Eyebrows were raised last March when a casting call was put out for the role of Michael Wong in the upcoming Focus Features’ biopic, Milk. The listing described Wong, a prominent member of the campaign staff of the titular Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to public office, as “fiercely intelligent (a nerd, even) and asexual.” When that did not bear fruit, the studio put out a second call, this time calling Wong “the ultimate dork.”
While the listing drew livid reactions from Asian American bloggers, no one was more perturbed than Wong himself.
“I thought it was very insulting,” Wong said. “To me, what they wrote up was a description of stereotype — a castrated Asian American man.”
That the casting call did not bother the actor who was eventually cast for the part, Kelvin Yu, is “not a great commentary on the state of race in Hollywood,” said the veteran actor laughingly in an interview last week.
Nevertheless, Yu was wary of the role, and he was relieved when director Gus Van Sant told him to drop the sexless, ultimate dork facet in his portrayal.
“I can’t play that, that’s not who I am,” Yu recalled saying.
Instead, Yu, who appeared in the 2006 film Grandma’s Boy and the TV show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, found the role much more interesting than he anticipated.
“Michael was an archetype,” said Yu of Wong, who is no longer active in politics. “He was one of those very undercover, low profile guys who could just run the s— out of a campaign.”
Moreover, the part allowed Yu to channel Wong’s sense of humor.
“I thought this was going to be one of the run of the mill, nebbish Asian characters,” he said. “But meeting Michael, I was delighted to find that he was biting, caustic, acidically comedic and intelligent, and that his humor comes from the same place where his political anger comes from.”
This aspect of the character was displayed in the playfully antagonistic interaction between Milk (Sean Penn) and Wong in the film — lighthearted ribbing that mirrored the real-life relationship between the two men during Milk’s 1975 and ’76 campaigns.
Milk is gaining buzz not only for being Oscar-worthy, but also for its political timeliness; the film, which opens on November 26 amidst continuing protest and outrage over the passage of a California bill outlawing gay marriage, follows Milk’s campaign for gay rights.
Yu considers Milk to be the most important film he’s ever worked on.
“At the end of the day, movies are entertainment… but this is one of those movies that are important, that can ultimately change people’s perceptions.”
As for the original casting call and others like it, Yu is optimistic: “As more Asian males pursue acting, I think its gotta change, just by sheer volume. It can’t not change.”
Hey, I’m a mite confused here.
The producers and “creators” of this film HAD to get the “man”s,” in this case, one Michael Wong’s, permission to begin with?
In which case, he had, also,. to be privy to the “casting call” descriptions of “asexual,” “nerd,” and/or whatever. Or, at the very least, was paid for such insolences and intolerances.
But, folks, what seems to me to matter here isn’t even the early-floated “Oscar” for Sean Penn, who, by the way, is one of the more “authentic” and truer “artists” in Gollywood, today, yesterday, OR tomorrow. He probably deserves it, in place of the one he DIDN’T get for making “The Indian Runner.”
But, back to the basics herein, which appear to have to do with “Asian” or “Chinese” “males” and their claim to what the great unwashed seem to consider either “manliness” OR “macho,” this perch finds the “issue” both non-sequitur AND funny. As in ha-ha.
ANYone who derives his, or her for that matter,er, ah, “sexual” validity, never mind identity, from the superficial, immature, and highly suspect environs of the Gollywoods is, in this estimate, one ripe sucker.
Actually, overripe, as in gone to seed, baby.
All those James Wong-Howe-lit profiles and “better sides” are smoke and mirors, guys.
What matters is what you, personally, on your own, manage to bed and tell about.
The rest is breakfast at the nearest sidewalk cart.
Which, on occasion, may prove better than what you can whip up on your own stovetop or zap in your microwave.
From Sessue Hayakawa, hey, even Rudy Valentino was “Latin”?, to the overmacho Bruce Lee, though he was an original, he was still victim of the identical syndrome here, “we,” poor besmirched, unjustly I can assure you from personal experience(s), slant-eyed Woody Allens and Walter Mittys must proclaim just one more “sexual” “manifesto,” to wit”
We have nothing to lose but the chains of perceptions of others.
Who needs them”
And the chains are easily broken.
Films can be fun, entertaining, on occasion even enlightening.
But not a single film holds a candle to experience.
And no one can experience FOR you.
So, guys, get a grip.
On your own. Both ways.
Then stop worrying ab0ut what others think.
And start doing what you do best.
With a willing, if not actually eager, partner, that is.
Rotsa ruck.
And to Hell with those other woody allens and walter mittys.
P.S.: When they cast Chun Mung Gut, let me know.
rndle to experience.
And no one can experience FO4 you.
So, why sweat the relationship, or lack thereof, of the cinemaic “Michael Wong” with the cinematic “Harvey Milk”?
If I HAD to believe it, sight unseen, I think I’d go along with James Franco as the “white” pro tem “lover.”
Bearing in mind of course, that today’s “sexiest man alive” is one Aussie thesp named Hugh Jackman? Sure it ain’t one Scientologist name Tom whatsisname?