Dr. Horrible’s Commentary: Nobody Asian in the Movies

If you’ve never heard of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog then you’re obviously not a Joss Whedon fan, but I’ll make it brief: TV writers go on strike, that writer guy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer writes a musical starring Doogie Howser for Internet distribution while funding everything himself and the DVD does surprisingly well. As for the Asian chick above, that’s Maurissa Tancharoen, one of the writers of Dr. Horrible, fiancée of composer Jed Whedon, and has a brief cameo as superhero/supervillain groupie #1 — kind of the Greek chorus.

Bit parts are played by Asians all the time, sure. But now that the DVD has been released, Joss Wheldon has included a commentary track in the format of — what else — a musical track called Commentary!. And there’s Maurissa, singing a track called, heh, Nobody’s Asian In The Movies.

Jed: But Maurissa, movies couldn’t even be made without Asians. We need them to play the parts we’re not willing to.
Maurissa: You’re right, Jed!

WITHOUT THE ASIANS IN THE MOVIES
WITHOUT THE ASIANS ON TV
WHO’D PLAY THE GOOFY MATHEMATICIAN
THE COMPUTER TECHNICIAN
A WISE OLD HEALER FROM JAPAN
A SHORT BUT WEALTHY BUSINESSMAN
SELL KOREAN GROCERIES
DO YOUR LAUNDRY THANK YOU, PRREASE
WE’RE THE VICTIMS OF A CRIME
WE’LL BE LOVING YOU LONG TIME
IF YOUR MOVIE IS A BORE JUST
WATCH THE GROUPIE IN THE CHORUS
THAT’S ME

The song is tongue-in-cheek, the writing is snarky and self-deprecating and those keyboard stabs may offend the very many AngryAsianMen out there, but given all the news in the blogosphere about that Avatar movie, the song feels less like irony and more like a honest to God statement on how Asian Americans are portrayed by the media these days. With keyboard stabs.