Thursday, 13 November 2008

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  Understanding White People

  There is a scene in Spider-Man 3 that pisses me off every time I see it.  The scene shows Mary Jane (played by Kirsten Dunst) and Harry (played by that one dude in Pineapple Express) on a date, except they’re not really on a date.  They’re at home (I think at Harry’s high-rise apartment), and they’re in the kitchen cooking omelets.  And they’re not just cooking omelets; they’re also listening to The Twist by Chubby Checker, which inexplicably causes Mary Jane to totally lose her inhibition and dance in the middle of the kitchen.  Harry becomes possessed by Chubby Checker, too, and begins to shake his hips as if he has no control over them.  The two of them are having much more fun cooking omelets than common sense would dictate.  They dance for several seconds and no words are exchanged until it is realized that the butter is burning.  This scene struck me as being utterly corny.  Is this what some people do on dates?  Is cooking omelets really that much fun?  Is Chubby Checker’s music really subliminal hypnosis?  At the end of the scene, I immediately said out loud in the theater, “I don’t understand white people.” 

  I know what you might be thinking.  You’re probably thinking that it’s wrong, ignorant, and small-minded of me to racialize this seemingly innocuous scene from a comic book movie.   I suppose it is kind of unfair of me to assume that all white people are guilty of cheesiness like this.  It’s more likely that this contrived scene was simply depicting an isolated incident of two smitten dorks trying to convince themselves that they can dance.  But, this scene really annoys me and it would be unfair (and cowardly) to attribute this emotive response to an explanation that is simple, boring, and unambitious.  Someone needs to be blamed for my overreaction, and blaming white people always seems to be a good decision.

  Just to be clear, I don’t hate white people, but I think I’m sincere when I say that I don’t understand them.  I grew up in a town where the majority of its residents were Asian American, and most of my friends throughout my life have been either Filipino, Korean, Mexican, or African.  I’m fairly certain that my current understanding of white people comes exclusively from the media, particularly from watching Friends and listening to (unfortunately) Limp Bizkit.  It’s not necessarily right or wrong and it’s not anyone fault, but I think it’s a fair and honest assessment that I don’t know anything about white people.

  Generally as a species, human beings tend to fear things that they don’t understand.  This is probably the root of all major conflicts and struggle in the history of the world.  This is why we fear things like wild animals, manual transmission, the SAT test, and Mormons.  But despite my ignorance, I don’t fear white people, and Spider-Man 3’s portrayal of them didn’t change that sentiment.  It did, however, make me conscious to the peculiar phase that I am going through in my life right now.   As someone who has dated exclusively Asian women throughout his entire life, I’ve become conspicuously interested in white girls lately, despite the fact that they want nothing to do with me.  I suppose my ignorance about them has piqued my interest instead of causing me to fear them (which was probably the case earlier in my life).  Do white people cook omelets when they go on dates?  Do white people really have fun every time they make omelets?  Do white people really turn into morons when they hear Chubby Checker?  Are white people really this corny when they’re in love?  I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I kind of want to find out. The only other explanation I have for my new fetish is that Asian girls don’t like me anymore and someone has to bear (or suffer) the brunt of my affection.  In my world, someone always has to lose.

  The butter’s burning.  Somebody stop me.

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