Minority Reports

There are two new movies that will attempt to gain widespread success by tapping into "underserved" minority groups. Better Luck Tomorrow and Chasing Papi were both made on the cheap, and have casts and filmmakers who are Asian American and Latino respectively. But both movies also bear the burden of having to be successful in order for future "ethnic-centered" films to get made. It's sad that these types of movies have to rely on word-of-mouth to gain an audience, while studios spend tens of millions marketing bigger pictures. BLT director Justin Lin is even distributing an email he wrote, in an attempt to start a grassroots campaign. In the email he writes "This Friday, we open in LA, San Francisco, Chicago and New York. How we do in these first cities will determine if the rest of the country will get to see us at all." What a shame.

I am well aware that all of these studio decisions are about money and are not inherently racist. But the flaw I see is that these small-time films are never able to break out of the self-perpetuating system of low exposure. If these minority-made films never get the chance to get a wide release (of, say 1000 screens the first weekend instead of 10), how will they get to prove that they can draw an audience? It's not fair to keep them on such limited low-profile release schedules, especially when My Big Fat Greek Wedding just proved that white anglo audiences will indeed embrace a movie about a different ethnicity.