What kind of Asian are you?

The next video is a must watch: it is funny and revealing. The video is part of YouTube’s comedy week and was Co-directed by David Neptune and Ken Tanaka. http://www.everybodydiesbook.com

Starring Scott Beehner, Stella Choe and a Ken Tanaka jog by.
Directed by David Neptune and Ken Tanaka
Written by Ken Tanaka with David Ury
Camera and Sound by John Coyne and David Neptune

Scott Beehner is an actor from the Groundlings comedy troupe, and lots of tv shows like Zeke and Luther, Sunny in Philly, and Workaholics. Stella Choe is an actor and professional dancer from The Muppet Movie and other films and tv shows.

In this video, What Kind of Asian are you? Scott plays a friendly jogger who is very interested in guessing the heritage of Stella, an Asian American woman. He engages in some small talk and asks her where she is from because she doesn’t have an accent. San Diego and English is spoken there, she tells him. He begins to talk more slowly and labored asking again “Oh, no, where are you from.”

Addicting Info has the full story:

There is the assumption that regular American means white, the false assumption that any nonwhite person is from somewhere else. When she asks if he is Native American she forces him to drop his implicit belief in his supremacy as the real American.

There is the assumption that assimilation of individuals never occur. All those whose ancestors come from Korea do not like Kimchi just as all those with roots in England do not enjoy fish and chips.

There is the assumption that speaking louder and slower is necessary for a more satisfactory answer even though he is well aware the initial question was understood. Ultimately, the man thinks she is weird for playing back exactly what he did to her. When she asks “I am weird?” it is with the expectation that he would self-reflect. In his confused look I think he did.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWynJkN5HbQ]