The Asian reporter., September 05, 2022, Page 14, Image 14

A.C.E.
Page 14 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
Jo Koy’s Easter Sunday
puts Filipinos front and center
By Terry Tang
The Associated Press
OS ANGELES — For a
comedy, Jo Koy’s new movie
Easter Sunday had a lot of
waterworks.
The film was no ordinary job for the
comedian and the rest of the cast. The
magnitude of being on a mostly
Filipino set led to happy cry-fests,
Koy said. Emotions really hit when
co-star Tia Carrere pointed out this
was her first time playing a Filipino
character in her 40-year career.
“To be able to be right there in a
scene with five other Filipino actors
and just doing a scene about a family
... She never saw that before,” Koy,
51, told The Associated Press. “We all
just kind of like teared up and just
celebrated together because it’s like
‘OK, this is going to be one of many
moments up here.’”
Koy, who is half Filipino and half
white, made his feature film debut in
a movie largely inspired by the
material from his Netflix stand-up
specials. DreamWorks/Universal is
touting Easter Sunday, which opened
last month, as the first big studio
movie with an all-Filipino ensemble.
Koy plays Joe Valencia, a comic and
aspiring actor who goes home to the
San Francisco Bay Area for the
titular holiday. He attempts to bond
with his teenage son while dealing
with well-meaning but overbearing
relatives. The production comes at a
time when Filipino-American food,
history, and advocacy are increas-
ingly emerging into the zeitgeist.
“Finally our stories, our faces are
front and center on the big screen,”
said Carrere, 55, and known for
movies like Wayne’s World, True Lies,
and Lilo & Stitch. “I have to pinch
myself that I’m still here, still in the
business and invited to the party.”
Jimmy O. Yang (Crazy Rich
Asians, Love Hard), who has a cameo
in Easter Sunday, also served as a
producer. That meant watching
many, many audition tapes of actors
of Filipino or Asian descent. Yang
was blown away by the talent. It
made casting 10 roles that much
tougher. He thinks Hollywood claims
that capable Asian actors are hard to
find are just lazy excuses.
“As an actor, I’m like all of these
guys are so good. How did I ever get a
job?” Yang said. “Some of them I
L
FUNNY FILIPINO FLICK. Jo Koy arrives
at the World Premiere of Easter Sunday last
month at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los An-
geles. The film, directed by Jay Chandrasekhar,
is set in the heavily Filipino suburb of Daly City.
(Photo by Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP)
wanted to call them and be like ‘Hey,
man! Please keep going OK? We just
couldn’t hire you for this job but
please keep going.’”
Easter Sunday, directed by Jay
Chandrasekhar, is set in the heavily
Filipino suburb of Daly City where
screenwriter Ken Cheng immigrated
to as a kid. He envisioned a mix of Ice
Cube’s Friday and the holiday flick
It’s a Wonderful Life. A producer, too,
Cheng wrote it in 2020 during
lockdown. He then turned to Steven
Spielberg, whose Amblin Partners is
co-producing. Within a few hours the
legendary director read it and gave
his approval, according to Cheng.
“From that day to the first day we
started shooting was something like
five-and-a-half months. And that’s
like insanely fast,” Cheng said. “A lot
of that is how enthusiastic everyone
was about building a movie around
Jo.”
Hollywood is populated with nota-
ble half-Filipino actors like Vanessa
Hudgens and Darren Criss. But Koy
is the one leaning into his heritage in
his work. For example, he wanted a
scene in Easter Sunday showing the
family packing customary balik-
bayan boxes. Filipinos, usually first-
generation immigrants, typically
send boxes with American goods to
relatives in the Philippines. Mailing
balikbayan boxes is practically its
own industry.
“There’s this responsibility that
they put on their shoulders when
they make it to this country,” Koy
said. “I see that with a lot of Filipino
families and I wanted to show the
world that’s how important this is to
us.”
Today, Filipinos make up over 4
million of the country’s 23 million-
plus Asian population, according to
the U.S. Census. Only Chinese and
Indians number more. Filipino
culture and history have been
gaining more mainstream visibility
in recent years — mostly because of
decades-long activism by Filipinos.
This year, a 30-foot tall gateway
arch was unveiled in Los Angeles’
Historic Filipinotown and a street in
New York City’s Queens was
co-named Little Manila Avenue. A
newly built Bay Area park was
named
for
striking
Filipino-
American farmworkers. For years,
Filipino food has been hailed off and
on as the next culinary trend. It
seems to be having a moment again in
the fine dining world. Chicago’s
Kasama became the only Michelin-
starred Filipino restaurant in the
country.
Easter Sunday arrived during “this
really amazing moment in Asian-
American history and Filipino-
American history, where political,
social, and economic capital has all
come together,” said Eric Pido, an
Asian-American studies professor at
San Francisco State University with
a background in Filipina/o-American
Studies. He predicts younger
generations will raise Filipinos’
profiles in the next few years.
“I think Filipino Americans are no
longer shying away from sort of
taking a representational role in
American politics, which will bring
up all sorts of interesting things
about Filipino-American culture that
lots of folks just don’t think about,”
Pido said.
Last month, Koy and Cheng
attended a screening of Easter Sun-
day in Daly City. Among the people
there was the director of Pixar’s
Turning Red, Domee Shi. Turning
Red, about a Chinese-Canadian teen-
age girl and her family, was a hit after
its March release on Disney+. But a
white film reviewer called the ani-
mated feature exhausting and only
relatable for Shi’s Chinese family and
friends. The review was later pulled
over accusations of racism.
The idea that stories that focus on
Asian ethnicities and cultures are too
specific to be appealing is just
outdated, Koy said.
Continued on page 16
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Malaysia
Malaysia has strict laws against
same-sex intercourse that can result
in up to 20 years of imprisonment. A
former deputy premier was jailed
twice for sodomy. He was sentenced
in 2000 and again in 2014, in cases
that critics say were politically
motivated. Parallel to its secular
courts, Malaysia has an Islamic court
system for Muslims that often jails
and canes gays and lesbians caught
by Islamic moral police for
attempting to have sex. Malaysia has
even tried to censor or ban movies
which it deems to promote what it
calls the LGBTQ lifestyle, including
Disney’s recent animated film
Lightyear.
New Zealand
New Zealand decriminalized gay
sex in 1986. Sex between men was
first made illegal in 1961, while sex
between
women
was
never
specifically made illegal although
one partner is from a place like Japan
or another place where their
marriage would not be legal.
Still, the island is a hotspot for
LGBTQ life and its annual Pride
parade attracts attendees from all
over Asia. Taipei is known for having
a vibrant gay community and
nightlife.
Thailand
Thailand is also among the most
liberal nations in Asia regarding
LGBTQ
issues.
Four
bills
alternatively offering to legalize
either marriage equality or civil
partnerships for same-sex couples
passed their first readings in the
House of Representatives in June. A
committee is working to consolidate
them into a package that lawmakers
are expected to pass, which would
make Thailand the first Southeast
Asian country to legalize same-sex
unions.
Associated Press reporters from the Asia-
Pacific region contributed to this report.
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End of Singapore’s gay sex ban is small step in Asia-Pacific
was stigmatized. In 2005, New
Zealand began recognizing civil
unions between same-sex couples,
which conferred many legal rights to
gay couples — but didn’t, for instance,
allow them to jointly adopt children.
In 2013, New Zealand became the
first nation in the Asia-Pacific region
to legalize same-sex marriage. In
2017, lawmakers took the rare step of
issuing a formal apology for the
“tremendous hurt and suffering”
inflicted on the hundreds of men who
were convicted of homosexuality
during the years that it was illegal.
The following year, lawmakers
passed a bill that expunged historic
homosexual offenses.
Taiwan
Taiwan legalized gay marriage in
2019, but LGBTQ activists want the
law to be made more inclusive. It
currently says both partners must be
from a place where such marriages
are already legal. So couples cannot
register their marriage in Taiwan if
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Difficulty
EASY
level: Easy
#78219
# 57
Instructions: Fill in the grid so that the digits 1
through 9 appear one time each in every row, col-
umn, and 3x3 box.
Solution to
last issue’s
puzzle
Puzzle #95746 (Hard)
All solutions available at
<www.sudoku.com>.
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