Rush Hour 2

Makin funny faces

Two guys chillin in a manhole

Bein zany with nothin but a towel on

The Jackie Chan/Chris Tucker vehicle exhibits several different racial groups. Right off the bat, there is a scene with the two main characters driving through Hong Kong. Tucker and Chan's characters are singing along to the Beach Boys' "California Girls," a fairly stereotypically white American song. They are horrible singers, being extremely out of key, and we laugh at the funny way their voices sound. The two pull up next to a car with some young, attractive females listening to a pop/R & B-type music. Tucker attempts to pick them up with a line that he delivers in Chinese. With the "lame"-seeming Beach Boys playing in the background, the girls scoff and drive off. This is a strong juxtaposition of cultures, as the Chinese women see someone completely different from who they would expect in Hong Kong, and do not receive his overtures kindly.

A short while later, in a bar, a Chinese man sings karaoke, in particular the song "Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough" by Michael Jackson. Most of the comedy in this scene derives from playing on stereotypes of Asians singing karaoke, but also something I like to call the "funny voice phenomenon." It seems that when a person is placed in a somewhat normal situation, but "talks funny" due to a natural accent, it elicits a comedic response from the audience. Another example of this is during the 2009 Cougar Football season. During each game, they would show a commercial called "How Coug Are You?" that seemed to encourage donations. All of the people featured in the commercial "looked normal," except for one "brown guy," a Middle Eastern student who asked fans, "how Coug are you?" but with a "funny accent." This section of the commercial always resulted in an uproar of laughter from the crowd. I was consistently horrified and embarrassed at my fellow Cougar fans.

Anyway, the African American character, Chris Tucker, gets up and continues the Michael Jackson song, but does so ostensibly with "soul," and succeeds in getting a group of virile young woman to dance with him on stage.

A short while later, a white Secret Service agent, played by Harris Yulin, appears, and evinces a pretty standard "white guy" approach. He is normal by most considerations, and is simply a government agent. His straight-laced appearance offsets the wacky antics of the Chinese and African American characters, further exaggerating how off-the-wall they are.

The film is pretty standard in its depictions of the various races. It does not attempt to break any new ground or provide new discourse on the subjects of race in popular culture. Rush Hour 2 simply plays to stereotypes and preconceived ideas of race to get a few cheap laughs (although I would argue that it fails in this attempt).

Lost in Translation

Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation tells the story of two Americans who meet and understand each other in Tokyo, Japan. The main character, played by Bill Murray, is a businessman who does not speak Japanese. Most of the film's humor plays upon the classic "fish-out-of-water" trope. For example, one of the film's opening shots shows Murray in an elevator with many Japanese men. Murray, a tall man, even by American standards, dwarfs the somewhat diminutive stature of the locals. The viewer is meant to laugh at the juxtaposition of their heights, and by extension, the differences between cultures implied by this height discrepancy.

Another crucial aspect to the film's premise is the general perception that "the Japanese are weird." Murray and Scarlett Johansson are presented as "normal" because of their American-ness. They speak a language that the audience can understand, and behave in a manner typical of what a Hollywood audience would expect. All of the Japanese locals are "strange" and "exotic," acting flamboyantly, or outrageously, at least through the lens of an American observer.

Essentially, the film depicts two people who are alienated from their social situations. It accentuates this alienation through setting--that is, it emphasizes their difference from their surroundings by extremely exaggerate methods. There is likely no culture on the planet so diametrically opposed to America as Japan, and in particular, the Tokyo metropolis. Stereotypes and weird differences are played up to galvanize the "American-ness" and "Japanese-ness" of all the central characters.

Funny Games

So for this post, I decided to use the film Funny Games, originally made in Austria in 1997 and re-done in America in 2008. The original was directed by Michael Haneke and starred Susanne Lothar, Ulrich Mühe, and others. The American version was also directed by Michael Haneke featured Naomi Watts and Tim Roth (two big stars) in the same roles.

The interesting thing about this remake is that, like Gus Van Sant's Psycho, it is recreated shot-for-shot. Honestly, I don't understand why filmmakers choose to do their re-makes in this way, although it kind of makes sense since the director is the same. Perhaps he is simply "translating" the film for a new audience and market, with recognizable Hollywood stars and in a language that American audiences can understand.

The plots appear to be identical according to IMDb and Wikipedia. I cannot find any information that compares the two versions, which one wouldn't expect from a shot-for-shot remake. An interesting note is the financial failure of the re-made version. Its budget was $15 million but only brought in $7.7 million in revenue, meaning it lost a little less than half of its budget. Not a very strong showing.

Determining the financial success of the original is a bit trickier. Wikipedia lists a budget of $5 million, but no revenue figures. IMDb lists several numbers from various countries, but all in different currencies and no "total revenue" at all. It's hard to tell whether or not this version made or lost money, either.

Essentially, this film seems like a money-losing venture for all parties involved. It makes me wonder why a remake was made if the original wasn't even financially viable. Why would you go into a project based on something that had a poor showing to begin with? It's funny that the remake was also not successful. Perhaps the remake served only to satisfy the director and production companies who backed it, as they determined early on that they wouldn't even make back their budget.

I don't really do autobios. Don't feel like they mean much. Do you actually care where I was born? English major, CES minor. Go Cougs?
-Evan L-R