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I watched Romper Stomper last night, the 1992 movie that featured Russel Crowe’s breakthrough role (gag). I was surprised that he was quite good — playing a skinhead.

This movie does not condemn skinheads as openly as in American History X, but it does do two things that I found interesting:

1) Every major character in the movie is suspect. There are no real protagonists to like and the characters that the camera are closest to are heavily unrealiable.

2) For once, you get to see a crew of Asian men kick ass without numchucks and martial arts — they use crowbars and 2×4s to stomp some skinhead ass. Finally.

Number two was a nice respite from the recent Asiaphile shit I see from white kids lately, a topic that Jen takes on in a satisfying and righteously angry post:

And you know, it wouldn’t even be so bad if the kids doing the taking and bastardizing were able to defend their actions in the court of me-about-to-kick-your-ass. I’d love it if the next White boy wielding homemade tonfa and worshipping Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kun Do fighting style were able to address accusations of Asiaphilia. I’d even be okay with the Asiaphile if they knew about Vincent Chin, the Chinese Exclusion Act, and Japanese Interment. I’d love to have a conversation with the Asiaphile about his (re)birth after watching Full Metal Jacket.

But, no. The Asiaphile doesn’t understand the politics or consequences of his fetish. He knows all about the Meiji Restoration and has memorized the Art of War by heart, but actually defends Hiroshima and Nagasaki (200,000+ killed in a brutal act of terrorism, but to the Asiaphile, it was a necessary act to defend the people who really matter). He knows nothing about the Asian American movement even though he organizes endless anime, sushi and karaoke nights at his college campus. He doesn’t even see his interest as a fetish, he sees it as his God-given right to take and take and reappropriate my culture because he feels denied somehow that his mixed-up part-Greek, part-English, all-European-American, totally of the Caucasian Persuasion ass doesn’t have a native tongue that’s quite as “different” or an American culture that involves bladed weaponry. It reminds me of the kind of bullshit privilege that encourages Americans to take classes in getting stranded in the wilderness following a plane crash — ninjutsu is a cool diversion because you know you’ll never really have to use it to save your life.

And I’m the asshole for objecting to the fortune cookie-ing of my heritage.

Anyway, reading Jen’s post just after watching this skinhead movie made me have a duh! moment of something I’ve never considered: The flipside of ignorant racism is ignorant cooption of others’ cultures. Even worse, among their peer groups, the individuals that do so consider it enlightenment.

Fuck. I could have hit myself for not having realized that yet, but there you go.