Description
Book SynopsisThe words “Asian American film” might evoke a painfully earnest, low-budget documentary or family drama, destined to be seen only in small film festivals or on PBS. In her groundbreaking study of the past fifty years of Asian American film and video, Jun Okada demonstrates that although this stereotype is not entirely unfounded, a remarkably diverse range of Asian American filmmaking has emerged.
Trade Review"A first-of-its-kind study of Asian American cinema's productive and sometimes uncomfortable relationship to institutional definitions of 'Asian America.'" * Film Quarterly *
"Okada has written a very important book. The historical reach, the diversity of texts, and the expansive engagement with filmic influences make it possible for her to take an inventory of Asian American film and video in the second decade of the twenty-first century and wonder what might be possible for the future of Asian American film and video." * Cinema Journal *
"Institutional context provides Okada with the framework for her illuminating study of Asian American filmmaking from its roots in the early 1970s to the present." * Choice *
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Making Asian American Film and Video tells the fascinating and significant story of the emergence of Asian American film and video within the wider media culture of the United States."
-- Gina Marchetti * author of The Chinese Diaspora on American Screens: Race, Sex, and Cinema *
"Both a hip guide to movies for your queue and an incisive commentary on the ways we (filmgoers, critics, TV executives, and others) use movies and TV to talk about race, sex, and class. Okada makes Asian American film fun again." -- Peter X Feng * author of Identities in Motion: Asian American Film and Video *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: The Shared History of Asian American Film and Video and Public Interest MediaChapter 1: “Noble and Uplifting and Boring as Hell”: Asian American Film and Video, 1971–1982Chapter 2: The Center for Asian American Media and the Televisual Public SphereChapter 3: Pathology as Authenticity: ITVS,
Terminal USA, and the Televisual Struggle Over Positive/Negative ImagesChapter 4: Dismembered from History: The Counternostalgia of Gregg ArakiChapter 5:
Better Luck Tomorrow and the Transnational Reframing of Asian American Film and VideoChapter 6: Post–Asian American Feature Film: The Persistence of Institutionality in
Finishing the Game: The Search for a New Bruce Lee and
American ZombieAfterwordNotesBibliographyIndex
