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A Sign of the Times: Hollywood Filmmaker Lin and Knicks Basketball Star Lin

 

YOU KNOW, WE'RE clearly at a cultural flux, a juncture, a pivot point. Forget the demographic data and studies, which trail the cultural shifts by years. The early anecdotal clues more often tell the tale.

So during ESPN's recent broadcast of the New York Knicks - Los Angeles Lakers game at Madison Square Garden, I caught a quasi-post-racial moment that you rarely see on mainstream TV: A young sports fan held up a hand-made sign hailing Knicks rising star Jeremy Lin, while poking fun at the Lakers' Kobe Bryant, basketball's reigning king over the past decade. "Kobe, Better Luck Tomorrow," the sign read.

As film buffs know, the sign alluded to Better Luck Tomorrow, an acclaimed independent film made 10 years ago by Justin (Fast and Furious) Lin and released by MTV Films and Paramount Pictures. The movie is one of the rare mainstream films in Hollywood history that portray Asian Americans beyond the tired stereotypes. And this clever Knicks fan, in a big ballgame seen by millions, had linked the dots and made the cultural reference.

The success of basketball star Lin and filmmaker Lin (no relation) may be blips in the cosmic scheme of things, but it marks a fresh step forward in U.S. and global pop culture, which more people follow than business and politics. Maybe we're making progress in the new century.

(Photo, above) Better Luck Tomorrow by filmmaker Justin Lin, MTV Films and Paramount Pictures. Better Luck Tomorrow debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in 2002 and is one of the rare mainstream movies to portray Asian Americans beyond the tired stereotypes. Theatrical release poster under a Creative Commons license on Wikipedia.

 

Jeremy Lin of New York Knicks: Smart, Athletic Asian Dude Smashes Stereotypes

 

Highlights of NBA guard Jeremy Lin when he starred at Harvard University. Video courtesy of HarvardAthletics channel on YouTube.

 

LINSANITY, YOU BETCHA. Wrote long ago that Jeremy Lin and Asian Americans could hoop it up. Lin, a New York Knicks point guard extraordinaire via Harvard University and Palo Alto High School in Silicon Valley, is tearing up the National Basketball Association. Shaq calls him a "baby Nash" (as in Phoenix Suns superstar guard Steve Nash) who thrives at moving the ball around and making his teammates better. It's no coincidence that Knicks coach Mike D'Antoni coached Nash for many years in Phoenix, when the Suns were playoff contenders.

Lin's star turn doesn't surprise me -- or ColorLines writer Jamilah King, Disgrasian's Jen Wang, former Oakland Tribune editor Bill Wong, and the HuffingtonPost's Dan Treadway-- who show real depth and diversity of thought in their stories. I'm only surprised at how long it's taken b-ballers of Asian descent to make it in the pros. Yellows have played hoops at a high level since the 1940s, when hot-shooting guard William "Woo Woo" Wong starred at the University of San Francisco and Japanese American Wat Misaka played briefly for the Knicks. Raymond Townsend (part Filipino) and Rex Walters (part Japanese) also starred for many years in the NCAA and NBA. And many have played in schools and community leagues on the West Coast for nearly a century.