The Problem With Hollywood Movies Today - Jason Park

Jason Park is an accomplished Director, Producer, Writer, Actor, and Cinematographer. Living in Atlanta, GA with a background in both acting and narrative filmmaking.

Jason was raised on the Big Island of Hawai'i. After finishing high school, he moved to Los Angeles California, where he found his passion for videography, acting, and filmmaking.

He began booking commercials and print work for companies like Apple, Samsung, McDonald's, Subway, and the list goes on. He's been in films with actors such as Brittany Snow (Pitch Perfect), Ross Butler (Shazam) Christian Serratos (Selena), David Oyelowo (Gringo), and Evan Ross (The Hunger Games). After appearing in films, commercials, and print campaigns.

The actor decided to passionately work on  breaking barriers for Asian-American actors, directors, writers, and creators in American Cinema. Leading him to create films with Asian leads in non Asian stereotypical roles.

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[upjohn]

Thank you so much finally someone who gets it, we need to spread this message across all of hollywood because it's painfully obvious how creatively bankrupt they are and how ignorant they are about this topic.

[manaze]

Damn it feels good hearing someone in the industry actually understand why fans reject Hollywood's attempt to reuse instead of create.

[TheWilkReport]

For all Hollywood pushes "diversity" by swapping out existing characters, it's really just cynical tokenism. Nobody wants tokenism. We want actual representation, not some swapped out character that's portrayed as downright horrible as a human being but we're expected to swoon over how empowered it is. I want REAL wokeness: anything from the Hollywood Renaissance starring Sydney Poitier. Lynn Whitfield as Josephine Baker. Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor, Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley, Ming-Na Wen in The Joy Luck Club. What I don't want is Black Lesbian Velma Dinkley who treats everyone horribly and gets her friend railroaded on a murder charge because REASONS.

Comic book movies are glutted right now and diminishing in quality, but if we're gonna have minority superheroes, gimme Static Shock, Icon, Jon Stewart Green Lantern, a GOOD adaptation of Spawn, etc. Plenty of material to work with, but we're not getting it because Hollywood insists on swapping out existing characters.

[BeckerFlag]

Absolutely spot on analysis of modern Hollywood.

[vancesnyder]

Well said, Jason. We need more artists such as yourself.

[flik]

you can blame executives and focus groups for this, not the movie going population. hollywood is creatively bankrupt.

[Theomite]

I completely agree with him, but I don't see it working anytime soon. Even if you remove the various racisms (financial, actual, etc.) in Hollywood, you still hit another wall that is the expectations of a diverse audience. American culture doesn't expect any heritage backstory for their protagonists, but a lot of ethnicities/nationalities demand it: the culture heavily programs certain traits in their people and will experience cognitive dissociation if they don't see it.

If you have, say a young Muslim female protagonist and you see NONE of the tropes we associate with that--say her parents are liberal, no one wears a hijab, no one is seen eating specific foods, no arranged marriage is mentioned, maybe she's dating a non-Muslim and not being celibate--a lot of people from that background are going to be baffled as to why that stuff isn't in there because of its expected commonality. You might even get people upset that this character doesn't represent their life experience in ANY WAY and the character and the movie are bullshit. That will affect audience participation, and thus, the box office.

A lot of cultures make the culture/religion/etc. a defining characteristic of a person's identity and American cinema is pretty loose, even negligent with those things, and that's gonna create problems with his mission statement.

[filmcourage]

What do you think? Please leave a comment below!

[sash]

It's an interesting conversation, because there are stories that highlight culture to help appreciate and celebrate that culture on film. But he's right, to normalise a culture, it has to be seen as normal, and not special or highlighted.

[vancesnyder]

I think talent and a good story speak for themselves.

[BionicDance]

_VINDICATION!!!_
All of my white friends have insisted I'm racist-as-fuck for saying exactly this. You have _no freaking idea_ how good it is to hear these sentiments echoed by someone affected by this dynamic in Hollywood.
_Thank you!_

[KillerBebe]

Many believe that Hollywood has lost that creative spark and they rely to heavily on established characters/movies and think the fans will accept anything them push at us.

[orsolyahajba]

Lovely explanation, genuine and honest.

[Thanos]

The music video that the Guest Speaker Jason Park is referring to at 6:56 is "Turn Down For What" by Little Jon.

One of the most visually exciting music videos to come out in years, and you should really look at it sometime -but just don't show it to your kids!

[DougyFreshGames]

4:20 This right here. I've been saying this forever but Hollywood seems to want to play race swap all the time. Just create new stories and characters instead.

[samantaluna]

I think the reason Asian Horror has become prevalent in the horror community is that being by filmed in Asia, it allows the story to play organically, with no diversity ideology attached to it, even when it might include elements of local folklore.

[minxili]

The comic book and movie industry have the same parallels. Except comic book at this point is nearly dead and has been beaten by manga. Only time will tell if the movie industry will experience what comic book is going through.

[garyfrancis]

I haven’t seen a movie since 2012 and not going back.

[badmojo]

ONLY artist/story tellers like Jason Park can FIX & SAVE Pop Culture in Hollywood, Entertainment & Comics!

[lacolem]

His viewpoint is definitely influenced by Will Smith’s career. In his heyday, Will was playing parts that were irrelevant of race or culture. I think we’re in a slightly different landscape with different sensibilities now, so it’s a bit more difficult to find the right balance of not forcing a quota and still making sure the landscape is well represented.

My argument is that if you hate “forced diversity” in front of the camera, you should be rooting for more diverse talent acquisition behind it. We’d see less lazy, brazen race/gender/checkbox-swapping of established characters if we had more diverse, talented people creating NEW characters.

Good interview and I hope this dude finds great success.