Because blogging makes you go crazy?

Or, rather, A, A, A.

Late last night, I made my way to Lerner Hall to see my fellow Asian American Alliancers at their best, filming a Rihanna inspired video for CultureSHOCK.

Come to the event on April 18th, to see the completed piece!

Some teaser photos for now:

You had my heart...

So Fierce

Come one, come all... On April 18th, we're featuring this one-of-a-kind performer at our showcase of Asian American talent and fashion! This singer played the club circuit during the 80s as a drummer, and has since been a (sort of) pioneer of the arts and the internets. Just watch the video below of his hit, "Never Gonna Give You Up". So come to cultureSHOCK and be sure to get your dance on, you won't want to miss this.

This can be considered a live blog - Gary Okihiro just gave us this link to a petition decrying the proposed budgets cuts of Asian American Studies at University of Pennsylvania. These budget cuts are university-wide, but disproportionally affects smaller departments and programs - thus, threatening to effectively shut down the Asian American Studies program. So take a look, read the petition, and sign it!

The petition at www.petitiononline.com/saveasam

To: The University of Pennsylvania

We, the students, faculty, staff and alumni of the University of Pennsylvania, as well as other interested members, believe the 25% budget decrease by the School of Arts and Sciences to Asian American Studies is outrageous. Asian American Studies, and more broadly Ethnic Studies, are integral components to a college curriculum and should not be viewed as simply supplementary knowledge. We DISAPPROVE of the School of Arts and Sciencefs decision to cut funding for Asian American Studies. We URGE the administration to reverse the decision and fully recognize Asian American Studies as an essential component of campus diversity.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

Recently, the University announced that the Asian American Studies program will receive a 25% decrease in their budget. Because the program is already so poorly funded, these additional cuts would ultimately terminate Asian American Studies at Penn.

If this University is indeed committed to diversity, it must display that passion through sufficient funding and support of Asian American Studies.

In an effort to address this issue to administration, the Asian Pacific Student Coalition and the ASAM Undergraduate Advisory Board have started a petition to document the student and faculty interest in Asian American Studies.

Petitions will be available in PAACH (3601 Locust Walk) as well as at the Asian American Studies Office (166 McNeil Building).

PLEASE STOP BY AND SHOW YOUR SUPPORT BY SIGNING OUR PETITION!

HELP US SAVE ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES AT PENN!

by guest contributor Calvin Sun, who's just earning his blogging chops, so please excuse the stylistic foibles. But speaking of 21, have you guys seen the My Sassy Girl trailer???

It's funny, with all that's going on with 21, I'm feeling coy irony. I first heard about Bringing Down the House (the book 21 is based on) a few years ago, when my brother (who also attended MIT for grad school) told me about how it was written about a bunch of MIT Asian American students who went to Vegas and skillfully used mathematics to literally "bring down the house."

The story became a novel, which then got turned into the movie that's now getting so much grease. As far as the information I've been given, it was the novel that initially changed the ethnicities of the characters (I didn't hear too much comparable controversy there). Kevin Spacey pretty much went ahead with the treatment and produced a film. Granted, even if the novel kept the ethnicities as Asian Americans, Kevin Spacey most likely would have still preferred the Caucasian remix. We've seen it done with The Departed and we almost seen it done with the Hollywood remake of Oldboy. What would stop Hollywood with 21?

Now the reason why I feel coy irony is because I saw this coming years ago...and I was only in high school! Why did we, as a collective APIA community, all wait until post-production to start a movement? The film's made, the damage has been done, and the best we can do now is to boycott last weekend's #1 movie in the box office? All this negative energy-- we could have started years ago when the book was published and prevented the Hollywood slap in the face. We could have compelled the execs to get more Asian Americans on the ticket during preproduction. Sure, we've been given amazing consolation prizes of the venerable Aaron Yoo and Liza Lapira (Hollywood likes to give consolation prizes in preparation for any controversy; did you know that Justin Lin was set to direct the remake of Oldboy?), but perhaps we could have gotten something more worthy of the phrase "based on a true story." From that we could have created something positive out of this instead of waiting so late and being negative and angry.

Yes, I agree with AngryAsianMan's Phil Yu that anything that draws attention to create dialogue and begin scrutiny into the Hollywood casting is a good thing. But as Hollywood dictates, any publicity is good publicity... all I know is that any sort of controversy we create will now get the film more attention, ticket sales will go up, the chances of it succeeding will increase, the Hollywood execs will be happy, and then the formula will be repeated. Next? The Caucasian remix of The Motel.

I think the best thing we can learn is to pay more attention to current events and rally together sooner. We should have seen this coming. We should have started talking when the book came out and began our steps in encouraging Hollywood to get more Asian Americans on the big screen for the film. Instead we're playing our respective role as a cog in the Hollywood machine; an uproar during a film's publicity campaign could not have been sweeter for the Hollywood execs. In their language, for every person that boycotts there's two people that becomes interested in the film. That's Hollywood mathematics for you; they've managed to bring down the house for APAs and run away with the dinero. We may have sowed the seeds for the next Hollywood remake of Better Luck Tomorrow, starring Hayden Christensen.

Let's refrain from idling with the popcorn next time.