Filmmaker Debbie Lum
Reality is a slippery medium. Just when a documentary filmmaker thinks she understands a story, people surprise her. Such it was for Debbie Lum. When she first started filming Seeking Asian Female, Lum hoped to dissect a cultural phenomenon that had affected her — “yellow fever” — by objectively interviewing “afflicted” characters. Instead, she not only got sucked into the story of one couple, but also became a makeshift marriage counselor and a character in her film. We recently spoke with Lum about racial stereotypes, the difficulty of remaining “a fly on the wall,” and some hilarious outtakes of her film.
What impact do you hope this film will have?
I hope by touching audiences emotionally Seeking Asian Female will inspire individuals to reevaluate how stereotypes and expectations negatively impact human relationships, love and marriage. I hope the film will bring into wider discussion the objectification of Asian women by Western men and the real-life complications that grow out of their fantasies. I hope the film will offer alternative, three-dimensional portrait of an Asian woman who is neither a “victimized prey” nor a “ruthless opportunist.” I hope the film will raise awareness about interracial relationships, cross-cultural relationships, and Chinese immigrants. I hope the film also raises questions about how stereotyped thinking impacts all communities, including those who are being stereotyped (in this case Asian Americans and women). Continue reading
the National Endowment for the Arts