When I first saw the trailer for Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, I wasn’t interested at all. Not at all.
Usually, college style stoner comedies make fun of visible minorities, poking fun at the accents, the peculiar behavior, the awkward attempts to meet girls Asian and Indians are the butt end of jokes, and while it’s funny to watch, it’s gotten old.
Ethnic protagonists are still on the receiving end: Jackie Chan in Rush Hour saves the day, but not before Chris Tucker tears him to pieces over his pronounciation. The Indian guy in Short Circuit is reviled by the New York population, mostly.
The opening scenes from the movie:
Where Harold and Kumar shines for once, an Indian American and a Korean American are normal, cool guys. They smoke weed and love girls and sex. Among the scarred battelfield of toilet humour and weed culture, the movie reveals a central theme about the main characters: they’re visible minorities, but they’re still Americans.
It’s not easy for Harold and Kumar. They’ve grown up in America, but they’re still treated like they’re on the fringe by white Americans, and pressured to be ‘ethnic’ by their families and communities. What do they want, really? To have a good time and meet hot girls. It’s a simple life.
The film twists and turns in a fairly ridiculous storyline that has them in jail, riding a cheetah and hang gliding. It’s almost painful at times. But with all the marijuana smoke that pervades throughout, it’s nothing to get worked up about. Besides, what were you expecting Chocolat Amelie Poulain?
Like all predictable feel good comedies, this one lays it down. Harold’ll come to terms with being a docile Asian business guy, Kumar will make a self realization and the bad white guys get it in the ass.
Ah, white guys. If anything, the white male American has more to complain about than anything. Who stands up for them? No one. This movie, and many before it, make fun of the white male for being racist, buffoonish, amoral or just plain ugly. Is it justified? Well perhaps not, but certainly, the assholes shown in the movie are not unbelievable, at least, as believable as the Indian exchange student in National Lampoon’s Van Wilder.
Many of my friends didn’t much care for Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, but it resonated with me. As a visible minority, I can relate to the frustration that comes from being mistaken for an immigrant. Harold and Kumar don’t want to have exceptions for what they are, and they don’t want people to tiptoe around the issue. They’re just Americans, and they like, oddly enough, Wilson Philips and eating at White Castle. The only ones that understand that are the Jewish Americans that live down the hall.
I say: See it and revel in the absurdity of the story, the unlikely scenarios, the cameos by some famous people. Comedy like this is easy, to be sure, but so enjoyable that it just makes you want to grin like a hyena.
See it for: Even more gratuitous nudity than American Pie and the equivalents. Whoever produced this movie hit it right on the head: drugs, shit-jokes and topless women. When the Korean student trades a bad of weed to see two girls flash, it’ll bring a college flashback to your mind.
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