Not to defend Michael Jackson or anything, but I don't really think calling Tommy Motolla a Mafioso constitutes an anti-Italian slur. More like a reasonable assumption, it would seem to me.

But then, I thought this:

...it will be a long, long time before we erase the memory of the bucktoothed, jabbering Mickey Rooney in "Breakfast at Tiffany's," or Sidney Toler as Charlie Chan.

Was a laugh-out-loud overstatement. (It will be a long time because Asian-American studies folks bring it up whenever the opportunity presents itself--the only people watching Breakfast at Tiffany's anymore are the gays, and the only people watching Charlie Chan movies are my dad, and I don't think either group considers them realistic portrayals.) But maybe I've just read too much Adrian Tomine, i.e. some, or I've spent too much time on a leftist college campus. Anyway, point being, I'm not very sensitive to these sorts of things, so what should I know.

(Of course, neither apparently is my friend Erica, who spent a year in China and whose subsequent recounting of that period tends to remind one of Krusty. O, we children of privilege.)

Here is a picture of Charlie Chan actively setting the race back etc. etc.:



And oh hey, they're doing a new version! With Lucy Liu! Sweet. I hope people protest.
posted by Mike B. at 3:59 PM 0 comments