This is how Hollywood feels to me.

I was watching Commentary! The Musical, which is one of the commentaries on the Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog DVD, all done in song. It was in the third act of the commentary when I heard something that reminded me of the brief time I really wanted to be an actor in Hollywood, about the early-to-mid 90s. I even had a stand-up act, which focused on growing up the only Asian kid in East Los Angeles. One of my bits was about how there were no Asian role models for me, except for Short Round from Indiana Jones and Hong Kong Fuey. I've written about that elsewhere, but it bears repeating.

Anyway: here are the song lyrics from the Dr. Horrible website:

Asian in the Movies
Music and Lyrics by Maurissa Tancharoen and Jed Whedon
Performed by Maurissa Tancharoen

As far as I'm concerned, the song gets it right. So kudos to Maurissa Tancharoen for expressing this sentiment through a venue that might actually be heard by an audience.

Things haven't changed all that much, Harold and Kumar notwithstanding. Even Whedon's shows, of which I am largely a fan, haven't really ever cast a significant Asian character. There was that one lawyer on Angel, but they never used him for anything.