Imagine, if you will…

…the box office revenues of every Asian and Asian-American film ever produced. Add to that the DVD revenues of these films and the box set of the only Asian-American show as of yet produced for primetime American TV. And add to that the dollar amounts of all these works siphoned off by the piracy market (i.e. bootlegging, mass viral-sharing of clips, etc) , organized or not. How much in total would you think that is? And, most importantly, would you care?

Maybe we should. Because when it’s said that the only color Hollywood respects is green (and legitimate green at that), I believe if we are to have the kinds of stories we have always wanted for ourselves (as well as the kinds of depictions we want others to have of us and that not second-hand), we can’t just open our pocketbooks and support these works, we need to also support them in the way that Hollywood fully recognizes: via legitimate channels. Why?

Because I suspect that the total revenue of these works, had they all been more legitimate, would surely have led by now to more projects (and more varied projects at that) being greenlit for our Asian-American and Asian brothers and sisters in the industry. Think of it. And starting today, together let’s do more to make this happen.

After all, if we are to have more than one or two male Asian-American ‘It’ actors at a time in Hollywood, it’s time more of us took the high road in our purchasing decisions if only to prove to Hollywood what our true self-worth and buying power really is.

Otherwise it won’t be fair to such actors as Russell Wong, Dean Cain, Dante Basco and Garrett Wang (who came to prominence in the ’90s), not to mention Dustin Nguyen (starting from the mid-’80’s)…

That’s it for today. Blog again later!

P.S. Don’t get me wrong. I’m against all forms of piracy, counterfeiting and bootlegging in all industries. But for the purposes of this blog and of our proposed “Wingmen” series, I’m limiting this discussion to Asian-American specific works.

This entry was posted on February 16, 2010 at 9:51 pm and is filed under Chicago, Food, Asian American men, Music, Asian Cinema, Television, Wingmen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.