I've been needing to tell you all about this for a bit, but it's finally off the ground and now looks like a good time.
As you all know, I like movies. A lot. I am so down with indie cinema, Star Trek was the first mainstream movie I'd seen in...I have no idea. Sundance Film Festival had to revoke my membership because I kept complaining that there were no fucking movies. I pretty much died in college without IFC to keep me entertained.
I have a strange relationship with cinema that I won't relate here just yet because this isn't about that, and thanks to the Sundance Channel I developed a crippling fetish for deep appreciation for foreign films, especially Asian (that's however you define Asian) (and French as a side note) (I don't know why)
So, what am I talking about? Blogger The Minority Militant, owner of the eponymous blog and one of my personal heroes *tear* ...has begun Project X. He can explain himself:
To many of us, we are all activists in our own way. We define it as a means of voicing opinions, voting, protesting, blogging, podcasting, signing petitions, writing letters, striking, sending financial aid, donating to nonprofits, and volunteering our time to a cause that we feel will make a difference -- even if it's just one person or one life. As an Asian American that still is not satisfied with state of the Asian American experience, I feel like I need to take it a step further, someway, somehow. What can I possibly do in this blogosphere besides blogging my thoughts that can put in dent the way we are perceived in this place we call A-me-li-ka?
After ten dreadful years of drinking, thinking, experimenting, researching, exchanging ideas, and engaging in full scale debates (or arguments) of what can be done to change the landscape of Asians in America, I've finally come to a final decision. Since I'm not necessarily content with just blogging, I want to fully extend my arms out any which-way I can. To me, in this day and age, I think the struggle started in mainstream media depictions and it will ultimately end there. Without a single doubt in my mind, Hollywood is the most racist institution in the Western Hemisphere, by far and large.
What is Project X?
Why the letter X? X is the amount of times Asians have been ridiculed, mocked, dehumanized, defaced, asexualized (AM), hyper-sexualized (AF), foreignized, bashed, demeaned, exoticized, derailed, on a Hollywood movie. If I can count through every moving picture in the Warner Bros, Fox, and Metro Goldwyn-Mayer movie archive that contributed to this unknown number, the tally would be close to the ten-thousands, possibly even the hundreds of thousands. Add together the Asian-bashing on news clips, articles, soaps, sitcoms, reality TV, and screened stand-up comedy skits, I could only imagine the final number.
Project X is a fund dedicated to the advancement of Asians and Asian Americans in American film. I have set the fundraising goal to $100, 000 US dollars. Once all proceeds have been raised, I will reward any independent film director or producer with an outstanding treatment that casts at least one lead role for an Asian American male or female. Either that, or the film has to depict a distinct era in which the Asian American experience is uniquely captured through a moving lens. I am extremely fond of boldness, strong personalities, and trailblazers. After a person-to-person interview, there will be a panel, TBD, that will make the final decision on who gets the funding. The goal is getting the film screened at major film festivals around the world.
Rest is here. If that's not the shit I don't know what is! There are also T-shirts to be had, and I know you want a T-shirt. Or at least you better act like you do, because this might be someone's birthday and/or Christmas present.
