I was definitely a little hard on Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay in my review. But I’ll admit, though I kind of already did there, that it is a pretty funny movie. And as with any movie that I know will be popular despite anything I write negatively about it, I wanted to raise a discussion, here specifically of the racial issues the comedy deals with. Fortunately, I was able to do so with the filmmakers and actors, themselves, during a “roundtable” interview at Austin’s InterContinental Stephen F Austin Hotel on Saturday afternoon.

Of course, I realized by the end of the talks, which came in two parts — first with co-writer-directors Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, then with co-stars John Cho, Kal Penn and Neil Patrick Harris — that by simply bringing up the “issue”, I was encouraging and continuing a racist perspective of addressing ethnicity as an issue, which is certainly more a part of the problem than I mean it to be. Basically, I should have been more celebratory of the sequel, like I have always been with the original, because overall I should be thankful Cho and Penn were again allowed to star in their own movie. I just hope this isn’t the best Hollywood can do for them or other Asian-American actors trying to find non-typecast work in the movies.

My first indication that I was taking Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay too seriously was earlier in the day, during the SXSW panel actually titled “Race, Politics and Drugs: a Harold & Kumar Panel,” where Hurwitz and Schlossberg flat out said they have no bigger agenda with these movies than to be a showcase for vagina jokes. Yet ever the one to press matters, I later asked the pair about their decision to deal more with race in the sequel.

Check out the conversations with both groups after the jump.

Part 1 - Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg:

Christopher: How was the issue with playing the race card? The first film doesn’t really touch on race so much, but with this movie the impetus of the story is race. And from there you pretty much play with stereotypes, one after the other.

Hayden Schlossberg: They dealt with minor racism in the first film, and we saw that Harold and Kumar actually had a pretty healthy outlook about it, that sometimes it happens in the world, and it’s something that they didn’t let get to them, when it came down to it. In the sequel, we wanted to tell a different story. People really enjoyed the subtle messages about diversity in the first film, and deconstructing stereotypes in some way. In the sequel, we thought it would be fun and interesting for their race, particularly for Kumar, to get them into even hotter water. And have some commentary in a very ridiculous film that is making some comments about racial profiling and the perception of minorities.

Jon Hurwitz: I think it was really important in the first movie that it be subtle and that these guys just feel really relatable. And we kept the characters the same, so the characters didn’t really change, but you’re right the story is much more on point. But for us, it was like, they’re being sent to Guantanamo Bay this time, this is the sequel, it’s getting turned up a notch. And so it felt like this wasn’t a movie where you had to be all subtle about this thing, because we’ve already established these guys and what they go through, and so the comedy for us was that this time they had to go through really crazy shit. And having worked and been friends with Kal now for the past three or four years, this sort of thing happens. It’s not like we’re creating some far fetched idea for a movie. There is racial profiling that happens at the airports, there are people who get thrown into Guantanamo Bay and then later on they get sent out on sort of an “Oh, sorry, you’re not a terrorist.” It’s just playing with that world that does exist that’s different about this movie than the first movie.

Christopher: So how did you decide to take some of the stereotypes that you flip, like the southern hick with the really great house, but then you flip it back so, oh, yeah, he does have an inbred son.

Jon: For us, we just constantly like to turn things on their heads. What you see on the outside isn’t exactly what’s real. Again, it’s a theme throughout both movies to take stereotypes and playing with them.

Part 2 - Kal Penn, John Cho and Neil Patrick Harris:

Christopher: Was the first movie the best thing that could happen to you guys as minority actors, as far as getting more parts that aren’t typecast?

Kal Penn: I would argue that it’s one of the best things that can happen to any actor. Especially when you’re under a certain age to be able to play a buddy movie. Especially a buddy movie that seems to be so universal in its themes. Two guys who are up late one night and they want hamburgers. That’s really all the story is about. So certainly you can’t deny maybe certain limitations because of ethnicity in Hollywood, especially a few years ago compared to now. So, yeah, you take certain pride in that, but I really would argue that no matter what your background is, for any actor to have had that opportunity to play a lead role stands alone.

Christopher: Do you think it’s weird that this movie was more about the ethnicity than the first film?

John Cho: I don’t know if it was. It’s one of those things where the fact that it isn’t about the ethnicity attracts a lot of attention to itself, as well. You know, it’s damned if you do, damned if you don’t. With our movie, doing this sort of conspicuous casting, it’s impossible not to interpret everything. But the whole Guantanamo Bay thing isn’t necessarily about the race of the characters. I feel like it’s more just a way to ramp up the stakes for them and actually have a plot this time. Because the first movie didn’t really have a plot. [laughter and long pause] But also, I do feel like the political stuff and the race is there, yes. And it’s something that people have come to expect in the sequel. Although it’s less a part of the first one than we had thought it was. I feel like people take it to mean more than it is.

Neil Patrick Harris: Yeah, as the non-ethnic dude in the cast, I can say that what makes it interesting is that it’s such a non-issue, that it’s not constantly about that in the movie, and I think that’s what becomes the statement in the movie, that that’s what’s nice about society as it stands today is that you can have these two guys be the co-stars of this movie and they’re just the co-stars of the movie. You don’t have to keep pointing at it. It’s not Blazing Saddles anymore.

John: I think that’s what puts a red flag on it. If you go to the Asian-American Film Festival you’ll see a slew of Asian-American films that talk about race. It’s 90 minutes of people saying, “How does it feel to be Asian?” I’m making fun, but we talk about race in a way that I think is true to life. I think it’s correct fraction of what people feel that race is a part of their life. We don’t go around talking about it a hundred-percent of the time, and it comes up in our movies. And I think the race of the characters is magnified because they’re the protagonists.

Kal: One of the [questions] I like to use when I think about these kinds of things is whether or not a particular film would exist, whether the plot would advance independent of the ethnicity of the two characters, and I think with both Harold & Kumar films the answer overwhelmingly is yes. Ethnicity maybe flavors certain choices or flavors the characters, but the story would progress in this particular fashion no matter who played the two lead roles. If someone thinks there’s a bomb on an airplane in this fictitious world, [someone is] getting sent to Guantanamo.

NPH: But the same goes for me because it didn’t have to be “Neil Patrick Harris”; it could have been, like, “Alfonso Ribeiro“.

Kal: And it could have.

NPH: And it would have been the same movie.

Kal: I think you bring something special to it.

John: Eh, I don’t know. Alfonso, no.

Steve Rose (of The Guardian): What you’re saying, basically, is that the treatment of ethnicity is making more progress in the movies than it is in real life.

Kal: That is not what I’m saying.

Christopher: [to John] But I like that you can also make fun of yourself. That scene in the flashback where you’re dressed like a stereotypical Asian kid in college. And it got such a big laugh at the press screening.

John: I love that you think of it that way, because I convinced John and Hayden to do that, I pitched that to them. And they’re like, “we don’t know any Asian guys that looked like that in college,” and I said, “I knew a lot of Asian guys that looked like that in college. Just take my word for it; it will be funny, it will be a good sight gag.” That’s just funny that you said that. But that just shows you what a deck of cards … or a house of cards … what do you call it?

Kal: House and deck …

John: … house of cards this race business stuff is and how fragile stereotypes are. Because you think it’s Asian and somebody [else] thinks it’s totally un-Asian.

NPH: And I think it speaks to society’s dealing with racism that it is a non-issue. That it’s a sort of generational thing. That these actors can play these characters and it’s not a big taboo thing; it doesn’t seem like it’s any kind of oddity. Do you know what I mean? It could have been anyone in those movies, which is your point. That’s what’s so good about it.

John: [to Steve Rose] I want to go back to what you were saying. I’m not sure that … well, perhaps in this case you could make the argument that we’re doing a good representation of progress and race relations. But typically I would say that Hollywood lags behind in that department. Way behind.

Kal: I would agree.

SXSW news, reviews, interviews and discussions