Dude, Where’s My Reference Point?

Ali,

Er...thanks!

Bina,

The Cheetah scene was hilarious-and another de rigeur buddy/frat movie device, where the two protagonists are so allied, so close, that their intimacy is almost frightening to them-het anxiety for boys trying to gain experience. So it gets joked about in a way that throws them together in a way eerily reminiscent of Melville`s Ishmael and Queequeg in Moby Dick.

Cheetah-more Asian exoticism...

Hush,

Everything is a text with a symbology, subtext, set of reference points... Including that cereal box you stare at in the morning.

thanks!

-S

Samina awesome film review.
Er, just one question, is it worth viewing?

Samina,

Yup, great review but did the movie really deserve it?

Aamir

samina - good to see you sowing the seeds of your unconventional intellect in the barren land of front page. (now that was a mouth full).

by the way, your last name `shahidi` is really nice. all feminine last names that end with an `i` tend to disrupt my regular heart beat. may be it has something to do with my first crush - her last name was hilali.

anyways, your review style is really good. but i do agree with some of the interactors - perhaps the movie itself is not worth this intellect-heavy review.

hope to read more from you. now come back to the unplugged and lets talk about your feminist agenda.

To the people who think that the movie is not worth reviewing and it is just a movie,There is a trend in humour, to reinforce the stereotypes. Another example is, Team America, World Police. If a stereotype is amplified to an absurd degree and made fun off, then it is ok.But normally it is not the case. We South Asian Americans normally have a tendency to ignore racial profiling because we tend to operate in our cliques. Who care and what gives? But think about the children who are born and raised in America. This is a problem that is more acute for them.They dont continue to live in the subcontinent in their psyches and have to assimilate to mainstream America. And it is not as if that America is the most racist country in the world.But racial profiling does exist. And while Americans will be quite prompt in accepting the sins of their grandfathers i.e. slavery etc., not many of them really believe or are aware of the subtle forms of the racial profiling that exist in todays America. And this manifests in incidents like the RJs abusing an Indian call center worker and that idiot tsunami song.
One more point that I want to make is that we South Asians dont have a sense of Asian fraternity.For us Chinese are more alien than the whites and the blacks, when they face the same kinds of issues that we do. It makes sense to actually team up with them and raise issues that they face with the same fervour.
Every voice against racism and stereotyping deserves encouragement. Well done, Samina .

``Harold and Kumar go to Amsterdam!``

Yes!!!! For Harold`s bachelor party coz he proposed to the Latina chick. Awesome idea.

Re: # 20

Samina,

Someone told me the cheetah in the jungle thing has something to do with indian mythology. That`s what I was asking about. But thanks for the theory anyway!!

Yes, the movie is worth watching, if just for the scene where Neil Patrick Harris goes by in the limo doing lines off the stripper`s thigh.

Hilarious!

Samina,

This review reminded me of Iqbal Masud. You probably have not heard of him. He was the second half of a very solid film critic duo during the eighties and early nineties in Western India. The other half, was Khalid Mohammed, who later directed a few movies too...Fiza was his movie. He also wrote the screenplay for Shyam Benegal`s Zubeida. What I am trying to do is underline that these men were extremely erudite film critics.

However, to simplify things, Masud used to interpret Govinda movies within the rubric of erudite academia`s obsessions. But to his advantage, Masud never wore his scholarship of greek tragedies in so heavy a manner that a regular reader of his Indian Express would be turned off. At least it attempted to include 60 percent.

Khalid on the other hand went the other extreme. He found a style that punned and freaked through bad grammerred copy, invented a grid that too many readers were too thrilled about. But, he converted the generation X into a following.

I understand that as a American Pakistani professional in the begining of Y2K these are rather overly arcane information to you. But, I was thrilled with the amount of people writing in to say that ``Was the movie worth the review?``

It might be that you have brought in your erudition to be launched from a pad so small that the review eclipses the movie. That means, you might have to start working on a form that brings in your knowledge, that extremely valuable ingradient, in a manner that no reader is struck with the title of your piece ``Dude, Where’s My Reference Point?``

HN

Samina -

Thanks for this review of this film. I dont think I can put it any better than HN below but...

there are very few critics out there who critique - way too many of them spend their time looking at the production values and glamor-quotient and relating bits of gossip at the very worst end of the spectrum. This one was refreshing because you were talking cinema, not popcorn and is this guy going to be the next Jimi Mistry or whatever (would you want to be the next Jimi Mistry?). In short, I loved reading your review. And the movie was a giggle. Well, maybe two.

i actually liked the movie because it was close to my heart, cuz i`ve had white castle cravings similar to the protagonists..... it`s just sooo good, even though God knows what kind of animal body parts those burgers are made of ...but what i don`t know won`t hurt me, it shouldn`t....

Atif, Subroto, Aamir,

Sure...some of the movie is funny...just disingenious...and why shouldnt we own how we are and not being represented to each other? The huge irony is that the writers and representers of Asian identity are massaging and selling our own biases back to us-and telling us its okay-and that they relate! How many snickers bars does it take to wave that away, grasshopper?

HN,

Thank you for that generous response. Actually, I must give credit to Romair...all those comparisons of me and Ebert....guess it stuck in my head....

Amrita, Bina,

Oh sure, can we get more Indian exotic than a ``cheetah``? Oh look, Kumar`s an sleek and dangerous panther eating and smoking up the farmlands of Central New Jersey....excuse me, thats even a bit too precious for Samina....


thanks for the comments!

Rahul,

I was part of that community Dot Busters resented-only the South Asian Americans that were affected more than my immediate community were working class and business/merchant desi entrepeneurs. What was admirable was how a few managed to organized desis locally and bring these crimes to statewide attention. Generally, the middle class that did live in the suburbs, attended private schools, etc., did not organize in the same manner. I can only speculate on why not.

What I`ve noticed that gets lost in our location of anti Asian and desi racism is the kinds of prejudice we feel perfectly justified in performing. Granted, we are children of colonialism, and I`d hazard Muslim desis are really feeling the brunt of post 911 fall out. But when we are so disconnected from issues of class, our own inability to relate to many of the issues rooted in reality-the myth of the Model Minority, for one.

Wa-hey Samina,

You finally decided to grace us with your writing - I really really enjoyed reading your piece...although as soon as you mentioned `women` a part of my brain went, `Uh oh, I think she`s doing the Trojan.`

Sounds like a funny movie. I`ll check out the DVD when it comes out in UK.

Umer M