ASIAN AMERICANS IN MEDIA

Week 10: Contemporary Topics IPunk & Underground Films

Key Terms:

• Stereotype and realism• Punk• Underground films• Guerrilla cinema• Jon Moritsugu, gregg araki, Rico

Martinez, Roddy Bogawa

Underground & Guerrilla Filmmaking:

• Independent/low budget productions: but not the definition (“indiewood”) that is used in mass media today.

• Anti-establishment: reacting against the status quo, anti-Hollywood, produced outside the industry and public television system.

• Underground cinema: inspired more by Kenneth Anger, U.S. avant-garde cinema

Jean Luc Goddard and the French New Wave, more so than 1st and 2nd generation Asian American filmmakers.

• Also influenced by and in dialogue with other aspects of underground culture: music (punk rock), club scene, fashion, ‘zines (Moritsugu interviewed in GB#1)

• Punk rock and ‘zines – DIY mentality

• A generation of filmmakers all educated in university media/art/theory programs.

• gregg araki (read his article in MTI P.68), Jon Moritsugu, Rico Martinez, Roddy Bogawa.

• Their films do not necessarily address

Asian American issues, or have Asian Americans in them.

• Intertextuality – they often end up using the same actors, producers, production designers, etc. (i.e. their friends) Andrea Sperling, who produced Terminal USA, also produced many of gregg araki’s films

like Totally Fucked Up (1996) and Doom Generation (1995).

Jon Moritsugu • Born 1965 in

Hawaii, Moritsugu has been making films since 1985

• Educated at Brown University’s Semiotics program

• His web site

• Currently based in Santa Fe, NM (?), continues to make underground films (unlike Araki, who“graduated” to making bigger budgeted indiewood features) His most recent film is Pig Death Machine (2013), other films include: Sleazy Rider (1988), Hippy Porn (1991), Mod Fuck Explosion (1994), Fame Whore (1997), and Scumrock (2002).

• Even though Jon is married to a woman, Amy Davis, with whom he collaborates, his work share alot of the qualities with queer cinema, including parody, outrageousness, infatuation with popular culture, the importance of music, drag, and fascination with shock value.

• His interview in GB also touched on issues of funding, identity politics, andhow an independent / undergroundAsian American filmmaker survives and makes his / her work.

Mommy, Mommy, Where’s My Brain? (1986) Dir. Jon Moritsugu

Discussion Questions:

Discussion Questions:

Have we watched any films like this in class thus far?

Discussion Questions:

Have we watched any films like this in class thus far? If so, compare / contrast?

Discussion Questions:

Have we watched any films like this in class thus far? If so, compare / contrast? What about outside of class?

Discussion Questions:

Have we watched any films like this in class thus far? If so, compare / contrast? What about outside of class?

How would you describe this type of cinema (in terms of context, inspiration, intended audience?)

Discussion Questions:

Have we watched any films like this in class thus far? If so, compare / contrast? What about outside of class?

How would you describe this type of cinema (in terms of context, inspiration, intended audience?)

What about Asian American representation? Is this an Asian American film?

Terminal USA (1993)

Tien LeNina Lee

• Did you like/not like the film? Why or why not?

• How is this film similar or different to both the films we have watched in class as well as Mommy Mommy Where’s My Brain?

Clip of kids coming home (2:58-4:30) vs. ending48:53- 49:54

• How can we apply the previously discussed concepts of dismantling stereotypes and refunctioning representation to Moritsugu’s alternative usage of stereotypes in Terminal USA?

• Shothat and Stam challenge the preoccupation with stereotype analysis and the idea of representation realism trapping people into image analysis rather than discursive analysis. How does Moritsugu’s film support Shothat’s and Stam’s call to – critique both image and voice– question the genre of realism in regards to ethnic representation?

• Moritsugu was awarded a grant from PBS to create and show his film, thus forcing him to create a censored version of Terminal USA

• In his Giant Robot interview, Moritsugu talks about the preference for certain kinds of films based on minimum quota-filling ideals. How can restrictive support (funding, acknowledgement from film festivals) affect the creation of content?

• Eurocentric asian american representation that is the only kind of representation that is supported and funded.. does his film critique “Asian American film”?