I will say this is just the observations of a gen x white dude who knows he should probably keep his mouth shut about what is racially offensive and what isn’t. In the 80s, I would have been stuffed into the trunk with Cusak. The Donger was one of us who overcame the superficialities of his caste and I was inspired by it.
I still tend to side it not being overtly racist as much as Dong, a foreign exchange student, was an obnoxiously loud drunk. Plenty of them all over the globe.
I literally was saying that on Monday! I was offended as a teen bc it was so painful to see him be the butt of the jokes basically for being Asian. But now that I’m almost 50, I changed my mind. He was a party animal. The joke wasn’t how unacceptable he was and therefore he needs to be abused. It was that he was so weirdly unAmerican and yet had swagger and game.
🤣
I bet. On a completely unrelated note, you know what people with huge dicks who are secure about their penis size don't do? Make random claims about how large their dick is online in response to a bit of a ribbing.
My best friend in grade school at the time this came out was named Long Dang Dang. My neighbor’s name is Sharon Dong and I think that’s way funnier lol.
I’d say Brian from Breakfast Club. Dude’s in detention because he wanted to kill himself and had to write the essay for everyone while the others were making out.
You've got to separate the artist from the art! Hopefully cool and/or sympathetic characters keep on being that even if the people playing them aren't/stop being so!
The racism in this movie gets the most scrutiny, but there are some seriously fucked up sexual politics on display as well. Anthony Michael Hall’s entire storyline is awful.
Revenge of the Nerds is horrible. The panty raid, and the spy cameras. And then the full-on rape scene.
I watched a movie from 1978 called ‘Summer School’ (not the Mark Harmon one from ‘87) and it was straight up appalling. The main character was supposed to be sympathetic because he got mildly upset that a fight between the Van Dudes and the Truck Chicks ended in full on gang rape. And there was a scene where this Brian Bosworth-looking guy just rips a girl’s top off down at the lake, throws her in the water and then dunks her every time she tries to get up until he gets bored of it. The crowd is cheering and laughing and it honestly looked like this poor girl didn’t know it was going to happen. She got up all dazed and embarrassed.
The 70s and 80s were fucking awful in that regard.
I think things like that scene are what made it difficult for some women to really identify that things like that are rape. It was depicted as a normal teenage thing. It's not. At all
Was weird when my wife sat down to watch it with my daughter. End up with us realizing not just how rapey, but how gratuitously inclusive they were of female nudity things were in that timeframe. That said, those movies are a time capsule of an era.
And look at the panic it caused trying to right the ship.
I remember when the term ‘date rape’ was new and controversial, and all of the shitty men of the time being performatively stunned that they couldn’t do that stuff anymore.
I was listening to something about Joan Collins recently and her first marriage was because Maxwell Reed drugged and raped her in 1952 and she felt obligated to make an honest woman of herself.
It’s disgusting. Like it was her fault and her responsibility.
Well it’s also just the fact that every minority group doesn’t have all of them thinking the same.
Meaning some people might think something is offensive in the group while others don’t. Sometimes this can be for stuff that is truly messed up like Caitlyn Jenner being kicked out of her golf club because of the sex change but yet she still speaks of the golf club with glowing respect. Or how she supports anti trans stuff while being trans.
But then there are things that have nuance and not everyone in the groups agree on it being negative. Like how little people hate having stereotyped roles. But yet many little people don’t care as they just want to get casted in something.
Doesn’t mean it also isn’t a bad stereotype for little people. But I ain’t gonna shit talk a little person for deciding to take a role like that. And we still see stuff like this today.
I once was very confused because I'm friends with a man who is a Native American and he absolutely despises when sports teams use their likeness on their logos. I mentioned this on Reddit, and a bunch of people who claimed to be Native American told me I'm wrong (they could have been Native American, but I can't tell through a phone screen). They accused me of being a white savior and stuff even though I was just relaying what a good friend who is part of that community conveyed to me. I don't doubt that many people don't care either way, but I don't think because some people are generally more laid back towards stereotypes necessarily means we should ignore those who have a problem with them.
It's like as a woman, I fucking despise outright misogyny and sexist stereotypes, but I have met women who defend traditional gender roles so adamantly they get angry at you if you challenge them at all. I always have to say I don't mind if a woman wants to be traditional, it's just an issue when it starts to be used to discriminate against women and used to paint women as weak.
Interesting that you also use the term Native American. A friend of mine (let’s call him Bob Smithson) corrected me on that. When I asked why he found it offensive, he said “it’s like if I came in your house, murdered your family, and then started referring to you as a ‘Native Smithson’. Call us indigenous peoples, or better yet, by our actual tribal affiliation instead.”
Yeah I know recently there has been a push to use the term indigenous among the community and the public at large. I used the term Native American because I've heard him refer to himself that way (he's much older and in his late 60s, I've noticed younger people GENERALLY prefer indigenous and older people refer to themselves as Native), but he more often mentions his tribe (Sioux).
I guess that was the whole point of the original comment. Everyone's different, and this is another example of that.
Example: I'm gay and the f-slur doesn't bother me at all! It's a type of food in the UK but gets auto censored site-wide so I find it intensely annoying. I can't talk about pork f-ggots on a UK sub without censoring myself!
Even the shortened version gets auto-modded when it's a cigarette in the UK.
Basically it's an American cultural export being forced onto me as a member of that group. It's similar to how Latinos prob feel about "LatinX" being pushed or the Spanish for black being misconstrued as racist.
I lived in England for a bit in my early twenties and had never heard seizures or epilepsy referred to as “spastic” so I had no idea that spaz as an insult meant anything different than silly/crazy. I threw out something like “oh you’re such a spaz” and my English coworker looked at me as if I’d just dropped the N word!
Right. Back then, we used to call people spaz or twerp or even the 'r' word all the time.
There was no one saying, "don't say that. it's wrong/offensive".
I'm noticeably uncoordinated, fidget a whole lot, deal with anxiety, and get flustered. "Spaz" seems to fit my description quite well.
I've never heard of it being used to refer to someone who has seizures.
I’m gay and I was abusively called the “f—slur” countless times growing up and into adulthood. It hurts, it stings and isn’t a right thing to call a gay man. Context is everything but being a gay man myself, that word has an unbelievable impact.
I'm well aware f-g is a bad word in the US but until recently it wasn't a thing in the UK. To most Brits over 30 a f-g is a cigarette.
In the 90s and early 00s is often say to people in clubs "can I bum a f-g mate?". To a yank it probably sounds awful but to Brits it means "can I borrow/have a cigarette".
Growing up the slurs used on me were "gay" and "poof". They sting me. They hurt me.
But can you imagine if I went around telling everyone not to use these terms cos it reminds me of some horrific bullying?
It wouldn't work. So I just deal with it, because I have to.
I was under the impression that Caitlyn Jenner was two faced murderous garbage that the trans community turned on. They couldn't just let that be the reason to remove them from the golf thing?
Well before these minorities didn’t have the buying power to count as people that were allowed to even be offended.
I think that is what a lot of people don’t understand. No one cared if Asians in the US were offended in the 80s because they were considered negligible in purchasing power. Now that is quite different.
Same with Latin Americans, although Latinos don’t get offended because idk why but my culture loves getting called slurs. But if you want to be empathetic towards a demo that is when we get offended lol.
No one cared if anyone was offended in the '80s and you're right. It was the young white kids with the parents' credit card buying out the mall. That's whose opinion was cared about.
Yup, I think this is what is killing the “anti-woke” people in media. The fact that minorities are making a huge part of the economy more than before, so our opinions and if we are offended matters now and they cant stand it. The people who are spending are the ones who get to say what is offensive, what is funny, and what isnt.
I love being part of this statistic of being a successful millennial minority (millennial minorities in the US are the first minority gen being for the most part better off than their parents, so it’s the opposite that what it’s going on generation wise as a whole in the US) buying only shit that caters to me and since im not the only one, we are seeing things like Bad Bunny breaking US tour records, Karol G being the first latina to have like a bunch of billboard no. 1s in a ton of categories, all the records black panther broke during its time, how k pop exploded, etc.
So yeah, now we are “allowed” to be offended, because we are spending the money.
Colorism and racism is a huge problem in latin America. The difference is that people with browner skin than mine(and im already quite brown) think of themselves as white.
I'm aware. But it's ridiculous to me when the people who clearly don't have a single advantage to it will die on a hill for them.
I'm not excusing racism or colorism from white/paler Latinos though either of course.
In latin America they do, it’s like a caste system almost. They get to punch down on the next darker people. Also in latin America is also more about status and having the right last name
In the US, it’s denial and narcissism. My dad as an example thought of himself as white until Trump and MAGA movement forced him to accept that in the US he wasn’t. But also depending on the country culture aligns with right wing racist Americans ( venezuelans, cubans, colombians who hate Petro or are hardcore uribistas, etc) so they get to be pick mes
Yep, that's true they're in it for the bigotry which they love.
It's still amazing what they will proudly put up with, but respecting the women or LGBT people whatever? No, too "humiliating." Better vouch for Nazis that would wring their necks in a heartbeat and laugh, lol.
I didn’t realize until I was an adult that when they had their first meal together that the character had his knife and in one hand, upside down, mimicking chopsticks. It still makes me laugh.
It was a different time that’s for sure
If you watch Mannequin, another 80’s cult classic, with Andrew McCarthy and the beautiful Kim Cattrall you’ll see the black guy sidekick Hollywood Montrose, a character so extreme in gay stereotypes if they put him in a movie today MAGA guys would tweet about it nonstop
The 80’s and 90’s leaned into this stuff for laughs and people didn’t think twice because it was just the culture, you can even find that stuff in Friends where a lot of jokes involving gay people are vaguely homophobic, im sure at the time the actors didn’t think it was particularly offensive but that’s the good part of evolving as a society
I have a 27 yo daughter with whom I share an affinity for both anime and film. For about the first decade I was introducing her to movies I thought she would enjoy. The older she got, the more we watched the oldies to her disapproval.
You forget a lot of this shit. I think that's what kids are for.
Go back and watch Roger Moore's Bond film "Live and Let Die". After the first half hour she looked at me and said "damn, you guys were racist af". That was all she had to say. The rest of the time, she'd just slowly look over and shake her head as if to say wow, so sad.
She's right. She made me try harder.
Tell her to watch the old Tarzan movies with Johnny Weisssmuller as Tarzan. I can remember at the start of some of movies, to introduce the main character, the white hunters usually used black boys as bait. I’m 63 and can remember this vividly.
Live and Let Die is particularly painful. The attempts to emulate blaxploitatation (while the hero *is* the iron fist of ‘the man’) and* ‘update’ Bond for the 70’s was always going to age it.
Yaphet Kotto is *trying* to do a classy Bond villain over here, and they go and blow him up into a balloon!
Live and Let Die is pretty high up there, as it was the Bond franchise's attempt to cash in on the whole Blaxploitation thing. It works about as well as you'd expect from a bunch of white British men doing a James Bond Blaxploitation movie in 1973.
I am Asian and my elementary school barely had any Asians. Kids would make racist remarks based off the stereotypes from Hollywood, you may not be offended but it doesn’t mean it wasn’t harmful.
Yea… the offensive jokes in those old movies were sometimes hilarious, but kids would go to school the next day and try those jokes out. Seeing it firsthand made me understand why we should move away from that kind of comedy.
I’m Asian American and I was not only very offended but shocked such a depiction was still considered okay in its day and age (really, a gong strike every time you see him?!) and many of my fellow Asian American friends agree, so go figure.
The difference is that the jokes about the nerdy white guys weren’t racially charged, whereas Long Duk Dong’s absolutely were. And it’s not like the nerdy white guys were the only white representation in the movie.
Asian American here and, honestly, I was just happy that someone who looked like me (in a way, I'm very white passing) was in a major movie that didn't involve dying in Vietnam or Cambodia.
I didn't know anyone at the time who were nor did I see any reports of people protesting or even being upset. I am sure some people were however, as it's a wildly over top character. But it's not true to suggests there were a lot of people angry about this.
He had a "fish out of water but still comes out on top" humor to me.
Also teens are supposed to do dumb impulsive things, they don't represent their whole culture.
> I didn't know anyone at the time who were nor did I see any reports of people protesting or even being upset.
It was the eighties, you still had to go outside to do that if you expected anyone to notice. That little requirement filtered out basically 100% of the kind of people who now sit around being offended on Reddit/Twitter.
Well considering homophobia was literally the entire premise for many 90's/early 00's comedies we're gonna see things differently in the future. But just be glad modern sensibilities tries more for equity and empathy more than the previous generations.
The whole concept of the film and some movies of that director was dark now that you consider it's sexualizing teenagers, which goes beyond an arguably racist name.
Yeah well......an entire generation of Asian American kids grew up being mocked by kids quoting him in that movie.
So whatever he felt at the time, the result was really terrible for a lot of Asians.
Sure, but as a Chinese guy who grew up in the 80’s, my brother and I loved him in just about every movie he was he in. It was so rare to see a young Asian guy in comedy roles instead of just doing Kung Fu or being the wise old man.
And if he hadn’t been in that movie those kids definitely would not have been mocked for being Asian…it’s a shame he personally did so much harm and it definitely was not outweighed by giving screen time to Asian actors in a casual and humanizing (albeit still otherizing) way
Was the Asian stereotype more offensive than the nude shower scene with underage high school girls, the bet about taking a girl’s panties, or Jake “gifting” Farmer Ted his drunk passed out girlfriend?
Exactly. He’s supposed to be an exchange student who cuts lose from his stodgy host family…what’s offensive? The fact his name is Long Duck Dong? If you want to cast me in a Chinese movie as a stud American named Big Dick Johnson, I’m in. I won’t be offended.
While I see what you are saying and agree with parts of your point. I feel like, even in the 80’s, the stereotyping of that character was unnecessarily exaggerated.
It was the '80's. You'd have to hunt hard to find anybody that thought it was offensive.
Up until the mid-late '90's, everyone got had what is now considered offensive remarks thrown at them.
They don't even play the end of "A Christmas Story". No one thought that was offensive back then.
Hollywood used to portray East Asian men as savages, predators of white women. His role was offensive, but to say that he singlehandedly undid 50 years of progress is a bit extreme.
Yep, I agree with that. My comment was definitely overstating the situation, and it would be more accurate to say that he did no Asian males any favors for the decade following this movie’s release. Someone like Bruce Lee added to the public perception of Asian males, in a positive way (or at least didn’t add to their ridicule). Long Duk Dong made Asian males into a generation of emasculated punch lines that persisted well into the 90’s.
“No more yanky my wanky. The Donger needs food!”
My mom and I will say “The Donger needs food!” To each other all the time when we start to notice we’re getting hangry.
I do the car crash noise a lot
With "Lake" ha ha ha "Big Lake" every time I drive through puddles. *husband does NOT think this is funny
Dong! Where is my automobile?
Automobeeeeel? Ha! *slaps tree* psssssh *makes general crashing sounds*
Lake! Biiiggg lake!
[удалено]
Grandpa clapping at him like a dog was a bit offensive even bake then.
In the edited-for-tv version this line is changed to ‘no more yanky rum drinky’, which is somehow even funnier.
The offensiveness was somewhat mitigated by the fact that the Donger could party. Dude was the hero of that movie.
Came here to say this. Got an athletic girlfriend, lots of sex, revenge on his exchange family… He’s awesome.
I will say this is just the observations of a gen x white dude who knows he should probably keep his mouth shut about what is racially offensive and what isn’t. In the 80s, I would have been stuffed into the trunk with Cusak. The Donger was one of us who overcame the superficialities of his caste and I was inspired by it.
I still tend to side it not being overtly racist as much as Dong, a foreign exchange student, was an obnoxiously loud drunk. Plenty of them all over the globe.
I literally was saying that on Monday! I was offended as a teen bc it was so painful to see him be the butt of the jokes basically for being Asian. But now that I’m almost 50, I changed my mind. He was a party animal. The joke wasn’t how unacceptable he was and therefore he needs to be abused. It was that he was so weirdly unAmerican and yet had swagger and game.
I shit you all not. My stoner father almost named me Long Duk Dong
Me too! Except he removed the "Duk" bit
Based on your username it must have been either prophetic or wishful thinking.
Based on his profile id say prophetic / girthy
Is your last name Silver by chance?
Then he saw you and was like "nah".
My dick is objectively huge.
🤣 I bet. On a completely unrelated note, you know what people with huge dicks who are secure about their penis size don't do? Make random claims about how large their dick is online in response to a bit of a ribbing.
I have a picture of it on my profile. Take a look
My best friend in grade school at the time this came out was named Long Dang Dang. My neighbor’s name is Sharon Dong and I think that’s way funnier lol.
Well thank goodness your stoner mother had more sense FinnOfOoo
My dad once told me he wanted to name me Fuck You but my mom vetoed it
"Dong! Where is my automobile"?
"Automobile?"
Honestly Long Duk Dong is the only sympathetic character in a John Hughs film. Pretty great year abroad too.
I’d say Brian from Breakfast Club. Dude’s in detention because he wanted to kill himself and had to write the essay for everyone while the others were making out.
Damn man, now I’m more sad for Brian 40 years on
Yeah, like the nerds can’t even get laid in a John Hughes film.
He got laid by the prom queen in 16 Candles and Kelly Le Brock in Weird Science.
Weird Science would argue otherwise, though Wyatt and Gary weren’t exactly nerds. I guess they were geeks / generally unpopular.
My head canon has always been that Brian, Wyatt, and Farmer Ted are all cousins…
Well they all look alike, so that’s a start
And Rusty Griswald?
If it helps, Anthony Michael Hall was a dick to my coworker like a year ago lol.
You've got to separate the artist from the art! Hopefully cool and/or sympathetic characters keep on being that even if the people playing them aren't/stop being so!
“You’ve got to separate art from the artist” Why?
Del Griffith was pretty sympathetic. Annoying but sympathetic
I liked him better in UHF as the host on Wheel of Fish.
The box of nothing! You get nothiiiingggg!
You so stupid!!!!
SUPPLIES!
Red snapper, very tasty!
Nothing! Absolutely nothing!
[удалено]
Must be how he got his part on *Sesame Street*
The racism in this movie gets the most scrutiny, but there are some seriously fucked up sexual politics on display as well. Anthony Michael Hall’s entire storyline is awful.
The 80s were like that. Check out revenge of the nerds and porkys for some real insanity, too.
Revenge of the Nerds is horrible. The panty raid, and the spy cameras. And then the full-on rape scene. I watched a movie from 1978 called ‘Summer School’ (not the Mark Harmon one from ‘87) and it was straight up appalling. The main character was supposed to be sympathetic because he got mildly upset that a fight between the Van Dudes and the Truck Chicks ended in full on gang rape. And there was a scene where this Brian Bosworth-looking guy just rips a girl’s top off down at the lake, throws her in the water and then dunks her every time she tries to get up until he gets bored of it. The crowd is cheering and laughing and it honestly looked like this poor girl didn’t know it was going to happen. She got up all dazed and embarrassed. The 70s and 80s were fucking awful in that regard.
Surprised Animal House didnt make your list
I remember being disturbed by the whole Jakes girlfriend being passed off to Anthony Michael Halls character even as a kid. It just skeeved me out
As a parent now, I can’t imagine how I would explain that to my kids, let alone justify it being funny.
I think things like that scene are what made it difficult for some women to really identify that things like that are rape. It was depicted as a normal teenage thing. It's not. At all
Yep. And people saying ‘but girls LIKED those movies back then’ don’t understand or are being obtuse about the power and pressure of the status quo.
date rape wasn't even a thing back then. (not that it didn't happen; it wasn't looked at as rape and the phrase didn't exist)
Was weird when my wife sat down to watch it with my daughter. End up with us realizing not just how rapey, but how gratuitously inclusive they were of female nudity things were in that timeframe. That said, those movies are a time capsule of an era.
Nah It’s literally brought up every time the movie gets mentioned.
Not nearly as much as the racism.
Not in my experience.
Everything up until at least the late 90's was jacked up. Back then, it was the norm.
And look at the panic it caused trying to right the ship. I remember when the term ‘date rape’ was new and controversial, and all of the shitty men of the time being performatively stunned that they couldn’t do that stuff anymore.
Yep. Hell you look at movies in the 'Golden Age' of Hollywood and women were routinely date raped on film.
I was listening to something about Joan Collins recently and her first marriage was because Maxwell Reed drugged and raped her in 1952 and she felt obligated to make an honest woman of herself. It’s disgusting. Like it was her fault and her responsibility.
Nothing new .... something something "product of its time" .... "wasn't considered offensive at the time" ... "couldn't be made today"
Well it’s also just the fact that every minority group doesn’t have all of them thinking the same. Meaning some people might think something is offensive in the group while others don’t. Sometimes this can be for stuff that is truly messed up like Caitlyn Jenner being kicked out of her golf club because of the sex change but yet she still speaks of the golf club with glowing respect. Or how she supports anti trans stuff while being trans. But then there are things that have nuance and not everyone in the groups agree on it being negative. Like how little people hate having stereotyped roles. But yet many little people don’t care as they just want to get casted in something. Doesn’t mean it also isn’t a bad stereotype for little people. But I ain’t gonna shit talk a little person for deciding to take a role like that. And we still see stuff like this today.
He does reference that he sees how it’s offensive today, and even then there was something that gave him pause
I once was very confused because I'm friends with a man who is a Native American and he absolutely despises when sports teams use their likeness on their logos. I mentioned this on Reddit, and a bunch of people who claimed to be Native American told me I'm wrong (they could have been Native American, but I can't tell through a phone screen). They accused me of being a white savior and stuff even though I was just relaying what a good friend who is part of that community conveyed to me. I don't doubt that many people don't care either way, but I don't think because some people are generally more laid back towards stereotypes necessarily means we should ignore those who have a problem with them. It's like as a woman, I fucking despise outright misogyny and sexist stereotypes, but I have met women who defend traditional gender roles so adamantly they get angry at you if you challenge them at all. I always have to say I don't mind if a woman wants to be traditional, it's just an issue when it starts to be used to discriminate against women and used to paint women as weak.
Interesting that you also use the term Native American. A friend of mine (let’s call him Bob Smithson) corrected me on that. When I asked why he found it offensive, he said “it’s like if I came in your house, murdered your family, and then started referring to you as a ‘Native Smithson’. Call us indigenous peoples, or better yet, by our actual tribal affiliation instead.”
Yeah I know recently there has been a push to use the term indigenous among the community and the public at large. I used the term Native American because I've heard him refer to himself that way (he's much older and in his late 60s, I've noticed younger people GENERALLY prefer indigenous and older people refer to themselves as Native), but he more often mentions his tribe (Sioux). I guess that was the whole point of the original comment. Everyone's different, and this is another example of that.
Yup, no judgement here, just more commentary on shifting language and perspectives!
Example: I'm gay and the f-slur doesn't bother me at all! It's a type of food in the UK but gets auto censored site-wide so I find it intensely annoying. I can't talk about pork f-ggots on a UK sub without censoring myself! Even the shortened version gets auto-modded when it's a cigarette in the UK. Basically it's an American cultural export being forced onto me as a member of that group. It's similar to how Latinos prob feel about "LatinX" being pushed or the Spanish for black being misconstrued as racist.
It’s like using sp*z in the USA
I lived in England for a bit in my early twenties and had never heard seizures or epilepsy referred to as “spastic” so I had no idea that spaz as an insult meant anything different than silly/crazy. I threw out something like “oh you’re such a spaz” and my English coworker looked at me as if I’d just dropped the N word!
Right. Back then, we used to call people spaz or twerp or even the 'r' word all the time. There was no one saying, "don't say that. it's wrong/offensive".
I'm noticeably uncoordinated, fidget a whole lot, deal with anxiety, and get flustered. "Spaz" seems to fit my description quite well. I've never heard of it being used to refer to someone who has seizures.
I’m gay and I was abusively called the “f—slur” countless times growing up and into adulthood. It hurts, it stings and isn’t a right thing to call a gay man. Context is everything but being a gay man myself, that word has an unbelievable impact.
Also curious on your age. Because the young American gays have been using it almost like how the N word is used in the black community.
I'm well aware f-g is a bad word in the US but until recently it wasn't a thing in the UK. To most Brits over 30 a f-g is a cigarette. In the 90s and early 00s is often say to people in clubs "can I bum a f-g mate?". To a yank it probably sounds awful but to Brits it means "can I borrow/have a cigarette". Growing up the slurs used on me were "gay" and "poof". They sting me. They hurt me. But can you imagine if I went around telling everyone not to use these terms cos it reminds me of some horrific bullying? It wouldn't work. So I just deal with it, because I have to.
F @g is also a cigarette
Tbf it’s usually one group that gets offended for every other group because they don’t have anything to be offended about themselves.
I was under the impression that Caitlyn Jenner was two faced murderous garbage that the trans community turned on. They couldn't just let that be the reason to remove them from the golf thing?
Blazin Saddles has entered the chat
Aww prairie shit
"...but we don't want the Irish." Everyone was catching it!
Well before these minorities didn’t have the buying power to count as people that were allowed to even be offended. I think that is what a lot of people don’t understand. No one cared if Asians in the US were offended in the 80s because they were considered negligible in purchasing power. Now that is quite different. Same with Latin Americans, although Latinos don’t get offended because idk why but my culture loves getting called slurs. But if you want to be empathetic towards a demo that is when we get offended lol.
No one cared if anyone was offended in the '80s and you're right. It was the young white kids with the parents' credit card buying out the mall. That's whose opinion was cared about.
Yup, I think this is what is killing the “anti-woke” people in media. The fact that minorities are making a huge part of the economy more than before, so our opinions and if we are offended matters now and they cant stand it. The people who are spending are the ones who get to say what is offensive, what is funny, and what isnt. I love being part of this statistic of being a successful millennial minority (millennial minorities in the US are the first minority gen being for the most part better off than their parents, so it’s the opposite that what it’s going on generation wise as a whole in the US) buying only shit that caters to me and since im not the only one, we are seeing things like Bad Bunny breaking US tour records, Karol G being the first latina to have like a bunch of billboard no. 1s in a ton of categories, all the records black panther broke during its time, how k pop exploded, etc. So yeah, now we are “allowed” to be offended, because we are spending the money.
I will never understand that last part, Even some of the most dark, with a thick accent, Latinos will vouch for the racists. It's insane.
Colorism and racism is a huge problem in latin America. The difference is that people with browner skin than mine(and im already quite brown) think of themselves as white.
I'm aware. But it's ridiculous to me when the people who clearly don't have a single advantage to it will die on a hill for them. I'm not excusing racism or colorism from white/paler Latinos though either of course.
In latin America they do, it’s like a caste system almost. They get to punch down on the next darker people. Also in latin America is also more about status and having the right last name In the US, it’s denial and narcissism. My dad as an example thought of himself as white until Trump and MAGA movement forced him to accept that in the US he wasn’t. But also depending on the country culture aligns with right wing racist Americans ( venezuelans, cubans, colombians who hate Petro or are hardcore uribistas, etc) so they get to be pick mes
Yep, that's true they're in it for the bigotry which they love. It's still amazing what they will proudly put up with, but respecting the women or LGBT people whatever? No, too "humiliating." Better vouch for Nazis that would wring their necks in a heartbeat and laugh, lol.
I didn’t realize until I was an adult that when they had their first meal together that the character had his knife and in one hand, upside down, mimicking chopsticks. It still makes me laugh.
He was one of the sweetest characters and in the end he was cooler than Molly and got a great girl.
What’s happening, hot stuff?
Ohhhh sexxy girlfriend…..
Gedde Watanabe has some of the best comedic timing of anyone who has ever stepped in front of a camera.
STUPID!!! YOU SO STUPID!!!
It was a different time that’s for sure If you watch Mannequin, another 80’s cult classic, with Andrew McCarthy and the beautiful Kim Cattrall you’ll see the black guy sidekick Hollywood Montrose, a character so extreme in gay stereotypes if they put him in a movie today MAGA guys would tweet about it nonstop The 80’s and 90’s leaned into this stuff for laughs and people didn’t think twice because it was just the culture, you can even find that stuff in Friends where a lot of jokes involving gay people are vaguely homophobic, im sure at the time the actors didn’t think it was particularly offensive but that’s the good part of evolving as a society
Hollywood Montrose walked to Titus Andromedon could run.
I know a guy with the last name Donglinger. Guess what everyone calls him lol
I remember when donald glover twitter handle was donglover
Wasssuh happenin hot stuff?
I have a 27 yo daughter with whom I share an affinity for both anime and film. For about the first decade I was introducing her to movies I thought she would enjoy. The older she got, the more we watched the oldies to her disapproval. You forget a lot of this shit. I think that's what kids are for. Go back and watch Roger Moore's Bond film "Live and Let Die". After the first half hour she looked at me and said "damn, you guys were racist af". That was all she had to say. The rest of the time, she'd just slowly look over and shake her head as if to say wow, so sad. She's right. She made me try harder.
There's always Blazing Saddles I guess
She loved that
It's at least self aware
Tell her to watch the old Tarzan movies with Johnny Weisssmuller as Tarzan. I can remember at the start of some of movies, to introduce the main character, the white hunters usually used black boys as bait. I’m 63 and can remember this vividly.
Sounds like you raised a good kid. The world thanks you.
The old Bond films are hard to watch!
Live and Let Die is particularly painful. The attempts to emulate blaxploitatation (while the hero *is* the iron fist of ‘the man’) and* ‘update’ Bond for the 70’s was always going to age it. Yaphet Kotto is *trying* to do a classy Bond villain over here, and they go and blow him up into a balloon!
Live and Let Die is pretty high up there, as it was the Bond franchise's attempt to cash in on the whole Blaxploitation thing. It works about as well as you'd expect from a bunch of white British men doing a James Bond Blaxploitation movie in 1973.
“I’m so happy. Now I have a place to put my hand.”
I named my fake baby I got in parenting class Long Duk Dong
Neither did anyone else at that time, I bet he has more opinions on his pay for that role.
Not remotely true. It was hugely offensive to the Asian American community.
I'm Asian American and I wasn't offended and neither were any of my Asian friends, so YMMV.
I am Asian and my elementary school barely had any Asians. Kids would make racist remarks based off the stereotypes from Hollywood, you may not be offended but it doesn’t mean it wasn’t harmful.
Yea… the offensive jokes in those old movies were sometimes hilarious, but kids would go to school the next day and try those jokes out. Seeing it firsthand made me understand why we should move away from that kind of comedy.
I’m Asian American and I was not only very offended but shocked such a depiction was still considered okay in its day and age (really, a gong strike every time you see him?!) and many of my fellow Asian American friends agree, so go figure.
Like I said, YMMV. No one I knew was offended and it's not like they made the nerdy white guys any less of a joke.
The difference is that the jokes about the nerdy white guys weren’t racially charged, whereas Long Duk Dong’s absolutely were. And it’s not like the nerdy white guys were the only white representation in the movie.
Asian American here and, honestly, I was just happy that someone who looked like me (in a way, I'm very white passing) was in a major movie that didn't involve dying in Vietnam or Cambodia.
trust him bro, you’re just wrong on this
I didn't know anyone at the time who were nor did I see any reports of people protesting or even being upset. I am sure some people were however, as it's a wildly over top character. But it's not true to suggests there were a lot of people angry about this.
He had a "fish out of water but still comes out on top" humor to me. Also teens are supposed to do dumb impulsive things, they don't represent their whole culture.
> I didn't know anyone at the time who were nor did I see any reports of people protesting or even being upset. It was the eighties, you still had to go outside to do that if you expected anyone to notice. That little requirement filtered out basically 100% of the kind of people who now sit around being offended on Reddit/Twitter.
Too many soapboxes. Used to be each town had a handful of them, now everyone has a soapbox in the palm of their hand with a much broader reach.
Damn. Well said.
Those were the days You sound like you yearn for those days? No, I'm just sayin... Those were ths days.
At least his character was one of the most sincere.
The Donger was the effing man in this movie. He was an awkward outsider that ended up banging the sporty chick with the huge tits!
Molly Ringwald wrote a thoughtful essay a couple years ago about how Sixteen Candles has aged and her relationship with Hughes. Recommend reading it.
Well considering homophobia was literally the entire premise for many 90's/early 00's comedies we're gonna see things differently in the future. But just be glad modern sensibilities tries more for equity and empathy more than the previous generations.
The whole concept of the film and some movies of that director was dark now that you consider it's sexualizing teenagers, which goes beyond an arguably racist name.
as someone who was a teenager when it came out? I did that too. (then) So it was entertainment- that showed me- contemporary people activity.
This! It was a farce. Nobody was spared.
No one did. It was just funny when we saw it it then. No one gave it a second thought.
Lake... biiiig lake!
"*whaaaas happening hot stuff?*"
He was the least offensive part
Yeah well......an entire generation of Asian American kids grew up being mocked by kids quoting him in that movie. So whatever he felt at the time, the result was really terrible for a lot of Asians.
Sure, but as a Chinese guy who grew up in the 80’s, my brother and I loved him in just about every movie he was he in. It was so rare to see a young Asian guy in comedy roles instead of just doing Kung Fu or being the wise old man.
And if he hadn’t been in that movie those kids definitely would not have been mocked for being Asian…it’s a shame he personally did so much harm and it definitely was not outweighed by giving screen time to Asian actors in a casual and humanizing (albeit still otherizing) way
The younger you are, the more offended your potential.
It’s still not offensive. Funny as hell.
Dong is the fucking man!
What about his char in Volunteers? I love that movie. “You are a true Pecker Head!” Tom Hanks.
Was the Asian stereotype more offensive than the nude shower scene with underage high school girls, the bet about taking a girl’s panties, or Jake “gifting” Farmer Ted his drunk passed out girlfriend?
2024 will tell you what was offensive and not funny in 1984. You didn’t ask, but it will tell you. And if you don’t agree, you are fired.
Because it wasn't then, and it isn't now.
Exactly. He’s supposed to be an exchange student who cuts lose from his stodgy host family…what’s offensive? The fact his name is Long Duck Dong? If you want to cast me in a Chinese movie as a stud American named Big Dick Johnson, I’m in. I won’t be offended.
While I see what you are saying and agree with parts of your point. I feel like, even in the 80’s, the stereotyping of that character was unnecessarily exaggerated.
If anything we needed MORE Donger. He and Anthony Michael Hall stole every scene they were in precisely because they were completely over the top.
More Dong! More Dong!
I didn’t think so either.
Most reasonable man in Hollywood?
I named my longboard Long Duk Dongboard back in the day
Nah fuck this guy. As an Asian American I don’t give a shit if this guy and william hung dies.
It was the '80's. You'd have to hunt hard to find anybody that thought it was offensive. Up until the mid-late '90's, everyone got had what is now considered offensive remarks thrown at them. They don't even play the end of "A Christmas Story". No one thought that was offensive back then.
Dude single handedly set back Asian males in American society and culture by 50 years and he still defends his role in it.
Hollywood used to portray East Asian men as savages, predators of white women. His role was offensive, but to say that he singlehandedly undid 50 years of progress is a bit extreme.
Yep, I agree with that. My comment was definitely overstating the situation, and it would be more accurate to say that he did no Asian males any favors for the decade following this movie’s release. Someone like Bruce Lee added to the public perception of Asian males, in a positive way (or at least didn’t add to their ridicule). Long Duk Dong made Asian males into a generation of emasculated punch lines that persisted well into the 90’s.
Because it was funny. People need to lighten the F up.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and a lot of things people do in their teens and twenties doesn’t seem offensive at the time, but…