CHNA Immigration in Film Series Spring 2014 presents Karate Kid
CHNA Immigration in Film Series Spring 2014 presents Karate Kid
Please join the Center for the History of the New America as we kick off our Spring 2014 Immigration in Film Series with a screening of the 1984 film The Karate Kid! The screening will take place on Tuesday, February 25 at 6pm in Francis Scott Key Hall, Room 0106. A discussion will follow with Lawrence-Minh Bùi Davis and Mimi Khúc from Asian American Studies.
Description:
The film that launched a thousand karate dojos, The Karate Kid was a crucial cultural touchstone of the 1980s, transforming popular conceptions of not only martial arts but education, masculinity, and the place of Asian Americans in America. Appearing two years after the murder of Vincent Chin and right in the midst of the Redress Movement, the film offered up the Mr. Miyagi-Daniel LaRusso duo as a new model of multicultural harmony. Pat Morita’s Mr. Miyagi is a complex and enduring portrait of an Okinawan American handyman, karate sensei, classic American car aficionado, and decorated war veteran; at once he is a portrait of how ‘80s America wanted to see Asian Americans, crucial to America’s shifting vision of itself. For some perspective, feel free to read “The Oriental Monk in American Popular Culture” by Jane Naomi Iwamura, which will be referenced in the discussion.
The film that launched a thousand karate dojos, The Karate Kid was a crucial cultural touchstone of the 1980s, transforming popular conceptions of not only martial arts but education, masculinity, and the place of Asian Americans in America. Appearing two years after the murder of Vincent Chin and right in the midst of the Redress Movement, the film offered up the Mr. Miyagi-Daniel LaRusso duo as a new model of multicultural harmony. Pat Morita’s Mr. Miyagi is a complex and enduring portrait of an Okinawan American handyman, karate sensei, classic American car aficionado, and decorated war veteran; at once he is a portrait of how ‘80s America wanted to see Asian Americans, crucial to America’s shifting vision of itself. For some perspective, feel free to read “The Oriental Monk in American Popular Culture” by Jane Naomi Iwamura, which will be referenced in the discussion.