Josh H
2 min readJan 20, 2018

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Oxford,

A brilliant piece, and I agree with 95% of everything you wrote. Unfortunately, the one part I disagree with is your analysis of the movie. You say:

“Ngoc, who is that familiar character: the long-suffering Asian refugee who, against all odds, has made it to America and finds salvation among good-hearted white people. No other Asians exist, except as evil governments or tragically deceased family and friends. Ngoc appears battle-hardened, but she actually has a heart of gold and says adorable/creepy things like “Did we make love-fuck?” Unlike the white male protagonist’s selfish and traitorous white wife, Ngoc has that rustic Asian villager wisdom that allows her to appreciate said white male protagonist’s dormant specialness.”

Ngoc doesn’t find salvation among the white people, she saves a white person.

Ngoc doesn’t uncover Damon’s dormant white specialness (although that is a hell of a line), her specialness is seen through his eyes.

By the end of the movie Matt Damon’s character has done three laudable things:

  1. Is smart enough to realize that she is much cooler and special than him.
  2. Is smart enough to listen to her and realize that survival (at any cost) isn’t really the only point of a life well lived.
  3. Was really nice to people and willing to help give them good advice about ergonomics and occasionally help them recover from bad work posture.

The hero of this story was Ngoc, the Asian woman not Matt Damon, the white man.

I suspect the hope was that if Payne pulled some high-concept sleight of hand and let the audience see Ngoc’s active specialness through a training wheels accent and the eyes of a trusted white guy…maybe, just maybe, people could see that other cultures might have a better idea about living than we do here in celebrity land.

I suspect this was the point of the juxtaposition of the techno-corporate environmentalism and the radical environmentalism that spawned it with someone who just tries to live a simple but right life. You are 100% right that there is some serious stereotyping living in that construction of Asian-ness, but I don’t think this is the traditional “magical Asian” makes a “white man special” story.

At the end of the movie, Matt Damon is still just a bland, mostly nice but unexceptional white man just like he was at the beginning (you were right that he is Dad rock for sure, although Dad rock is really more Paul Rudd in those Apatow movies, not Pink Floyd).

I feel like there is the germ of something equally troubling in this story too but I will have to let that seed germinate a bit more before it will fully make sense to me.

Now, all that said, you said so many important things, I hope people will both look at the movie a different way AND love your piece. In addition, I could certainly be 100% wrong.

Thanks!

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Josh H
Josh H

Written by Josh H

Author, Criminal Justice Reform Advocate, Co-Host of the "Decarceration Nation" Podcast, Television critic and Movie Reviewer, OnPirateSatellite.com

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