![]() Violent mini-series Squid Game is currently the biggest television show in the world, and for two years in a row (Park is not in this series). Now, it seems that actors of Asian descent are finally beginning to be featured in roles that portray them as fully realized human beings that don’t fall squarely into racist stereotypes. ![]() In a 1997 mission statement, Park challenged executives in the film and television industries to portray Asians with more dignity following a racist incident he witnessed on the set of Friends. And he was a part of the Minnesotan community. In that way, he transcends race because he suffers from the human condition. I think that’s why that character resonated with so many people. “Everyone experiences desperation and loneliness. ![]() “Even though he was suffering, I think the fact that he was so lonely and desperate…those qualities transcend race,” Park explains. To this day, Park doesn’t believe the character perpetuated any message other than Asian Americans are just as vulnerable and human as everybody else. He plays Mike Yanagita, a thirsty old friend of McDormand’s Marge Gunderson who fails miserably at wooing the pregnant police chief in a dusty restaurant booth. His turn in Fargo opposite Frances McDormand (who also appears in The French Dispatch) earned him a measure of criticism from the Asian American community at the time, who claimed that the character perpetuated a negative Asian stereotype. From Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989), to the Cohen Brothers‘ Fargo (1996), to Bong Joon Ho‘s Snowpiercer (2013), he’s always maximized his onscreen minutes, often threatening to steal the show with his nuanced, poignant performances. But Park has quietly been acting in great films for decades. More than ever before, Asian American actors are being featured in mainstream films and television shows in roles that are dimensional, with talented actors like Park given opportunities to show their range. I had to find somewhere to focus my eyes so that I wasn’t looking at myself.” There was glass over the lens, and I could see myself. “It was kind of an intense experience,” Park recalls in an exclusive interview with PopMatters. It’s notable because the ensemble cast is brimming with tip-top talent, and many of them – including Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, Elisabeth Moss, Christoph Waltz, and more – aren’t given nearly the same spotlight as Park. No spoilers here, but what’s notable is that Asian American actor Stephen Park is given one of the most memorable, poignant scenes in the entire film with this close-up. Anderson films an extreme close-up of one of his characters, Chef Nescaffier, an Asian chef who’s just experienced a life-affirming revelation. Later in the film, however, Anderson conjures an image that stands in stark contrast to the detailed dioramas that litter the majority of the runtime. Like the great Jacques Tati, Anderson finds fun in filming his intricate sets from a great distance. The camera is pulled back so far that our eyes can’t help but dart around the frame, catching fleeting glimpses of the tiny denizens darting in and out of buildings and across the cobblestone streets like figurines flitting around a vintage miniature playset. At the outset of The French Dispatch, Wes Anderson’s latest, fanciful gift box of filmic confections, we see scenes of the bustling, fictional French town of Ennui. ![]()
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