Blog #2 Beyond Finishing The Game

1.State the author’s thesis and/or argument.

In Beyond Finishing The Game by John Fong, Fong focuses on need and effect of a grassroot strategy for Asian American firms. He claims in order for Asian American cinema to grow, communities of Asian Americans need to outreach. Fong Also claims that to gain interests from the community, Asian American films are using strategies to reach Asian Americans and these are brining positive results in Asian American cinema industry.

2.Identify specific examples and forms of evidence they use to uphold their argument.

“Cajayon and producer John Castro spent several weeks in the Bay Area before the opening doing an immense amount of meetings and presentations to the area’s large Filipino population, the target audience for the film … he eventually created one of the biggest success stories of the year” (p.6)

Gene Cajayon, a producer of The Debut, used a grassroot strategy by reaching to Filifino communities at different cities and giving them impressions that the movie is about them.

“Lin and his crew built a massive pan-Asian campaign around not only the film, but an idea of “cool” defined by the film’s envelopepushing, controversial content. The result was a desire amongst young Asian Americans to see the film not only for its own merits, but to be part of a movement which could possibly define who they were, and what they stood for … BLT utilized this sentiment to not only generate great ticket sale numbers (over $3.5 million box office, over $15 million in dvd sales), but also create an awareness among more Asian Americans of community and the importance of voting with one’s wallet at the box office to support Asian American cinema.” (p.7)

Justin Lin, a producer of Better Luck Tomorrow, also used similar strategy with Cajayan for his movie. Lin successfully made young Asian Americans to believe watching their movie could help them seeing their identity. As a result, the movie generated great sales and also created impression that Asian American communities should support Asian American Cinema.

3.Define key terms and concepts the author either references or introduces.

Community – In Fong’s article, community directly means a group of a specific ethnicity. Community is the something that Asian American cinema, and also other minority cinema, could rely on and get support from. Since Asian American firms cannot spend as much on marketing as Hollywood does, they chose to reach to specific communities that would feel related to the movie.

Grassroots strategy – the tern defines the strategy Asian American Cinemas are using. Grassroots strategy is highly community focused marketing. In this strategy, Asian American filmmakers ask for support from the community. This is an effective and relatively cheap strategy that focusing on specific audiences who are most likely to decide to watch the movie.

4.Relate how this author’s idea(s) connects to other scholarly or cultural ideas.

The ongoing movie, Crazy Rish Asians by Jon Chu would be a proof of Fong’s claim. This movie brought attention because it was very unusual for major productions to create a movie of filled with mostly Asian Ameircan actors. Fong asserts in the article that “all of these efforts could potentially result in concrete steps forward in terms of how companies and distributors approach the release of Asian American films.”(p.9) Crazy Rich Asian can be the proof that the past supports from Asian American communities helped major productions to realize casting Asians will be profitable too and proceed to create more.