True Story vs. Hollywood Story

A downright observation from Jeff Kelly on the movie 21, which based on a true story, but complete bullshit:

If there’s anything we can learn from 21, it’s that Hollywood won’t give an Asian man a starring role unless it calls for someone who can do karate while getting berated by Chris Tucker.

In fact, 21 gives us perhaps the greatest whitewash in recent Hollywood history–a broad, sweeping stroke of Caucasian across the majority of the cast.

The real MIT Blackjack Team was almost totally Asian, but you’d never know that from the film. Even Kevin Spacey’s character was based in part on an Asian professor, who has been known to dress like a woman in order to sneak into casinos. Apparently, a transvestite Asian math genius isn’t as interesting as Spacey in the “just make sure the check clears” stage of his career.

But hey, at least they did cast a pair of Asians as members of the Blackjack Team. Naturally, in sticking with current Hollywood trends, they were made into goofy loser sidekick types, while the white kids handled all of the heavy intellectual lifting. Not since Mickey Rooney’s performance in Breakfast at Tiffany’s has Hollywood treated Asians with such respect and dignity.