Parry Shen - The Other Side

Last week I wrote a blog in which I listed the "Least Inspirational Asians" in the public eye right now. One of the people I included was Parry Shen, who went from playing the lead character in Better Luck Tomorrow to appearing in Dell commercials. For a link to that blog click here.

Well, I guess you never know who is gonna end up reading your blogs, cause apparently Parry found his way to my blog, read what I had to say, and emailed me with his reaction. Since then, I've gotten to correspond with him a couple times and I decided to share some of his thoughts on the subject here on my blog as a follow up.

This is what he had to say about my original point, that "Instead of showing everyone that an Asian American actor can succeed in the industry without whoring himself out (see Jackie Chan), his career demonstrates that the opportunities out there are realistically very few.":

[PS] Valid point. Believe me - I agree with you but just to let you know, I'm trying to do my best man. Just to let you know though, you wouldn't believe all the stuff I've had to reject between the film and now so that when something like a Dell commercial comes along that doesn't require me doing an accent or delivering food - dude, I'm all over it because basically, I need to stay in the game and cover my regular daily life things like eating, pay my mortgage, and taking care of my family.

"BLT" [Better Luck Tomorrow] came out of the Hollywood system, not as a result of it. You're right, now everyone will see how scarce the opportunities are... if we had a choice, you think we'd still be doing Dell commercials?

I also asked him what he thought about Jackie Chan and Lucy Liu:

[JC] I'm kind of interested to know what you think of people such as Jackie Chan and Lucy Liu, because while they have been successful in your field, they haven't exactly furthered the cause of Asian people in a larger sense. I like some of their movies, but at the same time, I feel that people like them are at least partly responsible for perpetuating some stereotypes and holding the country back from real progress.

And here's part of his reply:

[PS] Jackie has mentioned he now only wants to do films without Martial Arts and be more a leading man actor - so, he's trying but honestly - I'm just as guilty as the studio execs - I'm not sure I'd pay money to see that or even think he'd be able to pull it off

Lucy has seen "BLT" and loves it - and wanted to merge her production company with Justin Lin's because although she gets a lot of roles - she knows they are not doing much to break her out of that mold

So what's the option? Keep working so you are at least known - making either $5 million a picture or absolutely nothing and not working and disappearing into oblivion - it's a tough choice.

Breaking the $1 million barrier was HUGE for Asian Americans and that only happened less than 3 years ago.

It's easy to point to figures in the public eye and to a certain point they do have a responsibility - but to shoulder the responsibility of an ENTIRE community? I don't know about that.

There are a lot more Asian Americans in daily life who let off-color jokes, comments, the way they are treated at their jobs just go by and letting things slide by in their day to day. People who take jobs that aren't necessarily helping break "stereotypes" - but when an Asian American actor has to look for job after job after job - is it always going to be under optimum conditions? No. Not for any job - there ALWAYS is some compromise (more hours, but good pay, boring job but hot coworkers, etc.) Taking an acting job is no different - you are just seeing that compromise publicly - sometimes it will be bigger than others. But when I hear people complain, I always wonder, "Well, what are THEY doing themselves to change things instead of pointing and commenting?"

And we have yet to see the larger picture. Lucy with all her money from those types of roles, now has the funding to produce her own pictures. I probably would not have been ready or had the confidence to shine at my "BLT" audition had I not built up my acting chops and smaller and sometimes stereotypical roles.

So after hearing what he had to say, I have some more revised thoughts to add. First of all, I should qualify my original statements by saying that while it is discouraging to see the progression of Parry's career in the past couple years, there does come a time where "a job is a job" and you have to take what you can get. And like he said, it's not just in Hollywood - pretty much everyone at one time or another has faced job insecurity and had to compromise or accept something lower than his/her ideal expectations. I'm personally glad that he at least made the effort to avoid the "Chinese food delivery boy"-type roles which blatantly degrade our race.

My original point stands: there's not a lot to get inspired about when it comes to opportunities for Asians in this country. It's not necessarily Parry Shen, Jackie Chan, or Lucy Liu's fault, but it's clear that our society still has a ways to go in this respect.

I'm still undecided on whether or not the Jackie Chans and Lucy Lius of this world are doing our community more harm or good. If it turns out that they manage to eventually rise above the current state of their careers and somehow expand the opportunities for other Asians in the industry, then great. If taking a lot of meaningless roles is just a means to build up enough money and/or credibility to achieve greater things, so be it. But I really hope that we'll see some of these "greater things" soon, because in the meantime, I think they're holding us all back.

One more subject to note, Parry Shen's thoughts on everyone's favorite FOB engineer William Hung:

[PS] Mostly everybody is doing their best. But AA in films is still in its infancy - there's still a lot further to go. William Hung I agree, it hurts a little but you know what? That's really him. There are truths to some stereotypes and the American public has latched on to him. But William's not playing a character - he's going out and doing his thing and trying to "sing" his heart out.

Yes, there are definitely truths to pretty much every stereotype and this one is no different.

Anyways, another reason I wanted to write this follow up blog is because Parry is doing a tour of universities across the country to speak about these kinds of issues. He says plans are in the works to bring the whole cast of Better Luck Tomorrow with him to Urbana sometime in April/May. I think I'd definitely be interested to attend that, if it happens, and if anyone else wants to go with me, let me know.

Other than that, check out his website for more: http://www.parryshen.com