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'Escape From Guantanamo Bay': What's it about?

BY LEWIS BEALE | Special to Newsday

April 20, 2008

Here's the thing about the "Harold and Kumar" films: They're raunchy and profane, filled with almost nonstop dope smoking, toilet humor, naked women and enough ethnic and racial stereotyping to satisfy a Ku Klux Klan convention. The lead characters, Korean-American Harold Lee (played by John Cho) and Indian-American Kumar Patel (Kal Penn), are substance abusers and horn dogs, the latest in a long line of seemingly clueless frat-boy types who have starred in that debased film genre known as the stoner comedy.

So when "Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay," the sequel to 2004's "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle," opens Friday, it's simply another example of the decline of Western civilization and the coarsening of our popular culture. Right?

Uh, not exactly. The films are, in fact, "a revolutionary portrayal of Asian-American men, shown as regular, everyday guys," says Phil Yu of angryasianman.com, an Asian-American news and culture blog. "They're not perfect, and far from noble, but you're rooting for them. And you have this revolutionary package in a stoner movie, complete with fart jokes and boob jokes."

"For young Asian-American men, [the first] movie has had a huge impact, and the positives outweigh the negatives," adds Deanna Lee of New York's Asia Society. "They hadn't seen anything like , even in a mainstream role. They're in two roles that have been dominated by well-known white male duos like 'Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure,' or 'Dude, Where's My Car?' If anything, this is a genre of the white buddy movie that they've come into."

In such small, seemingly bizarre ways does society advance. Fact is, the "Harold and Kumar" movies are almost a primer on 21st century multiculturalism. Not only are the protagonists American to the core -- Hey! They're just like us! -- but their best friends are two Jewish guys (also stoners, of course) and their girlfriends are Hispanic and WASP. None of this is even commented on in the films, because it's just the natural order of things. And it's a long way from the Asian-male stereotypes that have been presented on film and TV for years -- the martial arts expert, foreign exchange student, gangbanger, dateless nerd.

These standard images have, says Sonjia Hyon, director of the Asian-American International Film Festival, "mostly been about Asians as being foreign to the U.S. It's always about how they're not American, even if they are American."

That's not the world Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg grew up in. The duo, who wrote the first "Harold and Kumar" film and wrote and directed the new one, are two Jewish guys from Randolph, N.J. Says Hurwitz: "The world we grew up in there were Asian guys, Indian guys, black guys, and they were all very much like ourselves. But whenever we watched movies, we never saw our world portrayed on the screen. And eventually we decided wouldn't it be different if we wrote a movie where the Asian guys weren't the best friend, and they were front and center."

"We grew up in a multicultural world, a progressive society," adds Schlossberg, "yet not everyone shares those same progressive thoughts. Harold and Kumar represent that 21st century multiculturalism in a world where some people are still thinking backward."

That kind of thinking, pretty revolutionary for Hollywood, tended to blow people away. Cho admits that when he read the first "Harold and Kumar" script, in which the boys get stoned and develop a hunger for some White Castle sliders, his initial reaction was "mostly disbelief that a white man had written this script for an Asian man."

From modest hit to cult phenomenon

In an earlier interview with Newsday, Penn said he found the screenplay "funny in a vulgar way, but also smart in a subversive political way. And what the writers have done is make a film that's funny, about two guys who get high one night and want to go out and get burgers, and they happen to be Asian and Indian, and that has nothing to do with anything else. It's oddly empowering to play a character like that."

It's not as if the first movie was a breakout success, however. "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle" grossed $18 million on a $9 million budget, which made it a modest hit. But it quickly became a cult phenomenon, embraced especially by young Asian-American males.

"The Asian-American establishment was hesitant as to how to receive us," Cho says. "But immediately on the streets, young Asian-American guys were just thrilled."

"I like the fact it's these two Asian-American actors in the movie, and they get to participate in this frat-boy humor," adds Phil Yu in a typical comment. "They handle race in a way that everyday people handle it. Sometimes it affects us, and sometimes we'll go to White Castle. It's very subtle, but very genuine."

Older Asians tend to disapprove

Not that R-rated raunch wins approval from everyone in the Asian community. "There are people who say they won't watch the movie because turning them into stupid stoners is offensive," Lee says. "Some people, particularly older Asians, fear it might be demeaning."

Adds Hyon: "There is something very effective and emotional for Asian-American youth to see somebody who looks like them on-screen. But I wish people would get excited about Asian-American independent cinema, because there are more interesting ideas about what it means to be Asian-American there than what Harold and Kumar offers. It's still the mainstream; you're not going to get something complicated or challenging."

And yet, the consensus is that no matter how stupid and gross the films are (and funny), they do represent a legitimate leap forward for Asian-

American film images. So what's next? An Asian-American superstar? Or something else entirely? Right now, the biggest Asian stars are probably Jet Li and Jackie Chan, neither of them American. And even though Daniel Dae Kim of "Lost" and Masi Oka of "Heroes" are American citizens, the characters they play are foreigners.

Cho feels a true Asian-American film superstar would "be a huge symbolic step forward. I'm not sure what it would mean in terms of the industry, but it would be a huge positive move."