GT, who is the blogger behind A-Tunes.net and guest blogs for MTV Iggy — which I don’t get because I’m Canadian — recently put up his first vlog sharing his thoughts on Asian Americans and the whole under/ misrepresented issue in media – specifically music.
In particular, he mentions a post from YouOffendMeYouOffendMyFamily.com about a person who was protesting the lack of misrepresentation of Asians in the media, yet had not paid to see a film directed by or starring Asian Americans. It reminded me of when a filmmaker colleague of mine spoke at an Asian university event where students were complaining of the same thing; he asked everyone in the room who was majoring in film and television, or media-arts related programme. Out of the hundreds in the seminar, only one put up there hand and she was taking journalism.
And that’s the issue at hand: because there is no vested interest in pursuing careers in the arts, there is no one in the industry to tell anyone to do it differently. After all, if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.