Analysis of Racial Identities in Harold and Kumar

Racial identities play a large role in how Americans view themselves and making stereotypes a normal part of life. Due to the way that society portrays itself using racial identities, the film industry capitalizes on racial identities to bring out emotions, and no other genre of film relies on racial identities and stereotypes more than the comedic genre. In New Line Cinema and Warner Bros Picture's Harold and Kumar 2, Escape from Guantanamo Bay, many racial identities are exploited to elicit humor, most notably, the Asian American racial identities that the two main characters Harold Lee and Kumar Patel portray. Along with the stereotypes represented by the Asian American characters in the film, there are also racial identities projected onto the main characters by other ethnicities. While this film may follow most racial identities for Asian Americans, it not only embodies the racial identities in Harold Lee and a stereotyping society, but it also transgresses these stereotypes through Kumar Patel, showing that stereotypes do not apply to everybody.

This film is about the adventure of Harold and Kumar as they escape from Guantanamo Bay Prison as fugitives of the United States of America. Race and ethnicity plays a huge role in both their original predicament of being fugitives, as well as creating all of the dilemmas that they run into during their escape. Although there are many different ethnicities of the race falling under Asian, a racial identity is already on the surface when Harold, a man of Korean descent, and Kumar, a man of Indian descent is classified as simply Asian. Asian Americans are sometimes considered a "model minority," a term "first coined by sociologist William Peterson in 1960. His New York Times article, 'Success Story: Japanese American Style,' praised Japanese Americans for not becoming a 'problem minority' and cited the Japanese Americans' cultural values and hard work ethics", (Kim and Yap). Although "the model minority stereotypes attribute educational and economic success to all Asian Americans" (Kim and Yap), there are still many negative racial identities and stereotypes associated with Asian Americans. The main racial identities of Asian Americans are those based on the passiveness of Asian American males, which include beliefs that "Some personality and behavior stereotypes assert that Asians are 'submissive,' 'humble,' 'passive,' 'quiet,' 'compliant,' 'obedient,' 'stoic,' ... and'act F.O.B. [fresh off the boat]'" (Kim and Yeh). Another big racial identity deals with the intelligence of Asian Americans. Asian Americans are generally assumed to excel academically, which "identify Asian Americans as 'geniuses,' 'overachievers,' 'nerdy,' 'great in math or science,' 'competitive,' 'uninterested in fun,' and '4.0 GPAs'" (Kim and Yeh). This assumed intelligence also leads to an assumption that all Asian American men have white collar, high class jobs such as being a doctor, engineer, lawyer or other cubicle based jobs while lacking in any aggressive and/or social positions such as management and marketing. Finally, there are many other smaller racial identities of Asian Americans which include classifying all Asian Americans as Chinese and being a "'poor or non-English speaking,' and 'poor communicators'" (Kim and Yeh). Harold Lee, although a third generation Korea-American at the least, embodies most of these Asian American racial identities, and assumed to have the rest by other cast in the film, while Kumar Patel, an American born Indian-American, transgresses many of these Asian American racial identities while still assumed to embody them by other cast in the film.

Harold Lee is the embodiment of many Asian American racial identities, making him what some may call a "model minority." Harold fits the passive racial identities of Americans as good law abiding citizens that prefer to stay out of trouble. This is apparent in his many attempts to dissolve confrontations that he encounters during the adventure such as when Kumar argues with an airport security guard and Harold immediately tries to resolve the confrontation through dismissal of the issues. Another example of the "model minority" of Harold in the film occurs when Harold refuses to smoke marijuana with Kumar on the airplane. Harold also has an air of intelligence about him throughout the whole film, giving off the impression that he works at a high paying white collar job that would have required a good GPA from a good college and lots of book smarts. Most importantly however, is the asexuality of Harold, who is on a mission to find the girl of his dreams. Harold gives off the impression that he is not socially adept with women in his lack of masculinity when around women, such as in the prostitute consoling scene where he acts like a woman talking about her problems to her girlfriends. These racial identities turn Harold into a "model minority" an embodiment of Asian American racial identities, a contrast to the transgression of Asian American racial identities by the other main character, Kumar Patel.

To contrast the Asian American racial identities that Harold personifies, the film transgresses many racial identities in Kumar Patel. Kumar is a rebellious, outgoing character that is very outspoken and gives this film many twists and turns with his law defying acts such as successfully smuggling marijuana onto the duo's flight to Amsterdam. Aside from a rebellious attitude, another important transgression of Asian American racial identities in Kumar is his outspoken personality. Instead of being quiet in the background, Kumar speaks his mind as he wishes, such as in the scene where he questions an airport security guard's authority to conduct a random search on him at a security checkpoint. Unlike a common Asian American male stereotype, Kumar is not afraid of his sexuality. Kumar has no visible issues chatting about sexual topics, taking advantage of situations with women such as at the bottomless party scene and the brothel scene, and his objection to the marriage of his former girlfriend that he ends up winning back. However, Despite Kumar's transgression of countless Asian American racial identities, he still embodies some of the stereotypes. A prime example is Kumar's superior ability in math, such as in the library scene where he first meets his girlfriend by effortlessly assisting her with a difficult math problem. Embodying a common Asian American stereotype of the need to please his parents, Kumar was also expected to attend a well known medical school and even had an interview set up, though his rebellious nature lead him to pursue other uses of his time. Overall, Kumar is a very rebellious, outspoken and outgoing character which is a transgression of the typical quiet, passive and assimilating "model minority" stereotypes of Asian American men.

In addition to Asian characters embodying and transgressing racial identities, Harold and Kumar 2 also portrays Asian stereotypes through non-Asian characters as well to exaggerate the stereotypical view on how other cultures of America view Asian Americans. The most notable character to embody Asian American racial identities is the lead investigator of Harold and Kumar's case, Ron Fox, a White government official who appears to believe in White supremacy and all racial stereotypes about any minority. A notable scene is the interrogation of Harold's parents, where Ron, upon seeing Harold's Korean-American parents, religiously assumes that they are immigrants, communist, and do not speak a word of English despite Harold's father's ability to speak fluent English United States citizenship. Outside of the cast, the film producers also followed the Asian American stereotype that the different ethnicities of Asia have no physical differences, using the Korean actor John Cho to play Harold and the Japanese actor Clyde Kusatsu to play Harold's father. The racism embodied by Ron Fox and the normalcy of choosing various Asian ethnicities to play the Korean ethnicity shows that the film believes that the general public does in fact believe many of the stereotypes about Asian Americans.

"Harold and Kumar 2: Escape from Guantanamo Bay" follows many Asian American racial identities to elicit humor in its audience. Both in the making of the film and during the film, the film likely holds stereotypes about Asian Americans to be a reality, embodying many Asian American racial identities such as intelligence, passivity and asexuality in Harold Lee as well as in how characters of other ethnicities view Asian Americans. Unlike other films however, "Harold and Kumar 2" also manages to successfully transgress Asian American stereotypes in Kumar Patel. Regardless of the transgression however, "Harold and Kumar 2" uses racial identities as the focus of the film, bringing out Asian American racial identities as a reality in American society.