Oka, told USA Today that an Asian character on the show will be played by a white guy. Oka’s cool with it since the character is supposed to be a guy pretending to be Asian. Plus, Oka feels that “it makes sense in the story’s context.”

Oka doesn’t like comedian Rob Schneider playing an Asian stereotype in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry:
“It was very funny, but it wasn’t smart funny. I don’t understand why an Asian guy couldn’t have played it.” (USA Today)

Well, guess what? Rob Schneider IS an ASIAN GUY. Here he is with his mama at the Asian Excellence Awards two months ago:

The character is supposed to be a riff on Mickey Rooney’s racist Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast At Tiffany’s.

This brings up a bunch of questions ranging from whether Oka is now cool with Chuck and Larry since Rob is Asian, to whether Oka doesn’t consider a man named Schneider to be a real Asian.

It reminds me of an Indian actor I knew who loved playing Arab terrorist roles because he said it was payback for all the Arab actors who played horrid Hindu characters.

But I didn’t buy it.

The guy just hated Muslims.

I wonder if that’s what Oka’s beef really is: he hates Filipinos. Or just Rob Scheider. He could really just be upset that a Japanese actor didn’t get the chance to make a dollar clowning a Japanese stereotype. In Hollywood, that’s what it’s all about, anyway: economic opportunity.

George Lopez was pissed that his show, one of the few with an abundance of Latinos, was replaced by a show about Cavemen. For some reason, ABC didn’t make the obvious compromise: have Latinos play the cavemen. That’s what I would’ve told them, anyway. But, for some strange reason, they never asked me.

All of these questions are valid. But what I really want to know is whether advertisers are going to start pulling ads on Chuck and Larry, like they did to BET’s Hot Ghetto Mess? Or is “asian on asian” comedy not as offensive as “black on black” comedy?

Somewhere, Don Imus is enjoying all of this. His master plan is working better than he ever dreamed!

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