I agree, Timing, and Chris (wow, Chris, we agree!
)
I wanna say though, i'm not mad at you Steve, I kinda read over Chris' post and it seems rather, um, harsh, and I want to assure you this isn't a gangup, just, you know, healthy discussion ...
So ... to quote you and answer some things ...
"It's obvious to all of us that Carter is a foolish and ignorant character. But the movie provides NO argument that it knows this as well. We laugh at his jokes about how he likes Popeyes instead of raw chicken, and since we in America generally don't eat raw chicken, we identify with Carter, and laugh at the silly Asian woman. "
I did not laugh at the silly Asian woman; I laughed at Carter trying to speak to her in English as if she gave a crap about his language, wasting her time with his American ignorance. To me she was well-meaning and doing her job; he was an idiot and making a fool of himself rescuing a chicken. The taxi driver got all my sympathy, for i'm sure he'd have dealt with MANY rude, crass, demanding, selfish, impatient tourists and was relieved for him when he finally got rid of Carter.
It's true - everybody's the butt of someone else's joke, all cultures, therefore, everything is taken lightly with no offense. Otherwise, I'm very sure Chan would have never taken on the film with such implications. Unless the black people and white folks get made fun of too ... not gonna do it. The insults and jabs were equal all around and entirely good-spirited, not mean at all.
"thmilin, how does the movie show that it knows what Carter's saying is ignorant? Many of the Asian characters he ridicules are shown as fools, foreign to him, the American, therefore foreign to us. It glorifies his ignorance, then hides behind the pedestal of comedy and expects us to laugh. For example, when he says "I never understand what the hell you're saying", the audience doesn't laugh because it's an ignorant comment, they laugh because Chan doesn't have the strongest command of english and Carter is exploiting it."
if you recall, Carter completely contradicted himself. Chan asks - "Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?" In order to answer the question, Carter must understand him. And Carter says, "No one understands the words that are coming out of your mouth!" It makes fun of it, but at the same time, completely contradicts - YES Carter understands him, so all is well.
"Many of the Asian characters he ridicules are shown as fools, foreign to him, the American, therefore foreign to us. "
This is not true at all. Remember, Chan is the hero here, he is not a fool. Different is not bad ... just different. And, amusing. The Chinese police force are the ones who really know what's going on, while the American FBI comes in and bosses them around, completely ignorant of tact and how to operate in another culture that rules the land that they have entered. Carter rolls around in the massage parlour arrogant and assuming he knows what's what - and nothing is as it seems, which I think was a running theme in the movie - the Chinese gangster is really quite intelligent and successful until Carter's street smarts have a stroke of luck and the dice don't roll his way.
"this movie makes no attempt to show that there are Asians that aren't short, that speak english fluently when dealing with Americans, etc etc. "
Using Chan, the Chief of Police, the taxi Driver ... we did indeed see very positive characters speaking English quite well ...
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