So I guess the music video “Chinese Food,” which went viral around two weeks ago, is kind of old news by now and should probably just die, except that I honestly think that this video should burn in infamy, and at least haunt the lives of Alison Gold and Patrice Wilson, the writer and director of the video, for all of posterity. Alison Gold, when you’re applying to college, I hope that everyone remembers this, and since you’re like thirteen and still relatively blob-like in your mental capacities, your parents should shoulder most of the blame and learn their lesson.
The horrible universe of Alison Gold’s “Chinese Food” is creepy, outdated, infuriating and depressing. I get that it’s meant to be somewhat funny and I don’t believe there was any intent to insult or hurt, but seriously, it’s 2013 and orientalism is still rampant: people can’t distinguish Japanese from Chinese and there are still references to dog-eating (did anyone catch one of the close ups of the placement of a dog monopoly piece on Oriental Avenue?). This is the every-day casual racism that makes it so hard being Asian American in the United States, when you’re only depicted as non-English speaking, subservient people who really crave the approval of white people.
Also disturbing and very “WTF” in this video is that there seems to be nothing questionable about the guy in the panda suit who later reveals himself as a forty year-old man, who also raps, likes tickle fights and crashes prepubescent slumber parties.
I guess the most laughable thing about this video to me however, is that the Chinese food to which she dedicates her oeuvre is pretty much the shittiest of Chinese food, and the lamest dishes you could ever order at a Chinese restaurant: Fried rice, egg rolls, chow “meh meh meh” mein. I could maybe make a video in honor of some deluxe fried rice with lobster and rare fungi, but egg rolls are greasy and never better than mediocre and chow mein is O.K.
How I would re-make Alison Gold’s “Chinese Food” music video:
- Get rid of Alison Gold. Centuries of Chinese culinary tradition doesn’t need a spoiled 13 year-old proclaiming her love for egg rolls.
- Get rid of all people in the video. No Chinese caricatures, no dubious men in panda suits, no posse of girls in kimonos.
- Replace sound with something by Yo-Yo Ma because he’s Chinese-American and cool.
- Get rid of any semblance of Chinese take-out. Maybe a scene of me throwing noodles everywhere and stomping on egg rolls, the grease spurting out in a cinematically violent manner.
- Other than the egg roll stomping, the video will be primarily a montage of Chinese hot pot, crunchy and fat dripping roast duck and pork, clay pots of rice, fish-flavored eggplant, dry-roasted green beans, fried tofu, soup dumplings, etc. etc. etc. This video will probably be like 10 hours+ long and become the new Nyan cat of the interwebs.
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