I recently wrote about the Kickstarter campaign of Iyin Landre. The filmmaker successfully raised more than $77,000 dollars for her movie, Me & You.

She did it largely through a direct pitch to Asian Americans.

“In order to change stereotypes, we can’t just complain about it, we have to create new images and tell new stories to replace them with. We have to define ourselves, instead of letting others define us,” she said.

Recently a blog from BigWoWo was brought to my attention. The blog raised doubts about Landre’s sincerity about wanting to destroy stereotypes and criticized her for casting herself alongside a white love interest.

The headline read “Robin-Hood-in-Reverse Activism, new addition to the bigWOWO lexicon; aka “Asian Pride! Now support my movie so I can star opposite a White Man!” –

BigWoWo wrote:

In Asian American circles, Robin-Hood-In-Reverse Activism usually takes place in media fundraising. An Asian American will approach an activist and ask him/her to “support my movie!” either through Kickstarter or some other fundraising tool. They’ll appeal to the activist through kinship, saying that we ought to support our own, that the Asian American community needs to support its artists. They’ll talk about how racist Hollywood is. Then when we give them money, they take that money and make yet another Asian Female-White Male movie. Of course, we need another AF/WM movie like we need a hole in the head.

Sure, I’d would have loved to see an Asian American male co-star cast alongside Landre in her movie. The movie took place in Brazil, and yes, there are Asians in Brazil.

And Yes, there are too many Asian female/white male relationships in mainstream media. I get that. I’m just not convinced Landre played a fast one on the AAPI community in a bid to get her film Kickstarted.

Take a look at this dramatic scene featured in her Kickstarter campaign. Note also the white face casting, an Asian male playing the part of the Hollywood casting director.

When I first saw Landre’s campaign, I didn’t focus on her co-star and frankly didn’t notice her love interest was not Asian. I was drawn in by the quick editing and intense scenes played out in the trailer.

An objective observer would definitely say the trailer is indeed well done.

So what do you think? Did Landre play the Asian American community or is her movie a step forward for casting Asian Americans as complex characters on the big screen. Would love to read your thoughts below.