July 29, 2003

Only full-blooded Asians need apply

HOLLYWOOD - Fox is sticking by its newest reality show, "Banzai" - despite protests from Asian-American groups who find the show offensive...

Aki Aleong, president of the Media Action Network for Asian Americans, believes the exaggerated accents used by the narrators in "Banzai" reinforces negative stereotypes of Asians here.

"This is America," Aleong said. "They do not do shows with the 'N' word anymore. They took off 'Amos n Andy' when it was a top-10 show. They took off the Frito Bandito because it was offensive."

Aleong said his group wasn't looking for Fox to cancel "Banzai" but would like it "retooled" to eliminate the accents or have some Asian actors who speak English clearly.

"We laughed at the games on the show," he said. "We would support this show in a minute if it had some balance."

Berman said future episodes of "Banzai" would have the narrators speaking more clearly. But she added that the accents of the Asian actors on the show are real and there are no plans to change them.

"We are working with Asian people," she said. "These are the voices of these men. We're not putting other voices on them."

Perhaps FOX should send them a big box of lollies and blankies in an attempt to make amends.

No, they can't do that, but hopefully one day someone will. MANAA, you will recall, are the same crybabies who protested the casting of John Cleese as Lucy Liu's father in the work of art known as Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. In their LA Times editorial, they said that Lucy was obviously a "full-blooded Asian," and decried the auteur's inability to feature a nice, normal Asian nuclear family.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that Banzai, or at least some of its skits, appears to be lensed in jolly old England.

Posted to MultiCultiCult at July 29, 2003 04:27 PM

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