July 25, 2004

"A Dumb Stoner Comedy for a New American Century"

Times chief film critic, A.O. Scott, on upcoming stoner flick "Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle":

    ...one of the few recent comedies that persuasively, and intelligently, engage the social realities of contemporary multicultural America.

Huh? Now I'm intrigued.

    At first glance they could be poster children for early 21st-century American diversity (either that or marijuana legalization), except that the very word would totally kill their buzz. The impressive thing about "Harold and Kumar" is that it takes such blithe account of the fact of multiculturalism while having very little use for the concept. Or really, given its proud adherence to the standards of its genre, for any concept at all. It's not quite that ethnic differences don't exist, or that they're no big deal — being insulted or mocked or made to feel invisible has a way of turning into a big deal. It's more that belonging to a certain group has no inherent meaning and brings with it no particular obligations of behavior.

    --
    But the baggage of victimhood isn't really part of Harold and Kumar's nightlong road trip. Nor is the identity crisis that is a virtual requirement of immigrant literature. The kinds of books that Harold and Kumar would have been assigned to read in college, whether about Jewish-, Asian-, Italian- or Latino-Americans, feature a conflict between the traditions of the old country and the alluring freedoms of the new world, between customs that offer both confinement and continuity and choices that promise both liberation and loss. It's a durable tradition, stretching back to David Cahan's tales of Lower East Side striving in the early 19th century, through the anxious early novels of Saul Bellow and Philip Roth into the work of writers like Gish Jen and Sandra Cisneros, and it has become a staple of the post-Dead White Males literary curriculum. The dominant flavor in the melting pot is bittersweet, as the comedy of cultural collision is anchored in the pathos of yearning, betrayal and loss. In the movies, this predicament plays out in popular English domestic comedies like "Bend It Like Beckham" and "East Is East" and in warm, inspirational American dramas like "Real Women Have Curves" and "What's Cooking?"

    In most cases, those conundrums of assimilation are happily resolved, as the young protagonists of those films — and of the novels that tread over similar ground — find a way to balance the demands of home and the lure of the world, to move on without forgetting where they came from. What is striking about "Harold and Kumar" is not that these issues are resolved differently but that they never really come up. The drama of hyphenation does not interest Harold and Kumar at all. They have more important things to worry about, like escaping from group sex with a hideous, boil-covered tow-truck driver, fending off a rabid raccoon and, above all, finding that elusive fast-food restaurant where all desires can be satisfied. In the future, a term paper will no doubt be written about the racial connotations of the name White Castle, about the way in which its elusiveness represents the mirage of assimilationist aspirations and its ultimate attainment suggests the terrible double-bind of American pluralism — all of which is fine. But really, the thing is — dude, they're hungry.

I can't say I'm a big fan of the stoner flick genre. So when I first heard about this movie at Mahoot Media's Blog (Mahoot is also executing an ethnic marketing campaign for New Line on behalf of the movie), I thought to myself, "Harold and Kumar Go Straight To Video" more likely.

But I have to admit I'm rather tired of the immigrant generational sagas which Scott refers to. At least in film, those kind of stories are among the few opportunities that people of varied ethnic backgrounds are represented or given any prominent screentime. It's not that those narratives no longer have any place or legitimacy for me, it's just that they feel played out and stale.

In contrast, reading A.O. Scott's review about the antics of Harold and Kumar's second generation protagonists actually sounds refreshing. Chalk it up to my increasingly boorish tastes, but at least Harold and Kumar show new dimensions among people of color that haven't yet been represented. This is no Joy Luck Club redux, and by my estimation that's a good thing.

Now I haven't seen the movie yet, so I can't vouch for it, but the likelihood of my watching it just increased. Plus, check out the critics meter so far at Rotten Tomatoes -- shocking.

Posted by thomas at July 25, 2004 12:41 PM | TrackBack