I rewatched the Harold & Kumar trilogy recently. I was surprised to walk away from them, which paint their scenes with stereotypical characters, with an understanding that the movies actually were countering all those stereotypes.
It seems paradoxical: using stereotypes to fight stereotypes.
We think of stereotypes as a bad thing nowadays. And it’s true. Pigeonholing people from certain demographics into a limited number of “roles” in society screws with our self-image and potential to grow, among other things.
Take the Indian gas station owner: he (rarely she) is stingy, thickly accented, and futilely trying to move up in society. Watch any episode from The Simpsons with Apu, and the stereotype will become clear. This trope paints South Asians in North America as foreigners with an eye for money but no means to achieve economic mobility. But that is quite far from reality.
As humans, we are quick to make judgements, to put people into boxes. Comedy movies—and humorists at large—can make great use of this tendency to draw laughs. They set us up to believe or expect one thing, and when our expectations are proven wrong or reversed, we tend to find it funny.
There is a lengthy history of racial humor drawn from exaggerated or inaccurate depictions of racial minorities, be it pervasive stereotypes or even Blackface. But Harold & Kumar encourages the audience to laugh at the very ridiculous nature of these stereotypes.
See also: Falling for Hollywood’s Asian heartthrobs: Male actors to watch for
Tackling Asian stereotypes
Harold and Kumar combat tropes about Asians and our diaspora through humor and, well, stereotypes. Each movie in the trilogy takes a different “stereotype strategy” to promote an image of the Asian diaspora separate from the typical and harmful tropes seen in Hollywood in the…
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