Is this what it's like to be white?
Jul. 6th, 2010 12:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
laleiaHaha, odd title for this post.
I re-watched Red Doors today, only this time it wasn't a screening with friends, but at home on our dvd player with family.
In other words: AWKWARD.
Setting aside the whole slightly homophobic parents thing (I swear, I would have said more to my dad's "There are no gay people in China/it's all a state of mind" comments except 1. My whole refutation re: homosexuality in China would have been an extensive citation of a Wikipedia article, which may not have been the best support, and 2. I know my mom in particular is probably constantly & especially worried that I might be lesbian or forever celibate which probably both amount to the same thing for her, and I would rather not put up with any kind of awkward conversations this home-cycle), I remembered why I try to avoid watching indie Asian American films with my family.
Or more specifically, why watching films about Chinese American family with friends can be a fun game pointing out the things that I recognize and things I identify with, but watching the same films with family is like a long awkward silence where I try not to identify with the film at all.
The thing is, no matter how different the premise may be from my family, there are too many similarities to be comfortable. It's like shining a mirror on my own experiences in an uncomfortable light where I constantly wonder whether my parents recognize the bits of the film where I see them, and hope they don't recognize the bits where I see me, or that they don't read me into the bits where I don't see me. In short, hope they don't think too much into the motivations of the characters and start thinking about the looking in the same uncomfortable mirror that I may be.
So anyways, I got to thinking about how films about white American families or about Chinese families never evoke the same reaction in me, and realized that Chinese American families instantly represent my experience so much more than your mainstream white dysfunctional family, in all the small ways. It doesn't matter whether they're "more Chinese" or "less Chinese", whether their customs are different from mine, the cultural differences and parental pressure and so many small things are often so spot on that I immediately identify in a way I otherwise don't, and I never realized that until today, when I got to thinking ...
... is this what it's like to be white?
I mean, do white people watching a mainstream flick about white dysfunctional families identify with those families as strongly as I identify with this film where the family portrayed isn't even that similar to mine? Do they feel this way ALL THE TIME?
Obviously, it wouldn't have to always be awkward, the awkwardness really being dependent on how dysfunctional you and/or your family would be, but I just got to thinking about how being white (and, you know, part of the population that is regularly represented by Hollywood as opposed to the experiences that aren't) means you resonate with MAINSTREAM films, means you would almost ALWAYS be able to recognize the small things, means if I were born white, I might ALWAYS feel awkward when watching movies about dysfunctional families with my family.
I mean, in reality, the answer would be no, this isn't what it's like to be white. Probably most of my visceral reactions are in part because I don't see my experience represented most of the time and so I react more strongly when I do, etc etc etc and so the parts of my experiences that are commonly represented, I don't even given much thought to, and so white people seeing themselves represented in Hollywood is more like me seeing middle-class life represented, or something. Not something you give any thought to.
Anyways. That's all I have to say.
I re-watched Red Doors today, only this time it wasn't a screening with friends, but at home on our dvd player with family.
In other words: AWKWARD.
Setting aside the whole slightly homophobic parents thing (I swear, I would have said more to my dad's "There are no gay people in China/it's all a state of mind" comments except 1. My whole refutation re: homosexuality in China would have been an extensive citation of a Wikipedia article, which may not have been the best support, and 2. I know my mom in particular is probably constantly & especially worried that I might be lesbian or forever celibate which probably both amount to the same thing for her, and I would rather not put up with any kind of awkward conversations this home-cycle), I remembered why I try to avoid watching indie Asian American films with my family.
Or more specifically, why watching films about Chinese American family with friends can be a fun game pointing out the things that I recognize and things I identify with, but watching the same films with family is like a long awkward silence where I try not to identify with the film at all.
The thing is, no matter how different the premise may be from my family, there are too many similarities to be comfortable. It's like shining a mirror on my own experiences in an uncomfortable light where I constantly wonder whether my parents recognize the bits of the film where I see them, and hope they don't recognize the bits where I see me, or that they don't read me into the bits where I don't see me. In short, hope they don't think too much into the motivations of the characters and start thinking about the looking in the same uncomfortable mirror that I may be.
So anyways, I got to thinking about how films about white American families or about Chinese families never evoke the same reaction in me, and realized that Chinese American families instantly represent my experience so much more than your mainstream white dysfunctional family, in all the small ways. It doesn't matter whether they're "more Chinese" or "less Chinese", whether their customs are different from mine, the cultural differences and parental pressure and so many small things are often so spot on that I immediately identify in a way I otherwise don't, and I never realized that until today, when I got to thinking ...
... is this what it's like to be white?
I mean, do white people watching a mainstream flick about white dysfunctional families identify with those families as strongly as I identify with this film where the family portrayed isn't even that similar to mine? Do they feel this way ALL THE TIME?
Obviously, it wouldn't have to always be awkward, the awkwardness really being dependent on how dysfunctional you and/or your family would be, but I just got to thinking about how being white (and, you know, part of the population that is regularly represented by Hollywood as opposed to the experiences that aren't) means you resonate with MAINSTREAM films, means you would almost ALWAYS be able to recognize the small things, means if I were born white, I might ALWAYS feel awkward when watching movies about dysfunctional families with my family.
I mean, in reality, the answer would be no, this isn't what it's like to be white. Probably most of my visceral reactions are in part because I don't see my experience represented most of the time and so I react more strongly when I do, etc etc etc and so the parts of my experiences that are commonly represented, I don't even given much thought to, and so white people seeing themselves represented in Hollywood is more like me seeing middle-class life represented, or something. Not something you give any thought to.
Anyways. That's all I have to say.
