“Sixteen Candles” actor Gedde Watanabe says it “didn’t actually happen” to him in 1984 that his character Lengthy Duk Dong “was a stereotype.”
“It didn’t actually happen to me that it was a stereotype, as a result of there wasn’t actually something on the market for Asian actors on the time,” Watanabe advised Folks journal. “It was simply so scarce. So I didn’t suppose it was stereotypical or racist. Isn’t that bizarre?”
Actually, Chinese language alternate scholar Lengthy Duk Dong exemplified anti-stereotypes in his social standing within the teen movie, in keeping with the actor. Lengthy Duk Dong events, turns into well-liked, and even will get a girlfriend regardless of talking in damaged English.
“That was actually uncommon in a way, for the Asian character to get the lady and celebration and be in bliss like that,” he stated. Watanabe was being interviewed as a part of the journal’s fortieth anniversary celebration of the John Hughes movie.
Nevertheless, that doesn’t imply that Watanabe condones each side of how the film dealt with his character.
“I keep in mind the film utilizing the phrase ‘Chinaman’ and even then I used to be like, ‘Oh, that’s not nice,’” he stated. “However you even have to recollect in that time frame, individuals nonetheless needed to be educated about parameters, what the alarm bells had been when it got here to being offensive.”
Watanabe added of his determination to tackle the function, “Frankly I used to be like, it is a good job, and I’m going to receives a commission extra doing one week on this film than I did all of the years I used to be within the theater.”
“Sixteen Candles” is at the moment streaming on Netflix as a part of the platform’s Milestone Motion pictures curation.
Watanabe’s co-star Molly Ringwald has, lately, expressed some discomfort together with her iconic ’80s roles, like “Sixteen Candles.” Ringwald retweeted Constance Grady’s 2018 Vox article “The rape tradition of the Eighties, defined by ‘Sixteen Candles,’” with the caption, “I couldn’t agree extra.” Ringwald additionally penned a New Yorker article about rewatching “The Breakfast Membership,” one other Hughes’ film.