Finding Yourself

One of the really cool things about interning here at SDAFF is the fun homework assignments that they give you to do. I must admit, never before had I been assigned to watch a movie! This last week, I watched "What are you anyways?" and "American Seoul".

"What are you anyways?" is an Animated Short about a 1/2 Japanese and 1/2 Caucasian boy, Jeff, who is having trouble finding a place within a certain cultural and ethnic group. He often finds himself at the butt of all jokes and even experiences teasing from his friends. He begins to reject his Japanese roots and purely identifies himself as Caucasian. Not long later, he meets a girl who will change his life around. She is just like him -- 1/2 Japanese and 1/2 Caucasian. Unlike Jeff, she embraces her Asian heritage, and Jeff notices that because of it, she doesn't feel any racism from her friends. Jeff learns that all you really need to do in order to be accepted is for you to merely accept yourself.

"American Seoul" is a short film about a a young Korean girl who immigrated to the US from Korea. She knows that all Americans group Asian people together, but she doesn't understand this concept because she runs into 3 other Korean girls who are complete opposites of herself. She is a punk-rock girl, while the other girls range from thug Korean girl, a Barbie Korean girl who may actually think that she's Caucasian when she looks in the mirror, and a struggling Korean actress who can't even speak in an "Asian" accent if her life depended on it.