 Looks at the “way in which the work of Asian Canadian film and video artists on the West Coast […] has both reflected and helped to constitute as sense of Asian Canadian identity and a particular set of artistic and social concerns” through:

 After the completion of the CPR, the Chinese workers spread and moved East in search of employment, which increased the sentiment of “yellow peril”  Head tax was implemented on Chinese immigrants  During WWII, the Japanese were stripped of their lands and forced to move to internment camps because they were branded as “enemy aliens”  They were not allowed to live anywhere else until 1949

 National Film Commission focused primarily on documentary realism, public education, and cultural “uplift” rather than narrative melodrama.  Vancouver’s distances from the cultural institutions of Toronto and Montreal is both good and bad › Our infrastructure is less developed › Have more artistic freedom

 BC film industry that is more connected to Hollywood than Toronto  Dependent on foreign productions for jobs  BIP are given faster immigration process which developed Vancouver world class city  Asian actors are more prominent in shows filmed in Vancouver

 Want more culturally diverse production  More cultural and urban spaces for Asian Canadian expression  Due to these initiatives, the film industry in Vancouver is shifting from documentary to more narrative films which allow important opportunities for the development of global Canadian talents › Floored by Love  Many of the asian canadian films produced are confined to community film festivals due to its culturally specific nature

 Artist-run-centre movement in Vancouver was born out of sense of revolt against a number of culture practices in the late 1960s and 1970s  In contrast to Asian media in the US and Toronto, Vancouver has long been inter- ethnic and multidisciplinary.

 Question: “What sort of moment is this in which to pose the question of black popular culture?”  3 general coordinates 1. displacement of European model of society 2. emergence of US as major power and cultural centre 3. Decolonization of third world

 Western-Europe did not recognize ethnicities until recently  American cultural politics have always been defined by ethnic hierarchies  Currently, cultural globalization is in a period of “global postmodern” › Decentralization of culture from high society to popular/street culture  Postmodernism is fascinated with differences › sexual, cultural, racial, and above all ethnic  Marginalized view-points have never been this productive until now  While postmodernism is fascinated with differences, its also aggressively resists them  Cultural hegemony

 Definition › Popular: to fix the authenticity of popular forms, rooting them in the experiences of popular communities from which they draw their strength, allowing us to see them as expressive of a particular subordinate social life that resists its being constantly made over as low and outside › Popular culture as a form of commodification where racial stereotypes are reinforced. › Black popular culture is a contradictory space. › 3 components of black culture  Style  Use of music  Use of body as a canvas of representation › Black culture is influenced from its African heritage, and the diasporic conditions in which it was developed

 Popular culture is NOT where you find who you really are, it is an arena is profoundly mythic  Although is appears to be, popular culture is NOT constructed of single binaries

1. Why is it necessary to distinguish between popular culture and Black popular culture? 2. Even though Asian films are specific to that particular audience, is it possible for them to crossover to Western society? Can you think of an example?