So, now that it’s the 21st century and all, NPR’s Web site has an article proposing the idea that—gasp—Gedde Watanabe’s character in Sixteen Candles, Long Duk Dong, might be a racist caricature that doesn’t actually represent every single Asian on Earth, ever.Fetch me the smelling salts, because I think I’ve fainted of surprise.

This would probably be a good time to come clean and mention that I’ve never actually seen Sixteen Candles, so maybe the character of Long Duk Dong is unfathomably racist and I’m just too cinematically uncultured to know that. But my money’s still on no. Read More »