World AIDS Day

We encourage you on World AIDS Day to learn about the way that AIDS and HIV affect our API communities.

For A&PIs of all sexual orientations, including heterosexuals, 1 in 3 living with HIV don't know it. Even worse, two-thirds of all Asians and over half of all Pacific Islanders have never been tested for HIV. Here are more key facts about HIV and A&PIs:

• Between 2001 and 2004, Asian and Pacific Islander men had the largest percentage increase in new HIV infections, more than any other racial and ethnic group
• Between 2001 and 2006, the number of new HIV infections among young gay and bisexual Asian and Pacific Islander men more than doubled

Former MANAA Vice President, Leslie Ishii, Makes Triumphant Directorial Debut at East West Players in "Crimes of the Heart"

MANAA is pleased to announce that former MANAA Vice President, Leslie Ishii, has a success on her hands. She is directing "Crimes of the Heart," playing at East West Players from November 4 until December 5. This is Ishii's directorial debut. One of the reviewers calls her direction "spot-on" and the other reviewers asserted that her direction was "with a steady hand." See the links to the reviews, below. Congratulations, Leslie, on a job well done!

Stage Scene LA

Los Angeles Downtown News

Marvel responds to casting concerns

Our friends at Racebending.com recently alerted us to the fact that in Marvel's casting announcement for a film version of The Runaways, the character of Nico Minoru was not specified as Asian American. We are so happy to report that they have remedied this situation! Thanks to Marissa Lee at Racebending for taking on this important issue. For more info, check out this report.

Here is our letter to Marvel, thanking them for responding to our concerns:

August 26, 2010

Mr. Pflug,

We recently heard that Marvel Entertainment has updated the casting notice for THE RUNAWAYS to specify that Nico Minoru is Asian American and extended the deadline for submissions. On behalf of the Media Action Network for Asian Americans, I wanted to thank you for this quick response to the concerns of the Asian American community. We take this action as an indication that Marvel is dedicated to seeking out minority talent for this project, which I'm sure you know is one of the most important steps toward diversifying our media landscape and providing more balanced representations of minorities.

Thank you again for listening to our concerns and taking action to support our community. We look forward to conversations with you in the future.

Sincerely,

Lori Lopez

Vice President

Media Action Network for Asian Americans

manaa.org

MANAA Announces Its Eighth Annual Filmmaking Scholarship

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: (909) 869-3899

LOS ANGELES- MANAA, the Media Action Network for Asian Americans, is pleased to announce one $1000 scholarship for currently enrolled graduate and undergraduate students interested in pursuing careers as filmmakers and in television production (not broadcast journalism). Formed in 1992, MANAA is the only organization solely dedicated to monitoring the media and advocating balanced, sensitive, and positive depiction and coverage of the Asian American community.

MANAA recognizes the urgent need to fill the ranks of television and film with persons of Asian descent in decision-making positions as screenwriters, directors, producers, and studio executives. We are looking to award students who have a strong desire to advance a positive and enlightened understanding of the Asian American experience in the mainstream media.

Scholarship recipients will be selected on the basis of their academic and personal merit, desire to uplift the image of Asian Americans in film and television as demonstrated in their essay, and potential as demonstrated in their work sample.

The postmark deadline for submission is Friday, October 29, 2010.

STUDENTS MUST SUBMIT THE FOLLOWING MATERIALS. INCOMPLETE APPLICATIONS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED.

1. A copy of all official transcripts.

2. Two letters of recommendation, one that evaluates academic and artistic aptitude and another that speaks to the student’s interest and involvement in the community.

3. A double-spaced essay consisting of no more than 1,000 words addressing the following items: Describe your involvement in the Asian/Pacific Islander Community. How does this involvement influence your creative work? How do you see your creative work influencing the API community in the next five to ten years?

4. A work sample consisting of either a short film or a selection from a screenplay (your best scene plus a synopsis or a 1000-word excerpt). Materials will not be returned.

5. A resume of both your work history and your community involvement.

Send all completed applications to MANAA Scholarship, P.O. Box 11105, Burbank, CA 91510.

Please do not send applications via certified or registered mail.

For more information about MANAA and our monthly meetings, please visit:

MANAA website: www.manaa.org

Facebook page: www.facebook.com/manaaLA

MANAA blog: manaa.blogspot.com

Any questions regarding the scholarship should be directed to scholarship@manaa.org or (213) 486-4433.

Protesting the premiere of "The Last Airbender"

Attention all MANAA and Racebending supporters, Asian American community organizers, and thousands of disgruntled fans of Nickelodeon's Avatar: The Last Airbender! A boycott/protest is being planned for the opening night of the movie, Thursday July 1st. More volunteers are needed to hold the protest in Los Angeles.

MANAA's protest last year against the movie "The Goods" resulted in media coverage and helped lead to an in-person meeting with the head of Paramount. Protests against the The Last Airbender have already resulted in media coverage, such as:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2010/05/racebending.html

http://www.racebending.com/v3/news/associated-press-50-other-media-outlets-may-25th-2010/

http://www.movieline.com/2010/05/boycotts-urged-over-white-stars-in-prince-of-persia-last-airbender.php

Please volunteer, make your voice heard, and send a message to the entertainment industry. For more information, see www.manaa.org/lastairbender.html or find MANAA on Facebook.

June 1 event: Changing Media Images of Asian Americans

Join OCA-OC and MANAA for an evening with famous Asian American actors discussing their experiences in Hollywood and their efforts to change the way mainstream media portrays Asian Americans.

Date: June 1, 2010

Time: 6pm (Registration and Networking)

7pm (Panel Discussion Program)

Location: University Club, UC Irvine

801 East Peltason Dr., Irvine CA

Cost: $5 for members, $15 for non-members

For more information, email: rsvp@oca-oc.org

Screening of Saving Face on May 23

Join API Equality LA for a screening of Saving Face on May 23 1:30pm at Bruggemeyer Library in Monterey Park, 318 S Ramona Ave. Saving Face (2004, 96 min) is about a Chinese-American lesbian and her traditionalist mother who are reluctant to go public with secret loves that clash against cultural expectations.

PANEL DISCUSSION FOLLOWING THE SCREENING
**Ming-Yuen S. Ma, Associate Professor in Media Studies at Pitzer College in Claremont;
**Tim Dang, Producing artistic director of East West Players, “the nation’s pre-eminent Asian American theater troupe”;
**Noel Alumit, Los Angeles Times best-selling author of Letters to Montgomery Clift and Talking To the Moon

The panelists will be addressing issues of Asian Pacific Islanders in cinema and gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people in the Asian Pacific Islander community.

Free popcorn and kuri manju at the screening and discussion!

Saving face can't make you safe. Talk about HIV.

We recently heard from The Banyan Project about their new campaign, "Saving face can't make you safe. Talk about HIV." In honor of National Asian and Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, we wanted to take this opportunity to share their public service announcement and some facts about the threat of HIV/AIDS in Asian American communities.

KEY FACTS ABOUT HIV AND A&PIs:

• 1 in 3 Asians & Pacific Islanders living with HIV don’t know it
• Over two-thirds of Asians and over half of Pacific Islanders have never been tested for HIV
• Between 2001 and 2004, Asian and Pacific Islander men had the largest percentage increase in new HIV infections, more than any other racial and ethnic group
• Between 2001 and 2006, the number of new HIV infections among young gay and bisexual Asian and Pacific Islander men more than doubled

To learn more about this project, please join the conversation at www.banyantreeproject.org

MANAA responds to Frank Marshall's UGO.com comments

The Media Action Network for Asian Americans would like to respond to Frank Marshall's comments that "Paramount has since been in regular dialogue with Asian American advocacy groups including the Japanese American Citizens League and the Media Action Network for Asian Americans to ensure that such a mistake does not happen in the future.” Although we are pleased to see that Marshall admit that their use of third-party casting agents resulted in casting language that was “poorly worded and offensive,” their dialogue with Asian American advocacy groups on the issue of discriminatory casting in The Last Airbender have been far from productive.

MANAA, Asian American advocacy groups, and members of the Asian American community contacted the producers of The Last Airbender in early 2009. In the letters, voicemails, and emails, producers were made aware that the casting language "Caucasian or any other ethnicity" was discriminatory, and that this language had clearly affected the initial cast of lead actors. After over a year of ignoring public concerns over this casting language as well as the production's cultural competency as a whole, it is disingenuous for Frank Marshall to trot out his iteration of the casting language to excuse the production's repeated gaffes. The phrase "Caucasian or any other ethnicity"—language that would be unacceptable for any job posting that was truly open to all races—was used on every major casting website and document, including Paramount's own. The resultant casting reinforces a double standard and glass ceiling where it is acceptable for a white actor to portray any ethnicity, but Asian American actors cannot even portray characters of their own ethnicity. M. Night Shyamalan’s recent dismissive comments to UGO.com that the casting is "more than [fans] could have expected" in terms of diversity are indicative of the production's failure to recognize the true discriminatory impact of their casting decisions.

In early 2009, MANAA and other Asian American advocacy groups repeatedly asked for a meeting to discuss the casting and depiction of cultures in the movie. The only response MANAA and other groups received was a letter from the production anonymously signed "The Producers." We have received no indication that "these mistakes will not occur in the future" because the production has never spoken with us. The production was not willing to meet with concerned Asian American advocacy groups, even though they were willing to fly Airbender fans to New York City for a catered breakfast with Shyamalan and lodging at a luxury hotel.

The “regular dialogue” Marshall mentions was actually the result of a protest over racial humor, hate crime jokes, and the use of the word "Jap" in another Paramount Pictures film, The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard. Due to outrage over this other Paramount production, we have been able to discuss the casting situation of The Last Airbender with the newly-promoted Paramount executives. In November 2009, Paramount promised MANAA diversity statistics and a pre-screening of The Last Airbender to assuage our concerns about the film's diverse depictions. Despite the fact that The Last Airbender has been prescreened to at least two groups, we have been repeatedly rebuffed in our requests to see the version shown to these groups. Although it has been five months since that November meeting, we hope Paramount still plans to live up to its promises.

all the great APAs on Lost

Two articles about Lost and all of our favorite Asian American actors on the show:

Melinda Hsu Taylor

In Part 1 of our Lost interviews, writer/producer Melinda Hsu Taylor talks about her favorite characters to write for and her affinity for the sci-fi genre.

Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse

Executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse talk about how Lost came to feature so many diverse Asian and Asian American actors.

Dancing Across Borders

The film Dancing Across Borders, a young man's journey from Cambodia to the ballet stage in America, opens in LA this Friday. Click on this image to enlarge for more info.

Landmark Nuart

11272 Santa Monica Boulevard, just west of the 405 Freeway

West Los Angeles, CA 90025

(310) 281-8223

Daily at 5:10, 7:30 and 9:50pm. Plus Friday and Saturday matinees at 12:30 and 2:50pm

*Filmmaker Anne Bass in person 7:30 & 9:50pm Friday, April 16 and Saturday, April 17, 2010

(Q&A after 7:30pm shows, intro only for 9:50pm shows)

Also Playing at:

Edwards Westpark 8

3755 Alton Parkway

Irvine, CA 92606

(949) 622-8609

Times TBD

2010 LA Asian and Pacific Islander Writing Contest

M. Night Shyamalan misses the point

M. Night Shyamalan on Racial Diversity in The Last Airbender

For those of us waiting for M. Night Shyamalan to address our concerns about the discriminatory casting in The Last Airbender, this latest article on ugo.com reveals some of his thinking on the matter. Unfortunately, it seems he really doesn't understand why everyone's so upset.

One good thing is that he admits that he's heard about the protest. But to respond to our calls for people of color as heroes, he simply points to the racial indeterminacy of anime -- as if that justifies the casting of only "European"-featured heroes. He completely neglects to mention that they specifically cast for white actors, instead implying that they were really trying to populate their world with a mix of races. Which would be hard to do with the casting announcement for "Caucasian or any other ethnicity."

He also states, "Maybe they didn’t see the faces that they wanted to see but, overall, it is more than they could have expected. We’re in the tent and it looks like the U.N. in there." False. We expected to see people of color as the heroes, rather than as the background actors and the villains, so we are not getting even close to these expectations. Also, if he were true to his metaphor of the U.N., he would have sat people of color at the table next to white people, as equals.

Finally, when prodded about how "the only characters of color are baddies," he responds "It's called irony." It's hard to read this remark since it doesn't make any sense, but the most disappointing thing is that he truly doesn't seem to take this critique seriously.

Kudos to Jordan Hoffman for getting responses to these "touchy" questions (except for the conspiracy theorist comment...), and a big thumbs down to M. Night Shyamalan for failing to respond appropriately.

Working your way up in TV: An Entertainment Career Workshop

For recent college graduates and early-career individuals:

You're invited to the annual Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Diversity Committee Career Workshop on the evening of April 19th. The event will be at the TV Academy, with check-in from 6:00 - 7:30pm. Event will start at 7:30pm and proceed until 10:00pm.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

Entry-level people who are aspiring to become Network & Studio Executives, Producers, Agents, Writers, Directors, Production Staff; anyone seeking entry-level positions including PAs, assistants, interns, and those trying to move up the ladder. Come in business attire and bring a pen and notepad in a leather portfolio.

Our goal is to get new folks into the system, train them and nurture them toward a successful entertainment career and build more fresh creative voices which ultimately impact society.

MONDAY, APRIL 19, 2010

7:30 - 10:00 PM

ACADEMY OF TELEVISION ARTS & SCIENCES

Leonard H. Goldenson Theatre

5230 Lankershim Blvd.

North Hollywood, CA 91601

RSVP to: atascareerworkshop@yahoo.com

Join us online!

MANAA finally jumped on the new media/social software bandwagon (hey, it's never too late right?)...join us on Twitter and Facebook! We promise to have exciting updates on everything that we're doing. Join us and get in on the action!

50 Most Racist Movies

This list of the 50 Most Racist Movies in Complex magazine is pretty great. Of course, we disagree with the subtitle "you didn't think were racist," since MANAA's long been busy pointing out the racism in movies like Dragonball, 21, The Last samurai, 16 Candles, and of course number one on the list Breakfast at Tiffany's.

But it's always great to see a compilation like this. Reminds us all that racism is indeed systemic in our culture and particularly in the media, surrounding us daily with images that are stereotypical and problematic. Check out the list and then think about how many more movies could be added to the list every year. Staggering, isn't it? Most of all, we just agree with the list's imperative -- "Turn on your racist radars, people!"

Seeing ourselves in the media

If you're on Facebook, you might have noticed that your friends have lately been changing their profile picture to "their celebrity doppelganger." Something you might NOT have noticed is that people of color haven't really been playing along. Why not? Maybe because when they try to think of celebrities who look like them, the list is just too small. While most white people can think of a celebrity who shares their hair color and length, the shape of their eyes, their smile, it's much less likely that all of your Asian friends happen to look like Lucy Liu, Sandra Oh, or John Cho. What are the odds, really?

Yet another moment when we realize that something is missing from our media landscape -- the faces of people who look like us and our friends. As it is, most Asian people have probably been told that they DO look like Lucy Liu or Sandra Oh, even if they look nothing like them (all look same right? wrong!). This Facebook meme offers a perfect opportunity to really think about what kind of people populate the media and what kind of people are missing. What would it feel like if you never saw anyone who looked like you, sounded like you, shared your experiences and histories in the media? If you never felt like one day you could be a famous celebrity?

Lunar New Year Celebration

MANAA is proud to be a Community Co-Sponsor of OCA-OC's 2010 Lunar New Year's Celebration this Saturday, Jan. 23rd at 6pm at the Atrium Hotel in Irvine, CA. Join MANAA and the Organization of Chinese American's Orange County chapter ring in the Year of the Tiger!

Please register at: http://www.oca-oc.org/?page_id=707

Jin Yoo-Kim Wins 2009 MANAA Scholarship

Jin Yoo-Kim and board member Lori Lopez meet at USC for congratulations on Yoo-Kim’s scholarship.

MANAA’s Student Scholarship Committee recently selected Jin Yoo-Kim to receive the 2009 scholarship of $1000. The committee was impressed with the professional quality of her numerous films, as well as the high praise given to her by her mentors.

“I was jumping for joy when I heard the news,” said Yoo-Kim. “The first thing I did was call my mom and dad because I wanted to tell them that I’m really an Asian American filmmaker and they don’t have to feel sad that I might not make it someday. I’m doing what I love.”

Yoo-Kim, an MFA student at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, has an impressive resume of films under her belt. Her work spans all genres and styles, from a documentary called Bearing Dreams on the prophetic dreams that Korean women have about the destiny of their unborn children, to Pretty, a fictional short about human trafficking and child prostitution, to Raider Nation, a humorous look at an obsessed football fan. She was also the recipient of an Armed with a Camera Fellowship at Visual Communication.

“My parents always wanted me to work in the family business,” she said. “But the turning point for my dad was when I had my picture in a Korean American newspaper promoting a film festival. He bought all the newspapers he could and gave it to all his family members. I saw how proud he was, and I knew he was going to let me do this now if I just push harder.”

One of Yoo-Kim’s goals with her work is to combat the stereotypical images of Asian Americans in films today. Although she is one of only three Asian Americans in her semester at USC, she strives to use all Asian American actors and crew. On her last set, all but 3 of the 20 or so crew members were Asian American. It’s a role that she thinks will land her the humorous award of “Most Asians in a Film” from her classmates, but she’s proud to take it on.

“The most Asian Americans I’ve seen in films is during my Asian American studies classes when they showed documentaries, and it just felt so natural,” she said. “I wanted to do that. I wanted to make Asian Americans look like part of society and not use them for any other reason.”

Working with Asian American actors is a pleasure for her because they are so excited to be working in an industry that often rejects them. She is also impressed with their creativity and thankful for their contributions to each project, which she feels are very collaborative in nature.

However, sometimes she struggles to convey her perspective in a world where Asian American experiences and identities are so misunderstood. On past films, her advisors have suggested that she add more ninja noises, gong sounds, or bonsai trees to her set dressing—Asian stereotypes that she refused to accept. Yoo-Kim also recalled a moment in class when the professor began talking about responsibility as a filmmaker.

“He said we should feel no responsibility about what we do because we’re creative and we shouldn’t hinder the artistic side. I totally disagreed with him,” she said. “I stood up and said I think as filmmakers we have an immense sense of responsibility because people watch film all over the world and it’s really powerful.”

Yoo-Kim’s latest film, called Cut the Fat, tells the story of a Korean girl who is bringing home her Korean boyfriend to meet her parents for the first time. She’s scared of her dad’s reaction, but she finds the strength to stand up to him. The film is based on some of her own experiences in seeking acceptance for her choices, and she’s excited because it’s not only what she considers her best work, but she is also planning on showing it to her dad at an upcoming screening.

“My parents are always worried about me. They tell me this industry isn’t right for me, that it’s not good for women. It’s a struggle,” she said.

Hopefully the MANAA Scholarship can help to validate her work and her struggles, and encourage her to continue bringing her unique perspective and talents to an industry that can definitely use them.