ADWOKE: W&K Stokes Racial Division With "The Myth" During AAPI Month
"They" made Asians the "model minority" pitting them against Black Americans. Who’s "they"? White America, of course.
“The Myth” is the perfect title for a new film promoted by Wieden & Kennedy and just released during AAPI month.
That’s because the entire film is based on sophistry and a conspiratorial theory, resulting in a story that totally ignores Asian excellence, stokes racial tensions and worse, outright promotes Anti-White animus.
How, you ask, could I say such a thing?
After all, the film starts with a little Asian girl next to an American flag. It’s a story about belonging and inclusivity, right? That’s a wonderful thing, isn’t it?
If only that’s what “The Myth” was about: the American story of an immigrant population who, in spite of real hurdles like, yes, racism, have managed to achieve stratospheric success.
Asians, in fact, have the highest median income of any group in America. Far higher than Whites, who we are constantly told consciously - or unconsciously - oppress and prevent other non-white groups from succeeding.
But to understand the message of the film, “The Myth”, you must understand the argument underpinning its narrative first - a poisonous lie emanating from the left today.
‘THE MYTH” EMBRACES A CONSPIRATORIAL IDEA ABOUT WHITE AMERICA
The flawed argument being made by the left and embraced by “The Myth” film is this: White people are the source of all ethnic tensions and “whiteness” is what truly ails us as a society - specifically, those twin scourges of “white privilege” and “white supremacy”.
White people, the argument goes, are born racists by deign of their skin. And everything they have created - all laws, institutions and policies in America, are therefore “systemically” racist and “white supremacist”.
This is the basic premise of the Critical Race Theory/Diversity, Equity & Inclusion movement, in a nutshell: that the very fabric of America was woven together with the expressed purpose of oppressing people of color, to keep them in check - all done with the intention of preserving “white power”.
Unfortunately, when it comes to Asian Americans, CRT/DEI’s porous logic runs into the hard brick wall of reality, as Asian excellence defies the assertion that “People of Color” (POC), can’t succeed because of America’s supposed “systemic racism”.
Asian achievement throws a monkey wrench into the left’s “white supremacy” argument - a charge that’s recently been mainlined into America’s body politic by the Democrat party. Asian American success bears witness to the imperfect, but still enviable US system of individual rights, free markets and equality before the law (not equity which demands equal outcomes). Which probably explains why so many Asians immigrate here and are the fastest growing ethnic group in the country.
So, what’s the progressive left - hellbent on dividing Americans into warring tribes - to do with America’s over-achieving Asians?
Conjure up a new pernicious myth.
“THE MYTH” REPLACES A POSITIVE MYTH WITH A NEGATIVE ONE
“The Myth” attempts to explode the myth of Asians as America’s “Model Minority”.
What is the “Model Minority”? It’s essentially a stereotype - albeit arguably a positive one - about Asian-Americans:
While the film’s title suggests the goal of the piece is to shatter the “myth” of the "Model Minority”, bringing more nuance to the Asian-American story, it doesn’t actually do that. It just swaps one “myth” about Asians for another, replacing the supposed “myth” of Asians being high-achievers with another more vile myth: that Asians are servile, agreeable and “model citizens”, but only because White people made them this way.
DISSECTING THE NOT-SO-SUBTLE RACISM IN “THE MYTH”
The filmmakers of “The Myth”, start the film, with a uniformed, forlorn looking Asian girl, about to have her school picture taken. White hands from a man appear from out of frame, as he raises her chin to orient her for the photo.
“A model student… a model citizen”, the narrator says as we watch this.
The suggestion here, of course, is that she is already being molded into some perfect “white standard” by White people - even as a young girl.
It’s instructive to note, it constructing a new “Model Minority” myth, the film avoids any depiction of Asian success. Our female Asian hero is fatherless and low income. She is presented as servile, quiet and agreeable - all familiar Asian stereotypes - and “they”, she tells us, “they” made her this way.
Clearly, this is the new “myth” about Asians we are being asked to accept by the film.
But the fact that “The Myth” oddly ends up leaning into a grab-bag of stereotypes about Asians isn’t the only troubling part.
Another very troubling aspect is how anti-white “The Myth” is.
A FILM DRIPPING WITH ANTI-WHITE RACIAL ANIMUS
What reveals “The Myth” to be anti-white? The narrator’s monologue.
She repeatedly says “They” did all these terrible things to her.
“They” made her a “model citizen”. “They” wanted her to comport to some inauthentic cultural standard. The film continues with its conspiratorial invocation of “they”.
“They”, our “Model Minority” heroine says, created a “false reality designed to serve a purpose, to serve a people”. We hear this as we see her serve a table filled with mostly white male businessmen.
Later, as she angrily stares into her mirror, the message is clear: White people turned her into the servile, unhappy “model minority” she now loathes herself for being.
“They” did it to her. White America did it.
“The Myth”, reinforces this assertion by reminding the viewer that White America is indeed very very racist. To prove this, in one early scene, “The Myth” shows our main character watching a racist caricature of Asians. It’s a cartoon created before the invention of the color TV.
But why go back more than a half century to demonstrate racism against Asian-Americans when Anti-Asian racism is alive and well today?
For example, at leftist-dominated universities Asians are blatantly discriminated against - right now - because they are overrepresented on campuses across America due to their high performance. So Asian applications are routinely denied based on their ethnicity. But to point this variety of racism out, would be to implicate the progressive left who proudly discriminates in the name of “Equity”, as we all know.
AT ONE POINT, “THE MYTH” ALMOST TELLS THE TRUTH. ALMOST.
“The Myth” does something really surprising about half way through the story: it almost tells the truth - sort of.
The film acknowledges the very real tensions between the Asian and Black communities today while showing what appears to be footage from the LA riots. However, one wonders why one of the many, terrible recent acts of violence done to Asians wasn’t shown. Instead the creators opt for riot footage from 30 years ago in LA.
In any case, you’ll never guess who’s at fault for modern day tensions between the Black and Asian community?
That’s right, again, “they” are to blame.
The “They”, being white people, who forced Asian people to be “model minorities”, you see, which then, we are told, makes black people perceive the Asian community as their enemy.
If you’re confused by “The Myth’s” logic, remember, White Americans must always play the part of the privileged oppressor or the Neo Marxist/CRT critique of America’s system would be shown to be a fallacy. And Asians must be portrayed as oppressed, but certainly not by another oppressed “POC” group (Black Americans). That won’t do, because that would also debunk the “white supremacy” fallacy.
This explains the tortured and conspiratorial throughline on display in “The Myth”. We’re asked to believe - sans evidence - that it’s conniving, racist White people who have somehow, cleverly and inexplicably, turned Asians and Black people against each other by making Asians into “The Model Minority” against their will.
This message is most clearly conveyed in the crescendo moment of the film, when the main character declares ostensibly to Black America:
“They” (White Americans), “have made me your enemy”.
“The Myth” never does explain how White people managed to pull this evil Machiavellian trick off of pitting Asians against Blacks. And though W&K invite you to get the deeper story from the makers of “The Myth” on their site, no real additional insight is offered about how white people are at fault for today’s Asian vs Black tensions.
“THE MYTH” IS BEAUTIFULLY-SHOT, CLEVERLY-PACKAGED ANTI-WHITE PROPAGANDA
I will say, this spot is well-shot. The film is beautifully edited.
However, the obviously talented creators could have achieved a similarly powerful statement by exploring the idea of a “Model Minority Myth” without blatantly stoking racial division. It could have explored racial tensions without imparting blame without evidence. It also could have explored what role, if any, Asian culture might play in perpetuating the supposed “Model Minority” myth, too.
But ultimately, “The Myth” opts for social justice sophistry, casting all Asians as hapless victims, bereft of any free agency. Indeed, “The Myth” presents Asian-Americans as being uniformly shaped and defined by Whites alone and, what’s more, would have us believe that White Americans have successfully executed a plot to make Black Americans see Asians as their enemies.
That’s one very ugly conspiracy theory.
The film would also have us forget all Asian-American achievement, while seeking to debunk a very positive reality: that Asians, as a whole, are a true American success story, like so many other minority immigrant groups.
But in a world that celebrates victimhood, “The Myth”, wants to convince us that success is actually a myth for Asian-Americans.
Grievance, you see, is the new success.
“The Myth” never explains why Asians keep immigrating to America en mass only to suffer such abuse at the hands of a country filled with “white supremacy”. Perhaps the film doesn’t attempt to answer this question because it can’t explain the obvious contradiction.
And because of all this,“The Myth”, in the end, only delivers, well, more myths.
Myths about Asian-Americans. Myths about White Americans. Myths about our nation that won’t help us heal, but most assuredly will further our ethnic divides.
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White male fragility on full display