Response To Brown Brother

Still writing some more on this...

Here is my personal response for "Brown Brother" written by Joshua Iosefo.

I had the chance to interview Joshua Iosefo on his intentions for writing "Brown Brother" in the first place. For him, he feels that Brown people in general lack motivation and pride to achieve great things. He feels that brown people get stuck and are often stereotyped to fit certain roles in society. One of the most telling lines in his poem is when he lists the thing that brown people are known for. He says that they are "cleaning ladies, fast food burger making, factory box-packing and rubbish truck drivers" among other things. If brown people are good at one thing, it's only Rugby.

Another example he gives is that the media don't really portray Brown people in a positive light either. He lists shows and movies like Sindarella, Bro Town, Sione's Wedding, and The GC as examples were Brown people are shown as mockeries. He says will there ever be a time "when our representation goes deeper than putting our own people to shame". This is a great line because I feel the shows he mentioned don't really show Brown people as being normal intelligent beings. The "Mozzies" in the GC are seen as "dumb" while very brown character in Brotown  are either poor and lack intelligent too.

You can also list a show like "Police 10/7" or "Motorway Patrol" where brown people are not portrayed in a positive light either. Of course these shows are about crime and you only see the "bad" brown people that drink too much alcohol or are robbers. With these shows and the ones that Joshua listed too, you get an unfair representation of brown people on television.

The only kind of show I see on television that shows Brown people normally in Shortland Street. Most of the characters are either nurses and doctors. You don't really see them do stupid stuff on a daily basis and the brown people on the show aren't there just for comic relief either. They lead normal lives and are portrayed as normal kiwis. T.K. Samuels (played by Ben Mitchell) is one character who I feel is portrayed in a good light. He's a Maori doctor and lives in a nice house and (from what I've seen) has never been a comic relief type of character. Even Doctor Ropata (played by Temuera Morrison) who featured back when the show started in 1992 was shown as a competent and smart character.

Although the one thing I liked most about the interview I had with Joshua is that he told me the speech can be inspirational even if you are not a brown person. He said the intention for "Brown Brother" was to "let people of ALL different backgrounds know that they are capable" (of doing more). He also said "we need more diversity when it comes to storytelling instead of just sticking to one stereotype".

Even though I'm Asian, I still connected to the themes that Joshua was trying to put across. I consider myself to be more "Kiwi" than I'm Asian because I was born in New Zealand and English is the only language I speak. Despite this, I still get questioned by people in the street about where I come from. Some people still even ask me if I know how to speak "English" even though that's my first and only language. Even a fellow AUT student thought it was surprising my Dad owned a bookstore and not a Fish And Chip shop.

To me, I feel popular culture always likes to stereotype Asians too many times. In Hollywood, most Asians are only cast in movies if they know any type of martial arts. That, or they're either in a film as a nerd. You rarely see Asians get cast in the main role of a TV show or movie that doesn't involve them doing kung-fu in any way. On TV, Asians are often seen on cooking shows as chefs.

Even when a role that is meat to be for an Asian, they would normally cast a white person instead. A perfect example of this is the movie called "21". The movie is based on a book called "Bringing Down the House" which were mostly based on real-life Asian-Americans. It was a heist movie, yet the main leads went to Kevin Spacey and some guy named Jim Sturgess. Asians (again) were only cast in supporting roles. This shows Hollywood is still too scared to cast Asians outside of the king-fu stereotype in a main role in a movie.

During my interview with Joshua, he and I both agreed that more had to be done to balance out ethnic representation in the media and popular culture. Not all Brown people are dumb and stupid, while not all Asians are nerds, martial artists or chefs.