Being unrated and having a theatrical run just doesn’t happen anymore. And theatrical runs are like a ‘promo’ trailer for the DVD sales (which is where the industry really makes its money). So having your movie released without a big theatrical run is like releasing any product without any kind of real mainstream promotion. Unless you’re one of these grassroots guys who has the smarts and the skills to find and generate your audience to make your money back? You’re fucked.

And some places like Wal-Mart, well, if you’re not distributed by a major American company and you don’t have a rating? You don’t get into Wal-Mart (or in some cases Blockbuster, etc). And because Wal-Mart has made itself the ‘only show in town’ for tons of small-towns and small cities across America? Boom. There’s a huge core group of your audience gutted in a single blow. This is why the music industry allowed in those ‘Warning’ stickers. It was for the EXACT same reason as the MPAA, so that the big distributors could use a censor-style loophole to kneecap the small guys while appeasing the outraged soccer moms. And that’s exactly what they’ve done. It allows groups like Wal-Mart to dictate to the consumer and the audience at large, what they should be able to watch and listen to, while eliminating and absorbing the competition.

That’s the real reason why you got people in the film and music industry constantly complaining about the internet, because its shot their whole system to shit. Online a couple of guys doing a web comic like Penny Arcade can have as much promotional power as Marvel comics! Tila Tequila who’s a small Asian model, got a TV deal, and was on the cover of tons of mainstream magazines that had NEVER put an Asian on the cover, EVER. Why? The internet. So people telling you that you can’t make change, that change is impossible, or that it we can’t create a demand for Asian American films, music, etc? Are full of shit. And nobody can tell me that there’s no audience for Asian action heroes or Asian leads. Akira Toriyama and Masashi Kishimoto have made billions of dollars and broken tons of cable network ratings and sales records by promoting Asian heroes in comic books and anime to a predominately white culture.

Eric’s right that the system is glacial when it comes to change, but a large part of that is middle management attempting to justify their jobs, often at the expense of the artist’s work. If you want a really interesting insight on big budget filmmaking rent Ryûhei Kitamura’s Midnight Meat Train. There’s an awesome commentary track on that DVD where Kitamura (who speaks perfect English and is incredibly well spoken) and Clive Barker go into painstaking details about how the modern big studios work and how inner-politics basically eviscerated their horror film.

@ Gailyip: Given the number of Asian Women in the world, you cannot tell me that there are not enough tall ones around. I’m only asking for 4 or 5. I mean, I’ve seen that many walking around the streets of Los Angeles. I agree with you that it’s just an excuse.

@ mojorider: I think that economic gain is obviously a big motivator, but it is clearly not the ONLY motivator. The mistake is in looking at an economic system seperately from all other possible influences and motivations.

@Gailyip – thanks for the link and your insights. Yeah, I’m not into the censorship and regulation of artistic endeavors either, but you’re right: the MPAA, meetings held in secrecy and unknown board members, is the agent of censorship and I fully agree that it puts a stranglehold on indie films that dare to be edgier or unconventional. Isn’t the kiss of death to be NR? Because the indie film maker now has the trouble of finding distribution for a NR labeled movie!

- The argument I’ve heard, is that the majority of us Asian ladies are just not tall enough, you see. To have a show with a run of very tall, long-legged white women be interrupted by a smaller Asian woman? Well that would distract people from the clothing with an obvious physical difference. And that’s a no-no. It’s a very convenient excuse. Of course similar arguments also exist in film and music, etc, etc. And of course it’s motivated by prejudice, whether it’s nepotism or bias, casting couches, outright bigotry, it doesn’t really matter.

I’ve worked in film long enough to hear every horrible and shocking sexist and bigoted comment you could ever imagine coming out of a person’s mouth. So for me to have people even suggest that the film and fashion and music and art industries aren’t influenced by these forces is well…I don’t buy it for a second.

I mean take a look at these ‘new hip’ Transformers in the upcoming Transformers film and tell me that this comes from demographic research

http://chud.com/articles/articles/19917/1/TRANSFORMERS039-LITTLE-BLACK-SAMBOTS/Page1.html

How many people have money riding on this movie? How many of them would have been in a position to see early screenings and notice that something was amiss? I mean, everybody knows Bay is a massive bigot (the last Transformers movie was like a 2 hour long commercial for racial stereotypes), but this is just insane.

In the end the consequences of these actions are what really matter and these people should be called into account for it. Just because they’re feeding a ‘racist’ demand, doesn’t mean they can’t be held responsible for empowering total assholes.

But in no way does that mean that I believe in censorship or ‘regulation’ of the arts, that’s a tactic that always fails and will always be used later on to harm the underprivileged.

Look at the MPAA for proof of that.

Created to simply give ratings for movies to inform consumers of what kind of film they’re walking into and now the industry uses it to hold down indie and foreign filmmakers by limiting their markets. I mean look at almost any foreign movie at your local rental place, and 99.9% of the stuff that comes from any place but a major Hollywood studio is instantly either unrated or rated R regardless of content. And that was before the bad old days in the 80s when the MPAA was practically a hitman gutting popular indie cinema like the old Italian Studios, where it was demanding 14 minute to 20 minute cuts out of any popular genre film that got a State-side distribution deal.

The butchering they did to the Godzilla franchise and Kung Fu movies and French cinema and Italian cinema and Russian cinema and Anime and how that effected the way those movies were perceived plot-wise, execution-wise, quality-wise, etc, is ASTONISHING.

But that’s the only road censorship takes, you create an obvious tool that can be abused and people will abuse it for their own ends.

Those women in the first link look like zombies. I’m gonna have nightmares tonight. On the bright side for Asian women, from your link, it looks like the Asian mannequins are doing a good job reppin’. So you can be an Asian model, as long as you’re silent, made of plastic, and don’t fall over and injure shoppers.

I think the Asian supermodel thing may be a bit complex. We have the societal prejudice thing, but there is more to it (which may explain the mannequin phenomenon). I might try to describe it in a future post, if I can manage to write it without offending people…

What’s wrong with using Asian women as supermodels in the west? They have certainly been exotified enough, given all the rice chasing that’s going on. You can’t argue that they don’t represent a large enough market… there are even more Asians in the world than their are Whites. You can’t argue that Asian’s can’t afford to buy the products, at least based on the wealth statistics. So why do the high-fashion runways look like this?

http://images.nymag.com/images/2/daily/2009/03/20090303_models_560x375.jpg

One of many articles on the subject.
http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/2008/02/10/2008-02-10_fashion_week_runways_lacked_minorities.html

Again, I ask, is this really all about making money, or are there deeper, and more tribal instincts playing out here?

I personally don’t believe that Hollywood is any different.

That’s a great point. I do remember that Golden Age of African American models. It was like they all came up so fast, and then all of a sudden, it was over. How many new young black supermodels are coming out these days?