“OK, that’s enough. Shut it off,” my girlfriend announced with growing annoyance.
We were about 15 minutes into “Sixteen Candles,” when the introduction of a Chinese character with the intended comical name of Long Duk Dong took an already shaky film horribly off the rails. We listened as the soundtrack played a gong every time his name was mentioned, again for intended comical effect. Once. Twice. And on the third strike, we were out.
It was disappointing. Like many 1980s teens, I had a crush on Molly Ringwald, and I eagerly looked forward to seeing the last of her trio of hallmark films that somehow had eluded me over the years. She didn’t disappoint, with her sublime mix of perky, pouty expressions that so struck a chord in 16-year-old me. Then came the gong.
Disappointing indeed. The 1984 of my memory was an enlightened time. The civil rights movement, largely successful according to our history classes, was behind us. Equality, or at least the legislative requirement for it, had been achieved. Society, though largely dominated by white people, began to envision opportunity for those who were different. Yet there on the screen, the white suburban middle class that defined the John Hughes oeuvre that in turn defined ’80s pop culture looked at those who were different and found opportunity for ridicule.
Watching a touchstone film from a bygone era is sure to produce, through no one’s fault, any number of cringeworthy moments. We see an action hero slyly working a fax machine in a demonstration of tech prowess. Sleek (but by today’s standards enormous) cordless phones wow audiences accustomed to Ma Bell’s standard rotary unit. Fashion vacillates between bell bottoms and puffy pants, wide collars and shoulder pads. And gold star to the viewer who can identify the year of the movie by the cast’s hairstyles. Such anachronisms make old films fun to watch – for both those who were and weren’t alive at the time – so long as we understand the mockery we giddily heap on them will surely be turned on us by future generations.
But not so fun is confronting past cultural standards that jar our current sensibilities. Go back before the ’80s, and you run into some disturbing clues about how society viewed those who were different. The TV show “Bonanza” laid out a bizarre ideal of four men – a father and three sons – fulfilling a boyish mini-manifest destiny of taming a wild and beautiful natural space, unencumbered by racial and gender complexity. Women were a distraction, at times a pleasant one, but a distraction nonetheless that had to be excised by episode’s end. Native tribes were tolerated so long as they kept a respectful distance and in no way interfered with the Cartwrights’ operation of the Ponderosa. Mexican and Asian characters were reduced to loyal but over-emotional or slow-witted sidekicks. “Bonanza” was a place for white men. And it enjoyed a popularity that made it one of television’s longest-running series.
The decidedly more feminized film adaptation of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” fares no better with Mickey Rooney’s over-the-top stereotyped portrayal of Audrey Hepburn’s Japanese neighbor. Make no mistake, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” is a great story and a great film, and Hepburn delivers an adorable, irresistible performance for the ages. Yet I can’t bring myself to watch it anymore, nor can I recommend it without a stern disclaimer.
Wisconsin Public Radio came to a similar conclusion a few years ago when it decided to stop airing rebroadcasts of classic radio shows from the 1930s and ’40s. The question wasn’t simply whether the values and standards expressed in those episodes would align with those of today’s listeners, many of whom are not white or male. Clearly, those shows were creatures of their time and limited in their understanding of issues of sensitivity that today seem self-evident. But we also need to understand that historical context doesn’t inoculate attitudes that by all objective measures can be deemed exclusive and offensive.
I remember how WPR’s decision incensed many of my friends and colleagues, who invoked charges of P.C. censorship gone wild, erasing flawed but valid historical works. I agree with this to a certain point, but the context in which the shows are presented is important. I once attended a screening of “Birth of a Nation” that was carefully framed by an introduction and follow-up discussion led by an academic expert in the study of race and post-Civil War Southern politics. It was not meant to be an entertaining night out. We didn’t bury the film or wish it away; we used it to inform and enlighten ourselves. In that way, WPR was right to recognize that presenting old-time radio purely as an entertainment offering was a disservice to its listeners.
Fast forward to the “enlightened” ’80s of my youth, and it’s interesting to see film and TV settle on humor as their security blanket in dealing with issues of race, gender and sexual orientation. Mel Brooks charted this course expertly in the wildly irreverent and at times searing “Blazing Saddles,” from which no racial or ethnic group was spared ridicule. But humor, and especially ridicule, are intensely subjective. I’ll be honest, some of the dialogue in “Blazing Saddles” is shocking to my 2023 ears. It’s not a film for everyone, and I particularly wonder what people under 30 make of it. The film boasts iconic, truly genius comedic moments, and I’d hate to see it thrown on the scrap heap over an arbitrary litmus test of verboten words. Still, I’d welcome a conversation with anyone who might struggle with it and would respect their decision to take a pass.
Where I’d argue Brooks and his team of writers, which included trailblazing comedian Richard Pryor, succeeded is in creating an ironically inclusive comic environment by making it clear that no one was safe. In contrast, Hughes’ “Sixteen Candles” retreated to an Asian caricature defined by the exotic, the other, with names and sound effects that were supposed to befuddle and amuse mainstream Americans. He singled someone out for being different, and that is what I found to be so stomach-turning. It was part of a reliable cast of stock tropes – the slick-talking, streetwise black man, the overly effeminate gay man, the butch lesbian, the shrill, undersexed feminist, the English-impaired South Asian cab driver, and so on – that remained firmly entrenched as go-to characters in Hollywood comedies well into this century, clinging to the defense that so long as it’s a joke, it can’t be offensive.
Except, what if no one’s laughing? Which is why it wasn’t a hard decision to bail on “Sixteen Candles.” If a comedian bombs, you walk out of the show. Not only was it offensive, it wasn’t funny. In the least. So we moved on.
I get it, movies like “Sixteen Candles” are part of the zeitgeist. It’s not like I’m starting a petition to get it removed from Netflix. To people who say the film, and its dated take on the innately humorous attributes of Asian people, are part of our history, warts and all, I say fine. It’s just not a part of history that I care to honor.
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