 and a lot of people aren't going to want to hear this. Overall, I am very excited with me mythology porn, misery porn, kung fu porn, money porn, and I'm about to let the candles burn. Gotta let it burn! I love those chicken lettuce wraps from P.F. Chang- A harrowing story of beautiful Chinese women escaping Chinese patriarchy and making it into the arms of loving white Americans. David, the studios just gave Joy Luck Club number two, the green light. This is great for Asian-American cinema. Oh yeah, I guess it's really cool, but wasn't the original really Orientalist that made Asian men look really bad? Yeah, a little bit, but she's a great writer and it was a great movie. So you know, beggars can't be choosers. Maybe you have to just take what you can get, but do I? Welcome everybody to the hot pop boys. David and Andrew here. We gotta talk about the controversy behind Joy Luck Club number two coming out. Now objectively speaking, it was a great movie 30 years ago and a great book. However, it maybe didn't age that well. So there's a big discussion in the community around it right now. Right, there are three major opinions, Andrew number one. I love this book and movie. I'm so glad. Maybe it's considered the PF Changs of Asian-American movies, but guess what? I love those chicken ledges wraps from PF Changs. Number two, dude, this movie is so outdated and stereotypical. Maybe it was good and passable back then, but nowadays in 2022, it's trash. I hate PF Changs. And number three, hey, why did we just keep remaking everything? Can we get some new characters? Like why is PF Changs something we're still even talking about in 2022? Like their menu is from just like 1960s. It's super outdated. All right, David, let's get into the first perspective of people who are very hyped for this book. Yeah, I mean, let's be honest, Andrew. We analyze everything on this channel for stuff for the oldies to, you know, the Gen Z TikTokers. Let's be honest, the caring about Joy Luck Club number two, I'm gonna put it more in the oldie category. But listen, Andrew, a lot of people like they remember the impact this book made in 1989. They remember the hit movie in 1993 and especially a lot of white people were like, you know what? Literature gives us the opportunity to experience lives, perspectives and worlds different from our own because the book was about, you know, four daughters of four women from China, the strain tension, the relationships. It was like very sad, but people related to the sadness because they were like, maybe my grandmother went through this when she came from Poland or she came from England or whatever, you know, were removed from the immigrant experience. But this movie made me cry and it made me relate to Asian women. And I do think it's important to note and remind people that Joy Luck Club is not a autobiography, it's not a biopic. These movies, these stories are made up and Amy Tan, she is from America, she's a Chinese American. So she didn't really even go to China, but she did, was inspired by some of these stories through her family. Yeah, I would say this, Andrew. The only criticism of number one is not that it was not a well-witten book and not that it wasn't a great movie because those are both true, but is that it fit into like stereotypical perceptions from 1940s, 1950s, 1960s of basically Chinese women being trapped in these like horrible systems that they needed to be rescued from by white guys. A harrowing story of beautiful Chinese women escaping Chinese patriarchy and making it into the arms of loving white Americans. The Joy Luck Club, directed by Wayne Wayne. That wasn't the only trope in the book, but absolutely you'd have to say that that was a top, top three trope. That, like I said, book was good, movie was good, but absolutely stereotypical. That's like saying every black movie has to be like black boys in the hood or every Latino movie has to do with immigration and naturalization and every Muslim American or Arabic story has to do with terrorism or something like that or something to do with religion. Yeah, these are unique issues that may legitimately exist within the community, but to the level that they're exaggerated and put into media, that's like due to the gatekeepers only allowing a narrow slice of stories into the game. Yeah, and I think it kind of goes back to a lot of the argument where it's like, hey guys, we're just here for a good movie. They showed great emotions. It was a very well-written book, of course, and these women actresses were so good at portraying it that like we just want entertainment. So movies should not dictate your life or shouldn't define the narrative. Although I will say, unfortunately and fortunately, unfortunately and fortunately, depending on your perspective, Joy Luck Club for the past 30 years was kind of the Asian American movie. Literally it was the only all Asian American cast movie that had a major budget before Crazy Rich Asians. Like literally it was the only one. And I know Amy Tan herself has been always dismissing the criticism going, hey, listen guys, I did not write like Chinese America 101. Don't fault me. I was just trying to write a good story for people, but realistically, probably white people. Moving on to number two, Andrew. What's the other perspective? This story's outdated. It's about stoic crappy Asian men who are super Confucian and patriarchal, controlling Asian moms, broken immigrant families. It's Orientalism that caters to people who were born in the 1940s and 1950s. Andrew, I can't believe they're bringing this sequel back. What are they gonna do? Make us look bad again. And like we're all living these weird, ritualistic, like sad, miserable lives. Okay, to be fair, I think the next movie is not going to be the same as the first movie guys. So I mean, I think we can bet on that. I do think that this just kind of falls into one of the three main categories of Asian stereotypical movies that they want in America. For example, there's Misry porn, which is what Joy Luck Club would fall under. There's Money porn, which is crazy rich Asians and House of Ho and Bling Empire. And then there's Mythology porn, which is always these Chinese stories about this high school who's struggling with their identity, and then they get some ancient power from a Shaolin monastery, and then Sun Wukong, the monkey king, comes back into their life and influences them and then makes them like the captain of the basketball team or something like that. That's like American born Chinese. That's that movie. Yeah, and I don't really wanna fault the people who wanna have a career who can provide those stories, but at the same time, the gatekeepers are only allowing people who can provide those narrow set of stories into the game. So it's a very 50-50 equation because if you wanna have a career in entertainment or media or whether you're writing books or TV shows or movies, you're like, well, what stories do you want from me game? And the game is like, yeah, like you said, give me Mythology porn, Misery porn, Kung Fu porn. You know, money porn, and you're just like, okay, well, I guess I can give it to you. So who's at fault? Is it the provider or is it the game for wanting that? Andrew, it's been this way for like 100 years. Anna Mae Wong, she had to play under those tropes. You know, and that was in the 1920s. Now we're in the 2020s and it's still somewhat of the same. I think it's changed. I do think Asian American power has increased since 2010. I think for me, the only thing that I don't like is like sometimes with the ancient mythological stuff, I get it, but like, I don't like it when Asian American scenes that Asian Americans did have an outsized impact in whether that's like b-boying, you know, the dance culture or the JDM scene. And when they make movies about those worlds, they often take Asians out or give them minimal exposure. I mean, I guess the final thing I'll say against this is that like, man, we live in Western society. We live in American society. Obviously Asians are like probably the least powerful group in the entertainment game. So to some extent, it's tough to say and a lot of people aren't gonna wanna hear this. It is what it is, right? But I will say that it always kind of made me mad when Asian American subcultures like the dance scene, the JDM scene, where Asian Americans in California make up like 50, 60s, I don't even know, at least 40% of those worlds, when the actual movies came out about dancing or JDM, they were only like five or 10% of the movies because people were like, oh yeah, Asians aren't that marketable. So take them out of the subcultures that they are pioneering. You know what it kind of feels like right now? Because there's so much content from Asia. So if you wanna see fully Asian faces in all different aspects and different movies and different stories, then you can watch a lot of the Asia content, right? Coming out of Korea, China, Hong Kong, wherever, right? Singapore, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, right? They have a whole bunch of movies. So I guess in India too, right? You can go to all those movies and see Asian faces. So I guess do you think in a way it almost leaves a space for American movies to be more stereotypical because you have the Asian movies to balance out with it? Right, like if you wanna watch a movie about Asian break dancers and Asians actually doing something that's like actually modern and rooted in reality, just watch an Asian movie. Yeah, so I think like, I don't know. I'm not sure. Maybe because Joy Luck Club and Amy Tan, they are so strictly to be honest, like Chinese American stories. Like they're not from China and then it's not like fully American. It's like strictly Chinese American. So maybe that's the space that it's in. I don't know. And which brings us to number three, Andrew, some people are like, you know, I don't even have an opinion. I didn't even watch JLC. I didn't even watch CRA, whatever. I don't care about any of this stuff. Why do we just have to keep bringing up old movies? Can we get some new characters that I actually relate to? Like why does everything back to the monkey king? Everything's back to mahjong. Everything's back to filial piety. Everything's back to like some 1950s sense of like crushing, suffocating Asian parenting. I'm not saying none of that exists anymore in 2022, but it's way less than it was in 1950. I know some people from that era. Yeah, it's true. It wasn't tight to be Chinese. Like the way the parents were, it was pretty bad. So David, I actually wrestle with this feeling because on one hand I'm very grateful that there's so much history, so much mythology and so many stories that you can base so much content off of, right? Like not all Asian groups even have the type of history that maybe Hollywood wants to make movies about. So I don't want to be ungrateful for all the Chinese history and stories, right? But on the other hand, I'm like, damn, like can we just have some modern stories that don't have to do with some of these classic tropes? Like, you know, and maybe those movies are from Asia. I don't know, but I would like to see those in Hollywood more, but I don't know if we're there yet. It seems like the things that make money that people want to see, that the mass market wants to see are still kind of stereotypical. Yeah, I mean, I think everything comes down to two factors when it comes to Hollywood. One can like a older person who gate keeps Hollywood that does not Asian understand it. A number two, do they believe it's gonna have ROI, return on investment as it's shown old IP? It's not just comic books where they rehash. Like, I don't even know how many hulks and like spider-man's there's been, you know how many Batman's there have been, but it's just like at the end of the day, people keep watching those movies and they make money. And right now to take a bet on like the Boba Luck Club is just too big of a risk. So they'd rather bring back the Joy Luck Club because there's the old IP, the older people are gonna tune in, the pre-internet, pre-iPhone generation. Hey, they are shooting a pilot about ABGs. Look out for that one. Yeah, hopefully that's like the next candle that'll burn. And that takes me to my final takeaway, Andrew. David, what's your final takeaway and what's everything that I said? Cause I know a lot of people are gonna be like, oh man, you guys sounded like you were so against Amy Tan, but you were so respective of the industry and you guys were so 50-50. I don't like Fung Bros. Always taking the middle fence road. And I'm just like, listen guys, this is how it's gonna work, man. I don't like that this is like our journey in our representation, like certain groups are definitely gonna get screwed. Certain groups are gonna get in the club first and they may be not gonna show love to the other people who got stuck in line or even not even in line at all. Like we said, obviously there's a lot of Southeast Asian groups shout out to you guys that are not even in line. They're like, I don't give a F of any of these candles burn. We're not even a candle yet. But I will say this, you gotta let the candles burn. Gotta let it burn. And it's unfortunate, man. You gotta let the candles burn. And it's tough because it's like your G, let's say you're a real G, right? You gotta wait for ABCDEF to get in line, like to get in the club before G can go. And there's no way I think maybe you can speed it up or you can hope that those people like turn their head and smile at you, I guess as they enter the club. But there's no way to guarantee A and A stands for ambition and like C, you know, the letter C stands for like cheesy or whatever, but it's like you just, you could feel how you feel about those letters getting in. But if you're a real G, you just gotta be ready for like when you get on, if you ever get on. You know what I mean? Like I just encourage people to care about their candle, care about their own life come completely irrespective of what's going on in media. But then it's like, you just care about your own candle or build up people who are building the next candles that are gonna burn after these burn out. Yeah, and I wanna remind everybody in 2022, movies don't define you guys. There's so many movies, shows, clips, TikToks, so much content, streamers out there that you could be influenced by. I do think 30 years ago movies meant a lot more. So that's why maybe Joy Luck Club, it was such kind of a punch in the face for some people depending on how you interpreted the film, right? And, but nowadays, don't let this define you guys. So it doesn't really matter how Joy Luck Club 2 is. First of all, I think they're gonna update it. I don't think it's gonna portray Asian men in that way. Although based off the ending of the first movie, there's gonna be obviously a lot of Hoppa grandchildren and there has to be because they got with white guys in the end, so I guess that's gonna be that. But that's not really like offensive and there's no problem with that. But I'm just saying as much energy as you wanna pour into complaining about it and ripping it apart, the movie hasn't come out yet. So use that energy to support the artists and the content that you do like, that you do approve of because there's a lot out there. So I guess that's my overall takeaway at the end of the day. Don't let one movie define how you feel. Yeah, like I said, you focus on your own life, make sure you are not like the stereotypical men in Joy Luck Club or the farewell or that cousin that was like kinda- You mean David, don't be like Russell Wong, a very handsome but problematic Chinese man. He was frickin' evil. All attractive men are frickin' evil. Yeah, all attractive men are, Russell Wong's actually a Hoppa who looks like a four piece from that point. Wow, so all great looking Hoppa men are, I'm just kidding, shout out to Russell Wong. Met him before, he's a nice guy. But I will say this man, at the end of the day guys, the media game, it ain't what it used to be. So just use it as another thing. But of course, the Asian-American community, like we said, always fighting about things. They gonna have the debate on Reddit, TikTok, Instagram, et cetera, et cetera. We're just here to break it down. All right, everybody, thank you so much for watching that honest discussion about Joy Luck Club 2. Again, you know, you should give it its flowers. It was a great movie. Of course, it probably didn't age well considering the conversations and where the Asian community is at right now. So I can only hope that they update the story and it touches on Boba and ABGs and becoming TikTok creators in the movie. Maybe, I don't know. But please let us know in the comments down below what you thought about this discussion and what you look forward to seeing from other Asian-American films and even Joy Luck Club 2 or what you thought about Joy Luck Club 1. Was that a great movie? Did you really like it? Would you watch it again? Or are there major problems with it now? Let us know in the comments down below. Please hit that like button, subscribe to our channel and check out other episodes of the Hop Hop Boys. And until next time, we out. What are your favorite types of porn, Andrew? Mine are misery porn, money porn, and mythology porn. They'll sound like those should all be movies that get made. And shows. All right, everybody, overall, I am very excited to see Joy Luck Club 2 only in the fact that, you know, I'm interested to see what they do given how the climate has changed and there's all these different issues, everything from Asian hate to all the sexualization, fetishization of Asian women to the emasculation of Asian men. Those conversations have come to light so much more in the past 30 years. So I guess I am interested to see what they do with the story. You let me know if you agree in the comments down below and until next time, we out. Peace.