Producing an Oppositional Gaze, Telling Counter Stories

Elissa, Kaylin, Anna

Vancouver Asian: West Coast Film Cultures, on the Rim and at the End of the Line Su-Anne Yeo

Looks at the “way in which the work of Asian Canadian film and video artists on the West Coast […] has both reflected and helped to constitute as sense of Asian Canadian identity and a particular set of artistic and social concerns” through:

Migration

After the completion of the CPR, the Chinese workers spread and moved East in search of employment, which increased the sentiment of “yellow peril”

Head tax was implemented on Chinese immigrants

During WWII, the Japanese were stripped of their lands and forced to move to internment camps because they were branded as “enemy aliens”

They were not allowed to live anywhere else until 1949

Cultural Institutions

National Film Commission focused primarily on documentary realism, public education, and cultural “uplift” rather than narrative melodrama.

Vancouver’s distances from the cultural institutions of Toronto and Montreal is both good and bad› Our infrastructure is less developed› Have more artistic freedom

Hollywood North

BC film industry that is more connected to Hollywood than Toronto

Dependent on foreign productions for jobs

BIP are given faster immigration process which developed Vancouver world class city

Asian actors are more prominent in shows filmed in Vancouver

New Directions?

Want more culturally diverse production More cultural and urban spaces for Asian

Canadian expression Due to these initiatives, the film industry in

Vancouver is shifting from documentary to more narrative films which allow important opportunities for the development of global Canadian talents › Floored by Love

Many of the asian canadian films produced are confined to community film festivals due to its culturally specific nature

Counterculture

Artist-run-centre movement in Vancouver was born out of sense of revolt against a number of culture practices in the late 1960s and 1970s

In contrast to Asian media in the US and Toronto, Vancouver has long been inter-ethnic and multidisciplinary.

What is this “Black” in Black Popular Culture? Stuart Hall

Question: “What sort of moment is this in which to pose the question of black popular culture?”

3 general coordinates1. displacement of European model of

society2. emergence of US as major power and

cultural centre3. Decolonization of third world

Why 1992? Western-Europe did not recognize ethnicities until

recently American cultural politics have always been

defined by ethnic hierarchies Currently, cultural globalization is in a period of

“global postmodern”› Decentralization of culture from high society to

popular/street culture Postmodernism is fascinated with differences

› sexual, cultural, racial, and above all ethnic Marginalized view-points have never been this

productive until now While postmodernism is fascinated with

differences, its also aggressively resists them Cultural hegemony

Black Popular Culture Definition

› Popular: to fix the authenticity of popular forms, rooting them in the experiences of popular communities from which they draw their strength, allowing us to see them as expressive of a particular subordinate social life that resists its being constantly made over as low and outside

› Popular culture as a form of commodification where racial stereotypes are reinforced.

› Black popular culture is a contradictory space. › 3 components of black culture

Style Use of music Use of body as a canvas of representation

› Black culture is influenced from its African heritage, and the diasporic conditions in which it was developed

Conclusion

Popular culture is NOT where you find who you really are, it is an arena is profoundly mythic

Although is appears to be, popular culture is NOT constructed of single binaries

Questions:

1. Why is it necessary to distinguish between popular culture and Black popular culture?

2. Even though Asian films are specific to that particular audience, is it possible for them to crossover to Western society? Can you think of an example?