I can’t wait. Seriously. Thanks a bunch!

Will do.

It might take me a bit (I’ll have to make sure to track down the movie and watch it again, so I don’t confuse what’s actually in it with the cultural echoes of it), but Top Gun will definitely get overthought soon.

This is, of course, especially the case since Top Gun was mentioned as an example of blurring the line between those two, and in my view not without justification.

Since more movies since then – and before, I suppose – have been tip-toeing on and crossing the line of epic and mock-epic, and thus have more or less unintentionally created infinitely more interesting films than the ones just about succeeding, would this be worthy of any further OTI attention when I request it?

For the record: I hereby do. I mainly do this because I simply love Top Gun in spite of being a complete movie snob in all other respects, and as of yet I can’t figure out why exactly. Any help would therefore be appreciated.

Thanks,
Dereck

As for “Tropic Thunder” itself, I wasn’t offended, and believe me, I could have had the “right” to be- I have disabled siblings and work in special education. But I wasn’t, and for two reasons. First, I thought it was done well enough on its own that it wasn’t offensive. Secondly, that movie made fun of pretty much everybody. Gays, Jews, Hollywood itself, Asians, blacks, rich people, fat people, British people… I mean, I think the only groups not at least poked at a bit were Native Americans (we get ignored even by movies that have no qualms) and Mexicans (I guess they just couldn’t work in a joke about illegal immigrants or something). Nothing was sacred. Realizing that pretty quick, I didn’t take offense to any of it.

I have a lot of issues with some groups in the disabled community, and ones like that do to disability what similar groups do for other minorities: they cause more divides and make things move backward instead of forward.

Anyhoo, what about the fact that Neil Patrick Harris originally became famous for playing a brilliant white doctor? I think his debauchery in the movie is meant to stand in contrast to Kumar’s abilities. Kumar is “real” and a brilliant doctor like Harris’s former character. But Harris himself is clearly not remotely capable of being a doctor. Perhaps to say that “white men can’t [really] jump,” so to speak?

As for point 2, as we’ve seen time and time again, many people are unable to recognize things that are over the top to the point of mocking parody. For example, “Simple Jack” and the whole “full retard” thing from “Tropic Thunder.” Advocacy groups for the mentally handicapped (is that the PC term these days? “Special needs”?) found those jokes to be unspeakably offensive, though the filmmakers were clearly using that as a vehicle for satire. Or were they? More on “Tropic Thunder” later on this blog…

Anyway, so the filmmakers may intended that surgery scene to be mocking parody, but the point was probably missed by most people in the audience. For review:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gApgseUuXc

1. Harold and Kumar are very unhappy with the social roles apportioned to reject them pretty strongly. The movie is about them rebelling against the expectations that are set for them, and finding yet another set of expectations that are just as rejectable, and then eating hamburgers. I think they find a happy medium that considers the model minority stereotype with appropriate depth.

2. They make fun of the “model minority” stereotype by giving Kumar super-doctor powers while high. I think it’s over-the-top enough that it has to be a mocking parody, but I guess it’s a judgement call.

3. Although I cannot be certain because I have not seen it, a quick perusal of the imdb page confirms the hunch that this very topic is the primary subject of _Harold & Kumar, Escape from Guantanamo Bay_.

So, by all means, bring it up, but I think H&K are on the right side of this one most of the time.

First, I’m sure many OTI readers are aware of this, but movies like this, for better or for worse, do support the “model minority” stereotype. Though Harold and Kumar struggle with racial bias, they are both well educated, priveledged products of the American Dream. Harold doesn’t work in a dry cleaning shop; Kumar’s dad is a doctor and not a taxi driver. I can’t remember if this movie dealt directly with the whole “model minority” issue, but I wanted to point out a couple of quick reasons why this sort of stereotype is dangerous:

1) calling one racial group a “model minority” is a coded racial criticism of other groups that aren’t often referred to as “model minorities” (blacks, hispanics, native americans)

2) calling Asian-Americans “model minorities” (and to a lesser extent, depictions in pop culture that present them as successful products of assimilation and the American Dream) glosses over tremendous variances between sub-groups of Asian-Americans; e.g., Cambodian recent immigrants do not perform as well in school as American-born Korean American kids. Even Korean-Americans, often seen as shining examples of immigrant prosperity, have one of the lowest health insurance rates among ethnic groups in the nation.

Again, I could go on an on about this, but I wanted to be sure to bring this up, since no overthought discussion of this movie is complete without the model minority conundrum.