Subject: Big Business, Asians, and the Film Biz.
From: Gene (pariah1980@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Mar 07 2000 - 20:14:36 EST
> No businesses, no jobs, no jobs, no money, no money,
> no food...it's not that
> hard :)
>
> I worked in construction for 17 years. I have no
> illusions about
> businessmen. Construction workers are dog meat to
> construction companies,
> chewed up and spit out for profit. When work is
> slow they're treated extra
> badly.
>
> But when business is booming? Then pay rates go up,
> benefits get better, and
> you get better treatment because they have a hard
> enough time finding help,
> much less keeping the help they have when anyone can
> go to the contractor
> down the street and get another dollar an hour. The
> point is that when
> businesses are rich, everyone is rich. So long as
> the businesses are in real
> competition with each other.
>
> Jim
Okay, I think I'm starting to see why you're for big
business. From what you said, I'm guessing you're
willing to put up with the big business in good and
bad times even if they treat worker's like "dog meat",
but personally, I'm not completely in favor of big
business and see no reason why I should be. Maybe I'm
looking at this in a Buddhist/Marxist way, but I
really don't feel more money is a good enough reason
to support big business. I live in a large suburban
town, but I have been to big urban areas like San
Francisco Bay Area, L.A., New York, etc... Big
business thrives at those places and others and I can
see it as being good since there's plenty of
competition among other large businesses, but I still
see it as the rich getting richer and the poor staying
poor or getting poor. The income gap between the upper
and lower classes has increased not decreased. But
this isn't just a factor of America. it's been going
on since the early revolutions across Europe and
probably even before that. I'm not saying we must all
be equal in a communist society, but I do see it as
class warfare(in a non-violent way of course), and if
that means knocking down big business with justified
protests, boycotts, or other methods, I'm all for it.
Since I'm a film/dramatic writing major, I'll use this
as an example:
There are huge movements on the net to get independent
festivals going on to counterattack the elitist film
companies. As an Asian American, I am a member of
MANAA(Media Action Network for Asian Amercicans) who
have large memberships in the L.A. and San Francisco
bay areas(as well as other places). Asians are getting
more and more fed up with Hollywood's cast-typing of
Asians as martial artists and other stereotypes.
Rather than sit and wait for Hollywood to come
around(which it has in some ways with people like Ang
Lee, Chow Yun Fat in "Anna and the King", etc...), the
Asian community(and I mean all Asians: Indians,
Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, etc..) has
largely supported the efforts of struggling Asians in
the media/entertainment industry. For us, it's not a
problem of getting quality work done(several of MANAA
sponsered films have recieved oscars or golden globes:
See Tony Bui's "Three Seasons" with Harvey Keitel) or
full scale play performances, it's trying to to get
our work into theatres. Unlike Africans and other
minorities who have found their niche in the film
industry(after lots of hard work of course), Asians
haven't arrived there yet and we're constantly trying
to balance our cultural needs with marketability. I
chose to be a film/dramatic writing major, not to get
rich(which most likely won't happen), but to represent
my people. So, my slant on big business is more about
sociology and media/entertainment.
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