Pho for Four [p.2]

During my shoot, I had the task of navigating through a smoke-infested, chaotic, and crowded live-operating Las Vegas casino for an entire week. My crew and I had to figure out creative ways to conduct interviews in the quietest areas of the casino (and there weren’t many).

In Tuan’s case, he planned his wedding during the production of Finding Madison, so he was basically producing two independent films at the same time. Now that’s a challenge.

“Why can’t we make our own images?”
Even before we started eating our pho, it was obvious that we all have one glaring thing in common—we’re Vietnamese. Yen, Tuan, Ringo, and I have all spent the majority of our lives growing up in America amidst stereotypical portrayals of Asian Americans on film (i.e. I grew up watching Long Duk Dong in Sixteen Candles and that one kid in Goonies).

Tuan, a former working actor, knows firsthand about the perils of being an Asian American actor. According to Tuan, “When you’re starting out as an actor, all the Asian guys are going out for the same parts. I had this Vietnamese niche, so I was able to get all these Vietnamese roles, but this didn’t really take me anywhere.”

As Vietnamese filmmakers, we are in a position to help diversify and balance the images of Asian Americans on screen by telling our own stories. Regarding this subject, Tuan says, “Before, I used to see Asian-themed films made by non-Asians, and I couldn’t stand that these people were depicting us wrongfully and also making money off of our stories.”

Agreeing with Tuan, Ringo says, “It’s always about how other people view us. Why can’t we make our own images and examine how we view ourselves?”

Part of the inspiration behind Saigon Love Story is Ringo’s desire “to make a film that featured the youth of Viet Nam and how they are adapting to what’s going on right now in society.”

Similarly, my film The Queen from Virginia gives social activist Jackie Bong Wright an opportunity to tell her stories as a former refugee in her own words.

Although many Vietnamese-themed movies are being made this year, with more to come, it is important to note that not every film a Vietnamese filmmaker makes has to explore cultural heritage and identities. It is equally important to just be a filmmaker as it is to be a hyphenated filmmaker. With experience working on mainstream films by artists such as M. Night Shyamalan and Jack Black, Yen feels that “the bottom line is we just need to continue to tell good stories, whether it’s about Vietnamese people or not.”

Along these lines, Tuan’s Finding Madison is a coming-of-age love story. It’s about a girl who struggles with her insecurities and making it as an artist,” says Tuan. “There is really nothing in this film that is ‘Asian,’ except that the main characters are of Asian ethnicity. We wanted to deal with the characters as people first.”

No matter what the subject matter, it is exciting to know that more filmmakers like us are getting the opportunity to create our own images. As Ringo enthusiastically notes, “It’s great that all these films are being made because people have the option to explore all these different facets of our identities.”

“You’re the double whammy.”
Everyone at lunch knows what it’s like to be a Vietnamese filmmaker. However, only one of us has the experience of being a woman working in a field dominated by men. Yen is a cinematographer in a field where “the majority of them are gray-haired men in their 50s.” Since Yen has the distinction of being a Vietnamese female cinematographer, I jokingly told her, “Dude, you’re the double whammy.”

Yen has endured some challenging circumstances so far in her career. As we were eating our delicious pho, Yen summed up these circumstances by saying, “If I had a dollar for every time I was sexually harassed on-set, I’d be a pretty wealthy person right now.”

Before Yen can even get on-set though, she still needs to be hired for the job. Concerning job interviews, Yen tells us, “They’ll like my reel, but since Yen is an ambiguous name to a lot of Americans, they don’t know I’m a girl. So I’ll go in for an interview, and when I walk in the door, they’ll totally check me out and say, ‘Oh, you’re a girl.’ And then I’ll look down my pants and say, ‘Yes, last time I checked I was still female.’ So right there, I won’t get this job because they assumed I was going to be male.”