Mo’ Harold & Kumar

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The trailer’s been out for a few weeks but I figured that perhaps a few Mutineer’s haven’t had a chance to check it out quite yet. So, true to my culture beat of late, I now present the trailer for Harold & Kumar part deux –

My take?

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p> Well, anyone who’s read any of my soapboxing of late should be pretty clear about how I feel about desi’s in mass media / slapstick comic roles: Bring ’em on. I’ll take the Michael Jordan / Eddie Murphy / Chris Rock path towards social acceptance by the majority over the Al Sharpton / Black Panthers one anytime.

While we await the early 2008 release of the flick, recent mutineers (or those with entirely too much time on thier hands) might enjoy gearing up for it by reading the flood of posts & comments generated by the original back in 2004. Back when the mutiny (and, well, blogging itself) was young, the H&K brouhaha was one of our coming of age moments. And thus, the archives provide an interesting window into a bygone era. A few highlights include –

72 thoughts on “Mo’ Harold & Kumar”

  2. YES! I cannot wait for this movie to come out. I’ve been anticipating it for quite a while now. And lol @ “Flight 420.”

  8. I will be there opening weekend for this.

    And Vinod, I was interested in this comment:

    I’ll take the Michael Jordan / Eddie Murphy / Chris Rock path towards social acceptance by the majority over the Al Sharpton / Black Panthers one anytime.

    It’s hard to say anything bad about Michael Jordan, but I’m not sure about Eddie Murphy, especially those early roles he played, like Beverly Hills Cop (the funny black man as the sidekick to the straight white cop). I tend to think that to some extent those movies actually reinforce stereotypes, rather than subvert them. Some of the Richard Pryor movies worked the same way.

    Chris Rock is a trickier case. I thought his early HBO stuff was really funny, but he was mostly channeling Richard Pryor without being as daring. And maybe he was kind of following the formula a lot of black comedians follow… It’s only now, with his amazing TV show (Everybody Hates Chris — one of the best shows on TV), and with idiosyncratic art movies like “I Think I Love My Wife” that he really seems to have come into his own.

    I think another interesting model might be Dave Chapelle, whose comedy is constantly subverting racial stereotypes and expectations. I think the first Harold and Kumar was actually subversive like Dave Chapelle is/was subversive — and yet somehow potentially funny to the mainstream audience. It’s really tricky to do that without selling yourself out…

  10. Ok, I am one of those losers. Haven’t seen H&K. But I read much of the SM history on this topic and promptly added the movie to my queue. Can’t wait the 2.1 days it will take to get to me.

  13. Ok, I am one of those losers. Haven’t seen H&K.

    Amardeep’s comments made me see it couple months ago. I trust the prof on all things literary.

  14. It’s hard to say anything bad about Michael Jordan, but I’m not sure about Eddie Murphy, especially those early roles he played, like Beverly Hills Cop (the funny black man as the sidekick to the straight white cop). I tend to think that to some extent those movies actually reinforce stereotypes, rather than subvert them.

    Amardeep, I thought Eddie Murphy played the lead role in Beverley Hills Cop, and the two white cops were sidekicks. Are you thinking of 48 Hrs with Nick Nolte? Also check out Trading Places, which is a brilliant movie on race relations. Plus, there’s one particular dialog in 48 Hrs that tells it like it is (“I’m your worst nightmare…”).

  15. I wonder if they will have to compensate for the fact that Neil Patrick Harris came out of the closet since doing the first film, negating his on screen babe hound persona.

  16. I wonder if they will have to compensate for the fact that Neil Patrick Harris came out of the closet since doing the first film, negating his on screen babe hound persona.

    i think they will just ignore that, and have another warped out minor celebrity persona on there.

  17. i think they will just ignore that, and have another warped out minor celebrity persona on there.

    I recommend O.J. Now that would be warped… Harold & Kumar picking up O.J on the run.

  18. I recommend O.J. Now that would be warped… Harold & Kumar picking up O.J on the run.

    pick up oj looking for the real killer.

  19. I wonder if they will have to compensate for the fact that Neil Patrick Harris came out of the closet since doing the first film, negating his on screen babe hound persona.

    Have you watch NPH in How I Met Your Mother? He plays a “babe hound”, I dare say, brilliantly.

  20. I think another interesting model might be Dave Chapelle, whose comedy is constantly subverting racial stereotypes and expectations. I think the first Harold and Kumar was actually subversive like Dave Chapelle is/was subversive — and yet somehow potentially funny to the mainstream audience. It’s really tricky to do that without selling yourself out…

    Agreed, although it wasn’t as subversive (imo), as say, Better Luck Tomorrow 😉 Just kidding. I don’t think H&K is some kind of amazing high art, but there is a lot of snarky commentary buried in there that is kind of fun.

  21. I thought Eddie Murphy played the lead role in Beverley Hills Cop, and the two white cops were sidekicks.

    Rosewood and Taggert were the sidekicks, Foley was the lead.

  23. Can we say “cultural moment”? I think the build up leading to this movie is going to be huge.

  24. Vinod writes “I’ll take the Michael Jordan / Eddie Murphy / Chris Rock path towards social acceptance by the majority over the Al Sharpton / Black Panthers one anytime.”

    I think it’s arguably tandem game. An affinity group may do better with both than with neither. But in terms of intragroup distribution of goods, I think Michael Jordan and Eddie Murphy may make out as effective free riders, with higher Q ratings than Al Sharpton or any member of the Black Panthers. So desis may be best off with both an Eddie Murphy and an Al Sharpton, but an individual desi is better off being the Eddie Murphy, and have someone else be his Al Sharpton.

  25. Have you watch NPH in How I Met Your Mother? He plays a “babe hound”, I dare say, brilliantly.

    Haven’t watched that show, but on that show he plays a straight character it looks. In Harold & Kumar, NPH appears as himself, not as a fictional character. So one would expect he would stay true to himself.

  26. Amardeep, I thought Eddie Murphy played the lead role in Beverley Hills Cop, and the two white cops were sidekicks. Are you thinking of 48 Hrs with Nick Nolte? Also check out Trading Places, which is a brilliant movie on race relations. Plus, there’s one particular dialog in 48 Hrs that tells it like it is (“I’m your worst nightmare…”).

    Ok, I stand corrected. The 80s has grown a little blurry in my memory.

    But I still think my doubt about the race politics of those movies is valid…

  27. “Have you watch NPH in How I Met Your Mother? He plays a “babe hound”, I dare say, brilliantly.”

    I love that show.That show is what “Friends” should have been and Swarley rocks.

  28. Sorry about the double posts. It wasn’t working on Firefox so I tried IE..it seems it worked both times…Regardless, I think NPH does pretty well as a babe hound and incidentally he has a gay black brother in the show..its that guy from “whose line is it anyways?”. Funny episode

  29. I think it’s arguably tandem game. An affinity group may do better with both than with neither. But in terms of intragroup distribution of goods, I think Michael Jordan and Eddie Murphy may make out as effective free riders, with higher Q ratings than Al Sharpton or any member of the Black Panthers. So desis may be best off with both an Eddie Murphy and an Al Sharpton, but an individual desi is better off being the Eddie Murphy, and have someone else be his Al Sharpton.

    Is that econ-speak for “they both cool, even though Eddie gets more dollahs and ass”.

  30. Very, very long time lurker, coming out of lurkdom only to say that words cannot describe how stoked I am for this movie. 🙂 The return of the Cho & Modi Show is long overdue.

    I’ll take the Michael Jordan / Eddie Murphy / Chris Rock path towards social acceptance by the majority over the Al Sharpton / Black Panthers one anytime.

    I refuse to get started on my long-winded rant about Al Sharpton, so I’ll just keep it short by saying that, as a black female, I agree with you completely.

  31. black female, I agree with you completely.

    WELCOME! how did you get interested in south asian issues, if you dont mind me asking?

  32. While this film is a nice little pirouette on the ballet dance of life and art intertwining, but to make a profound quote, from a great man/wolf:

    “Lets not start suckin’ each other’s dicks quite yet”

  34. WELCOME! how did you get interested in south asian issues, if you dont mind me asking?

    Aww, thank you! 😀

    It was through my best friend, a lovely Indian girl from South Africa, that I became interested in South Asian issues. That, and I quickly realized that our (black and SA) social issues have many similarities. I stumbled upon this place via a Google search for some phrase that I can’t remember, and have been enjoying the wonderful blogs and insightful comments ever since.

    If nothing else, I’m just a big ol’ nerd who spends way too much time forum/blog reading and not enough time studying. 😉

  35. It’s a little sad that while one mutineer rejects the Black Panthers, another comes up with “it’s hard to say anything bad about Michael Jordan.”

    Here’s a little something:

    “Most famous, however, is Jordan’s great shoulder-shrug over Nike’s allegedly exploitative labor practices in Southeast Asia. When the company first became the target of activist ire, Jordan said it wasn’t his problem. Then, in 1997, he changed his tune. “I’m hearing a lot of different sides to the issue,” Jordan told the Sporting News. “The best thing I can do is go to Asia (in July) and see it for myself. If there are issues . . . if it’s an issue of slavery or sweatshops, [Nike executives] have to revise the situation.” Yet even after acknowledging the specter of “slavery,” Jordan never made the trip.

    Jordan’s careful efforts to avoid social issues haven’t escaped criticism. Several well-known pro athletes — including such black stars as Arthur Ashe, Jim Brown, and Hank Aaron — have knocked Jordan for being politically aloof. “He’s more interested in his image for his shoe deals than he is in helping his own people,” Brown said of Jordan in 1992.”

    http://www.providencephoenix.com/archive/features/99/01/21/MJ.html

    I’m not against the H&K, Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy road to subversion, but sometimes consumer culture alone doesn’t upturn global inequities in the era of flexible accumulation, no?

  36. Word to Buster @ 35. I mean, thanks for sharing this, Vinod, and I love H&K, but had it not been for the militant Black Power movement, the white establishment would have laughed off MLK (as they did in his failed attempt to desegregate Albany, GA). Likewise the Brits with Ghandi (and the likes of Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad, and Subhas Chandra Bose.)

    These various “paths toward social acceptance” are not mutually exclusive–they have a synergistic, symbiotic effect. (Not that I’m advocating for militant Desi Power movement, just saying don’t knock the Panthers. We ALL–black, white, brown alike–owe them a debt of honor and gratitude.)

    Polite people don’t make history. At least not on their own.

  38. Hilarious clip.

    Ginge – just to play devil’s advocate, don’t you like the way people freak out whenever Sharpton decides to target them? It’s like 60 minutes setting up their cameras.

  39. I’ll take the Michael Jordan / Eddie Murphy / Chris Rock path towards social acceptance by the majority over the Al Sharpton / Black Panthers one anytime.

    Kal Penn is presumably doing the role on his own terms here rather than all the ‘don a turban and do a cabbie/terrorist’ crap he gets in his bread-and-butter roles.

    Also, comparing comedians to a party which advocated violence and carried around loaded shotguns isn’t apples to apples.

  40. I loved H&K, but i’m not sure if I will like No. 2 from the preview. What was most appealing to me about No. 1 was it’s overt non-seriousness (i.e. the quest for pot) which provided a frame in which they explored deeper issues (such as racism, etc). From the looks of this preview they are being a little more serious from the start, and i don’t know how that will pan out.

  41. Simplifying the BPP to “a party which advocated violence and carried around loaded shotguns” is misleading, to say the least. I refer the interested mutineer to the following top-of-my-head bibliography:

    David Hilliard, This Side of Glory: The Autobiography of David Hilliard and the Story of the Black Panther Party

    Elaine Brown, A Taste of Power

    Huey P. Newton Reader

    Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall, Agents of Repression: The FBI’s Secret Wars Against the American Indian Movement and the Black Panther Party

    Robert Self, “‘To Plan Our Liberation:’ Black Power and the Politics of Place in Oakland, California, 1965-1977. Journal of Urban History 26, No.6 (September, 2000), 759-792.

    Self gives an abbreviated form of some of his arguments at: http://hnn.us/articles/1561.html

  42. Just wanted to mention that Ginge isn’t the only one; I’m also a black woman, and there are probably a bunch of others. I read sepia mutiny every day. 🙂 returning to lurk mode

  43. 2008 is TOO FAR AWAY!!! I like that song though. I think I’ll sing it for six months or whatever.

    I thought Eddie Murphy played the lead role in Beverley Hills Cop, and the two white cops were sidekicks. Rosewood and Taggert were the sidekicks, Foley was the lead.

    ….and Damon Wayans was the Banana Man, and Bronson Pinchot was Serge, and he had IMHO the best line in the whole movie, thus: When he offers Judge Reinhold/Billy a “lamon tweest” in his coffee, and Billy says, “if it’s not too much trouble,” or some such, then Serge wafts away, saying, “Dawn’t be stupid!”

  45. Just wanted to mention that Ginge isn’t the only one; I’m also a black woman, and there are probably a bunch of others. I read sepia mutiny every day. 🙂 *returning to lurk mode*

    Ah, yes. We’re here alright – silent but deadly. Only not so much on the deadly. 🙂

    I forgot to mention that I also can’t wait to see if HK2 stirs up another Munity shitstorm a la HK1. Not that I want such chaos to erupt, but the commentary was quite ace.

  46. They were in a shootout with cops over a traffic stop, so dividing on violent vs. nonviolent is certainly appropriate.

    You said they advocated violence, that’s simply not true. Saying violence in self defense as a last means is not “advocating” it in some general sense. but I do agree that comparing political movements and comedians is a bit off. In fact, much of Chris Rock’s humor wouldn’t even exist, had it not been for political movements, and people like sharpton and jesse.

  49. damnit. i’m late again. first i find out years late that ben kingsley is my people and now this! maybe i should get cable. mmmm i dream of tv asia.

  50. Watching that clip instantly took me back to that dream sequence with Kumar and the bag of weed. Ah, such fond memories that I had to youtube it just to check if it’s legitimately funny or I was just going through an immature phase. Still hilarious 🙂