Yay on the Ban Banzai front, Yum Foods (pizza hut, taco bell), Wendy's Restaurants, United Airlines and Ikea have agreed not to advertise on Banzai. Here's my letter to Comedy Central:

Dear Comedy Central,

I am shocked and appalled by your plans to air Banzai after Fox pulled the show in response to numerous complaints from the Asian American community. Banzai is extremely offensive to Asian Americans. The show uses exaggerated expressions, broken English, mock Asian accents, and even features Caucasian actors in yellowface (those geishas showing their panties are white women passing as Japanese - this is absolutely hideous and nothing of the sort has been shown on TV since Charlie Chan in the 1930s).

I'm sure Comedy Central would be instantly opposed to showing Blacks wearing bones pierced through their noses and cooking people in cast iron pots. And showing Caucasian characters in black face would be absolutely unthinkable.

Well Banzai is no different.
The stereotypes and depictions of Asians in that show are hurtful, archaic and disgusting. Anyone at Comedy Central who passes it off as harmlessly funny is WAY off base and needs a good history lesson. You can't just mask racism with stupid humor.

I am thoroughly disgusted by this program and ask that it be pulled. Wendy's Restaurants and Yum! Brands (Pizza Hut/Taco Bell), who pulled their advertising from Fox, have already written to us and agreed not to advertise on Banzai on Comedy Central. Ikea and United Airlines have also agreed not to advertise and our concerns have been voiced to other Comedy Central advertisers as well.



Respectfully,
Vanessa Au
more info at
http://www.asiandiversity.com/magazine/article_detail.htm?AID=78669324
http://www.imdiversity.com/villages/asian/Article_Detail.asp?Article_ID=18253
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/3076585.stm

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Vanessa Au

Candidate, M.A. Radio & Television,

San Francisco State University

On Banzai:

"It's just all the backward images of Asian-American people," says Guy Aoki, co-founder of Media Action Network for Asian Americans, a watchdog group that monitors the portrayal of Asians in media. "This is like an Asian minstrel show." It's no wonder that people like Aoki are up in arms at Banzai's shoddy portrayals of the Japanese and their customs. Even if Banzai is plainly theater of the absurd, it comes dangerously close to masking racism under the guise of stupidity. Just because something is idiotic, doesn't make it any less offensive.

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