A.C.E.
January 6, 2020
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 13
“Baby Shark” creators release Navajo version of viral video
By Russell Contreras
The Associated Press
A
LBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Creators
of the popular video “Baby Shark,”
whose “doo doo doo” song was
played at the World Series in October and
has been a viral hit with toddlers around
the world, have released a Navajo version
of the tune.
Pinkfong, a brand of the South Korea
company SmartStudy, announced it
unveiled the new version after holding
singing auditions with the Navajo Nation.
Lóó’ Hashkéii Awéé, which loosely
means Navajo Baby Shark, is the 20th
language version of Baby Shark,
SmartStudy marketing manager Kevin
Yoon said in an e-mail.
The project was launched after Navajo
Nation Museum director Manuelito
Wheeler reached out to SmartStudy in
September about translating “Baby
Shark” into Navajo. The museum
previously had lobbied for Navajo versions
of the movies Star Wars and Finding Nemo
that were eventually made.
During the “Baby Shark” auditions,
Wheeler was the confidence-building
coach, and two Navajo language
instructors provided coaching with the
correct Navajo language pronunciations.
Hopeful actors for the roles of Navajo Baby
Shark, Mommy Shark, Daddy Shark,
Grandma Shark, and Grandpa Shark,
drove in from around the Navajo Nation.
Yoon said the company hopes its latest
project will spark interest in the Navajo
language among the tribe’s younger
generation.
“The Navajo Nation Museum has
advised and helped us through the whole
localization process, and the translated
lyrics have been supervised by Navajo
language experts,” Yoon said.
SmartStudy has translated the “Baby
Shark” tune of the viral video in 19
languages, including English, Chinese,
Japanese, Korean, German, Arabic, and
Bahasa-Malay.
The Navajo Nation is the largest Native
American reservation in the U.S. The
Navajo word for shark is lóó hashkéhé,
which translates to “angry fish.”
The original “Baby Shark Dance” video
has garnered more than 4 billion views on
YouTube.
“Baby Shark” has been around for a few
years, but took the world by storm last
year when the song and video went viral
with the nursery-school set, with little kids
imitating the hand-clapping dance that
went along with the video.
Books,
plush
toys,
and
other
merchandise inspired by the song became
hot-ticket items for the holidays and the
EARWORM TRANSLATED. Katrina Begay
practices lines with her daughter Drew at “Baby
Shark” auditions held at the Navajo Nation Museum in
Window Rock, Arizona. Begay and her daughter trav-
elled from Rock Point, Arizona, to audition for the roles
of Mama Shark and Baby Shark in the Navajo version
of the tune. The “Baby Shark” tune of the viral video
has been translated into 19 languages, including Eng-
lish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, German, Arabic, and
Bahasa-Malay. (Alma E. Hernandez/Gallup Independ-
ent via AP)
“Baby Shark” tour was soon hatched.
A second North American leg of the
“Baby Shark Live” concert tour is
launching in March.
During the World Series, Washington
Nationals fans adopted “Baby Shark” as
the team’s rally song.
Nickelodeon has a “Baby Shark” cartoon
series in the works.
Russell Contreras is a member of the race
and ethnicity team at The Associated Press.
Pop culture in 2010s marked gains in diversity, inclusion
By Jocelyn Noveck
AP National Writer
N
EW YORK — When the family-
friendly
Hallmark
Channel
recently pulled, under pressure
from a conservative group, a set of ads
featuring a kiss between two happy brides
at the altar, backlash was swift — to say
the least.
Within hours, stars like Ellen
DeGeneres and William Shatner were
tweeting in protest to their many
followers, and LGBT (lesbian, gay,
bisexual, transgender) advocates were
mobilizing a boycott via social media. This
was on a Saturday; by Sunday evening,
Hallmark had reversed its decision, and
apologized for what it acknowledged as a
mistake.
Whatever it says about corporate
missteps, the episode also says something
about how our popular culture has
changed in a decade, with diversity and
inclusion concerns taking center stage,
says Sarah Kate Ellis, president of
GLAAD, which advocates for LGBT people
in Hollywood and played a key role in
Hallmark’s reversal.
“This decade has been about diversity
and inclusion — at least the starting of the
conversation,” says Ellis. “Communities
who have been left out of the seats at the
table for decades and decades are finally
starting to find their voice, and their
footing.” And a major element, obviously,
is the power of social media: “It enables us
to connect with each other, find each other,
and organize,” Ellis says.
Speaking of viral protests, this was also
the decade of #OscarsSoWhite, the
hashtag launched in 2015 when none of
the 20 nominees in Oscar acting categories
were actors of color. Incredibly, the same
thing happened in 2016, forcing the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences to launch a major membership
overhaul aimed at diversifying its
overwhelmingly white, male, older ranks.
The following year, Moonlight, about the
coming-of-age of a young, gay black man,
won best picture (after La La Land was ...
oh, never mind) and the winner list was
more diverse. But true racial diversity in
entertainment remains an elusive goal.
“Things have certainly improved,” says
Gil Robertson, president of the African
American Film Critics Association. “Ten
years ago, you didn’t have an Ava
DuVernay, a Jordan Peele, a Shonda
Rhimes, a Kerry Washington,” he says.
“And my god, you couldn’t have even
imagined “Pose,” he says, referring to the
Ryan Murphy TV series set in the ’80s
ballroom culture with the biggest LGBTQ
(lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and
questioning) cast ever assembled for a
scripted show.
“The door has opened,” he says, adding
that inroads have also been made for
Asian-American actors and stories, but
less so for Latinos. “Has the industry
reached the place that we want it to be? No,
but things have gotten better.”
In her speech at the 2018 Oscars, soon
after the Harvey Weinstein scandal
launched the #MeToo era, Frances
McDormand urged women to demand an
“inclusion rider” in contracts to help
achieve gender parity. Almost two years
later, evidence of progress for women in
front of and behind the camera is slow but
steady. The entry of streaming giants like
Netflix has accelerated the pace of change,
says Stacy L. Smith, director of the USC
Annenberg Inclusion Initiative at the
University of Southern California.
An example: last year, 39 of the top 100
Hollywood films were led or co-led by a
female character, Smith says; in 2007 the
number was 20, so it has essentially
doubled in a decade. And there is progress
behind the camera, too. “We’re really
seeing changes, slow but real significant
movement in some of these institutions.”
And yet there are areas sorely lacking:
representation of female characters over
40 in films, for example, and women of
color. And trans women characters are
rarely seen in major films.
“Every group should be able to see
themselves onscreen,” Smith says.
A long way since “Ellen”
It’s hard to imagine that back in 1997
when DeGeneres came out on her TV
show, the words “I’m gay” were so ground-
breaking. “We were all but non-existent in
popular culture a few decades ago, and
now we’re very much grounded in popular
culture,” says Ellis, of GLAAD.
While no milestone this past decade
matches the import of that “Ellen”
moment, the decade began with the launch
— actually in 2009 — of both “Glee,” which
put a spotlight on LGBT youth, and
“Modern Family,” which introduced the
couple of Mitchell and Cam, two dads who
adopt a Vietnamese daughter. “These were
really big moments,” Ellis says. Another
was last year’s best-actor Emmy for Billy
Porter for “Pose,” the first openly gay black
man to win the award.
Inroads also were made in children’s
programming. “Doc McStuffins,” the
Disney Junior children’s cartoon, featured
a family led by an interracial, lesbian
couple, and the Disney Channel kids’ show
“Andi Mack” introduced a key gay
character.
Caitlyn Jenner’s revelation in 2015 that
she was transgender helped shine a light
on that community, and popular shows
like “Orange is the New Black” and
“Transparent”
featured
transgender
characters.
Beyond #OscarsSoWhite
America is increasingly diverse. Movie
audiences are increasingly diverse. And
diverse movies make money, because
people like to see stories and characters
that reflect their own lives.
Despite all this, says Darnell Hunt, an
author of the annual “Hollywood Diversity
Report,” progress toward racial diversity
in the film industry has been frustratingly
slow, lagging well behind TV.
Looking at the decade as a whole, Hunt
notes despite some “notable progress” in
the TV industry, there hasn’t been much
progress in terms of people of color in
executive suites, which are still dominated
by white men. And in film, the situation is
worse.
“As the country becomes more diverse,
the under-representation becomes more
severe,” he says.
And while his research has found there
has been progress over the decade for
female directors in the top 200 films, Hunt
says there’s been “zero progress” in
numbers of directors of color over the same
period. And so, he says, a film like Black
Panther, with a star-packed black cast and
a black director (Ryan Coogler), is more of
an outlier than an example of real change.
The next Bigelow?
For women in Hollywood, one statistic
remains particularly shocking: In the
entire history of the Oscars, only one
woman has won the best-director Oscar. It
happened at the dawn of this decade with
Kathryn Bigelow’s 2010 trophy for The
Hurt Locker.
There is, though, reason for some
measured optimism, on that score and for
women as a whole, says USC’s Smith. She
says that 2019 has emerged as the
strongest year for female directors of top
100 films, with 12% to 14% of them
featuring a woman behind the camera.
That compares to 4% pretty much every
year from 2007 to 2018, she says.
The change reflects better hiring
practices on the part of studios. “The
hiring is what is so important,” Smith
says. Particularly cheering, she adds, is
the slate of superhero movies planned for
2020. The year “is going to be huge,” Smith
says. “Five superhero movies will be
directed by women. Not one, but five.”
The staff at
The Asian Reporter wish
you and your family a
safe and happy 2020!