Certainly Asian people, of the diaspora or otherwise, are beautiful and worthy of being the protagonists of relatable stories, films, etc. That being said, I do question the premise of this project: do we need to write ourselves into white stories in order to feel represented? Coming-of-age films resonate with many of us, but do we connect with these characters because their whiteness allows us to focus on their personalities, challenges, and triumphs without needing to factor in racial oppression, belonging to a minority group, and the ways one must navigate the world because of that? Growing up in a white environment and white family as a person of color, I would have loved to consume media in which Asians were visible as more than just "sidekicks." But, we also have our our stories to tell. We don't need to imagine ourselves into these pre-existing narratives (or their visual retellings) that didn't include us in the first place.

What a visceral effect these pictures have. I want to see all the reimagined movies, even those whose originals I didn't like.

Looking through this project I am inundated with the pangs of longing-- longing for an unprecedented reality, maybe a glimpse into a parallel universe where the sting of “otherness” is not as sharp. Likely that I am also a Filipina American and have had these longings makes me sympathetic to the artist’s examination, and my immediate reaction then was not to want to interpret the intention of the project to be about representation, politics, or “Hollywood fantasies”. Instead, here is a glimpse into the dichotomous state of being a young Filipina American woman. To all the haters dismissing the project’s idolization of western Hollywood movies: You clearly have never been to the Philippines. The primary cultural force in our country has not been and is currently not our own. Having a history of direct colonization for nearly 400 years, with American occupation for over 50 years after that has resulted in the collective psyche of the Filipino believing that our culture, our way of life is inferior. More recently, Western culture and particularly American movies have been the standard by which we compare our own life experiences to. We imagine our “ideal self” in these movie portrayals, but unfortunately as a result we will never be able to integrate congruently the “ideal self” with the “real self”. This project highlights the deep-seeded longing of a Filipina American, the longing for the two to coalesce, and to fully self-actualize in this reality.

Love the article. Vulnerability usually sets us free but it comes with lots of risks. The author/artist was tackling head on all the uncertainties that she was experiencing, but at the same time also enjoying all these films. I think this piece was more of an obvious personal reflection/exploration rather than an opinion about social issues because she used people that were familiar to her and not actors/actresses. Thank you for being open.

Great pictures! Thanks for sharing your vision. I didn't see any of these movies. Can't imagine seeing myself in any of them. But that's me, not you.

If a significant portion of people in any race are unable to see themselves in (i.e. emphasize with) characters played by an actor of a race not their own, we're gonna have big problems as a multiracial society. And not just when it comes to the Oscars.

I love this project! It is so empowering to see yourself, your people, being represented on the big screen, and awful to never see them represented.

Thank you for this. It made me cry.

We love the same films!!! And your position among and after them is thoughtful.

Good grief...how about making some movies and you can have them as you want them to match your racial preferences? Or perhaps look to movies made and Asia and then I can wonder why there aren't more heroic white guys? Funny, when I watch movies with other ethnicities, I generally don't feel unwelcome because people don't look like me...then again, it's mostly fiction/entertainment, so I'm not shocked when the animals talk and wonder why there aren't more humans like me.

I am Korean American and I grew up in South Korea from age 6 to age 18. (Been living in NY for a decade after that.) I grew up watching and loving the movies mentioned here, especially Linklator's Before Sunset and Coppola's movies. However I do not relate to the author's feeling of not seeing herself within these characters because of her skin color. I saw myself in Jesse and Celine in "Before Sunset", and Charlotte and Bob in "Lost in translation", as much as I saw myself in Orpheus of "Black Orpheus" or the main characters in Korean movie called "My Dear Enemy", or Japanese movie "Linda Linda Linda". It seems troubling and ego centric to me that the author actively idealized and looked up to these movies from US while actively disregarding or giving a chance in many other asian cinemas where she can see people of similar skintone, culture, heritage if that is what she is looking for- and then proceeding to make a "Commentary" of lack of seeing herself in these idealized Hollywood movies she digested. (Especially considering she spent her teenhood in Asia) This recreation of stills seems shallow as it is failing to portray anything deep or substantial about Asian identities- It seems like it is only speaking of the author's jaded insecurities of own culture and racial identity.

Very original and creative.

ill never understand the narcissistic urge behind attitudes like this.

If you lived next to UC Berkeley you might find this work to be somewhat...ironic.

This article is deeply troubling. It's like saying, what if Bruce Lee was instead an English white guy? Boy, young white guys would really like that! That would be intolerable; we are justly angry the TV Series Kung Fu used the Western actor David Carradine, but at least the series left him as a Chinese monk. Imagine if he'd been recast as a wandering Anglican seminarian? We need to get more comfortable being whoever we want, despite the trapping of cosmetic but otherwise minor genetic variation. We don't need surgery or radical re-imagining. I, an old white guy, can imagine being Bruce Lee, any number of Wesley Snipes characters, or Che Guevara. It's important that I be able to do so. It's important that anyone be able to identify fully with whoever shares their values, sensibilities, aspirations and tribulations. Otherwise, the critical project of developing truly human values and standards fails. We could simply wait for inevitable, redemptive and salutary miscegenation to work its lengthy magic. But, really, it's beneath the immense dignity of the human imagination to need such a crutch.

Interesting comments so far. To me, this piece was a powerful way of showing how/if we readjust our expectations when we see main characters who look different than we are used to - it's also a way of revealing just how pervasive those issues of representation are. *Would* some of those movies have been so popular if they had featured Asian American actors? It's interesting that we don't really know because we don't have many examples to go by, which this makes clear in a really simple (I mean that as a good thing), visual way. The author/photographer actually liked the moves she references, and I don't think she's trying to actually remake them in her image, but just to ask a question. The comments - or responses to the question - here so far mainly strike me as defensive.

Cool, but I wonder the reaction if someone did the reverse.

Interesting, I'm Malaysian Chinese, and I've lived in Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe, and the good ole' US of A. Maybe because I'm old, and maybe because I grew up before selfies, and having to be plugged into "culture" 24/7, I never felt the need to see myself all the time. I've been "the stranger" in so many cultures, and my focus was to see the new culture I found myself in and learn from it, rather than focusing on me. I'm sorry she feels this way - it must be relentless to have to think about this all the time.

If we started replacing the world with images that look like us, soon there would only be one color, one race, one set of beliefs. If we went and replaced the characters in a Spike Lee movie with all Mexicans, or Memoirs of a Geisha with an all Irish cast, or made Black Panther white, or the teens from Breakfast club with middle aged white folk, we would lose all that is different, all that is unique to those films. Already placing Sang Siyi as a Japanese Geisha was as extreme; that she made it work is a testament to her skill. But the world is not one color, it’s not all white, and not all Asian. Yes we need more diversity, but not at the expense of erasing every one else that is not like us.

Please don't reverse-import the awful Hollywood practice of badly remaking original movies. Something gets lost when all you do is replace the cast with American, Asian, or whichever the nationality without properly understanding the cultural foundation of that particular film. Just remember that Hollywood is full of people who thought it was okay to cast Chinese actresses as one of the quintessential symbols of Japanese culture ('Memoirs of a Geisha') or change the classic story of 'The Iliad' just so that Brad Pitt could stay on screen until the last minute and Homer wasn't alive to object.

Some thoughts - I can't remember the source, but some non-Russian was asked "Who is your Tolstoy?" His answer was, "Tolstoy - artists don't below to a nation, they belong to the world." I'm not Russian, but I see myself in Tolstoy's characters just as I do in those of Amy Tan although I'm not Chinese, either. If you can see yourself in these movies despite who's in them, then it's art - otherwise it's just entertainment, and if it's entertainment let it go. I would also suggest if you want to see Asians in movies, make movies with Asians, or work with those who can. God knows there's enough money and talent, and given today's technology literally anyone can make a movie. Lastly, none of these movies are really that great - why would you want your heroes to be in them?

Would the author be content if 5-6% of Hollywood movies featured Asian protagonists, to match the Asian composition of the U.S. population? Or there is some other formula which would be acceptable? You'd never guess, reading these laments, that Asia has its own film industries and that these movies actually feature Asians. What's more disturbing is that any person would base his or her fantasies on Hollywood movies and the American entertainment industry.

Representation matters. And at the same time I can't help seeing this as a step backwards.

Love this project! Representation matters, most of all to each of us as we come to understand the story of our own lives. What we see onscreen, in our families, our reading, our dreams, school, work etc. shapes our narrative, our self-image. Of course we all want to be the heroine -- in our real lives, shouldn't we be? Hollywood baby steps are good (put Henry Golding & Awkwafina in everything, pls) but there's so much further to go.