8/3/2004 » Film

Consider this:

• Desi comedian Arj Barker was just cast as the new lead for ‘Nevermind Nirvana,’ the desi-marries-white-girl TV pilot directed by David Schwimmer for mid-season consideration. Barker currently stars in the The Marijuana-logues, a love paean to big reefs that’s a takeoff on The Vagina Monologues (via Hollywood Masala).
• Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle features desi actor Kal Penn doing the funniest fantasy sequence about a man and his bud ever, plus a wicked parody of an anti-pot commercial called ‘Weed Kills!’ Harold & Kumar bowed to great reviews but weak box office last Friday, the victim of brown-on-brown violence inflicted by M. Night Shyamalan and his entire Village.
• Cult comedy hit Super Troopers had director Jay Chandrasekhar and his merry band of highway policemen take the high road as frequently as possible.
• As a handsome Asian stoner, Leonardo Nam stole the show from starlet Scarlett Johansson in The Perfect Score.

Is Hollywood’s newfound interest in drugged-out Asians a good thing or a bad thing? Vinod points out via email that Asian stoner characters are unthreatening comic figures to the average American, a sly way of slipping Asians into major roles to be laughed at without making them romantic leads. That leaves them only slightly more respectable than Fu Manchu and Stepin Fetchit.

On the other hand, these characters are portrayed as high IQ when they aren’t puffing the magic dragon. Penn offhandedly conducts successful major surgery, Chandrasekhar is the studly head cop who gets the girl, Nam turns out to be an expert Web programmer at a pivotal moment. They’re all relatively cool; poor John Cho gets stuck with being the uptight straight man in Harold & Kumar. And part of their inherent humor is that Asian stoners contradict the model minority stereotype, which makes these characters much more well-intentioned than Cheech & Chong.

I love seeing desi comedians’ careers lighting up as more than token. Maybe chronic dominance ain’t so bad after all.