Why RUSH HOUR's "Healthy Racism" Can Save Comedy

Rush Hour, the hit movie from 1998 featuring Becky Chan and Chris Tucker, is currently trending on the top 10 list of Netflix right now in 2023. David, what does this say about what people wanna see from comedy nowadays? Yeah, this is trending because there is a title, Andrew, going viral saying, Rush Hour fans celebrate the franchise's healthy racism. Now, this probably goes against the cancellation movements of the last five, 10 years, probably some of the, at least, racial wokeness of the past five, 10 years. Andrew, does it remind people of a time where maybe Americans were bonded by something beyond identities or racial identities? No, for sure, man. I feel like Rush Hour is trending because people are nostalgic for this time where it felt like you were on a sports team together and you could tease each other and crack all these jokes, but at the end of the day, you were there to save the day or you were there to go to battle with each other. It's kind of like what I hear about people in the military. They crack really harsh jokes on each other, but it's also because you're going to have to rely on each other and your life depends on it. So, I guess, David, this is very interesting, but we're going to delve into the comments section, so please hit that like button. Check out other episodes of the Hot Pop Boys. And by the way, Rush Hour 4 is supposed to be in the works. I don't know what that means, but everybody's looking forward to it. Yeah, let's get into the comments section. Somebody said, where are all the snowflakes that were saying they don't want to support Jackie Chan anymore because of the relationship with his daughter? Listen, guys, we don't care. It's your loss anyway. I'm watching this again and again on Netflix. Um, what do you think about this? Because definitely Jackie Chan's image, you know, over the past 10, 15 years, it did take a couple hits, right? But some people are like, dude, it's Jackie. I don't care. I think that it's so tough because I think everybody that is of a certain age or everybody's life that if you dig into anybody's life, almost 90% of people's lives, are you going to find some things that make them look bad? Now, I'm not saying that everything that I think Jackie Chan is the greatest father or whatever thing like that, but I think when it comes to entertainment and how he makes you feel in his art, in his performance, it's almost like they're bar none. You know what I mean? So I think it's tough because entertainment is this thing where if you're affected by that person's media, you want to overlook that person's private life. Also, you don't know what's going on in the private life either, so it's just hard to judge. Yeah, I want to kind of compare it to Prince Street Pizza, Andrew. There's this really famous place with the, you know, like the deep-dish slice here in New York and it's turned out the owners kind of said some borderline racial stuff, racial comments versus against an Asian guy and I stopped going there for like a whole year. But after a year, they said that they, you know, divested their ownership or whatever, who knows? But you know, I just thought about it. I was like, man, I really miss that deep-dish pepperoni slice. So even me, bro, I just was just like, yo, listen, man, because there's something larger at play, man. This is why people love the Rush Hour comedies. This is why people love buddy comedies because race is part of the joke, but there's still a larger goal that transcends the race, right? It's not the end-all be-all. It's almost like just filling in the middle because they're trying to save the world. They're trying to rescue a time-wise daughter and things like that. Somebody said I've seen this at least a hundred times. I'm pretty sure I quote this movie on a daily basis. I'm going to watch it over and over. Somebody said, do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth? Somebody said just, oh my gosh, you know when Chris Tucker's in China and he's doing the Michael Jackson impression for all the triads. It's hilarious. Do you think this was a lot of people's reference points? I know for me and you growing up, Andrew, in South Seattle, we did have a lot of African-American friends. This got brought up quite often and I will say this, in conversations with my black friends, it still might come up in the group chat. No, it's still a good joke, man. It's still relevant because there has been nothing like it, especially using an Asian guy and a black guy or an Asian person and a black person to be honest, nothing has had the cultural impact like this. I mean, I would say anytime I'm on a team with a black person nowadays, you can almost say like make a Rush Hour joke. Oh, it's never not getting a smile. Yeah, it doesn't matter if you had a pickup run, you're in a league game together. David, let me just go ahead and say this. This is might be a strong statement. I feel like Rush Hour was the peak of black and Asian solidarity. Like in a way, I know I'm like, I'm kind of joking but I'm kind of not, like it just felt like you could just bring it up as a uniting glue to different people when you saw them and it was just like, yo, I see a black guy. Because it kind of put everything out there, right? Yeah, it was like every stereotype out there. Jackie's making jokes about fried chicken and watermelon. Chris Tucker's making jokes about this box of grease. You know, you gonna send me a box of grease. Yeah, and it was just but they felt equal. I think the key is that when you're on a sports team, you're in the military, you're on a team together and you have a larger goal is that both people feel respected and the other person respects that person's work, right? Now, if that thing is imbalanced, sure, then, you know, it can feel a different way. But like as long as both Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker both respected. Yeah, somebody said everybody needs to have a relationship like Rush Hour. But instead right now, it feels like black and Asians got nothing but hatred for each other. Yo, and that's crazy. I think that that's a little extreme, but I get what you mean in the sense that the relations between the two communities and obviously everybody's an individual, right? Everybody lives their own micro life. But I guess in a macro sense, Andrew, relations are a little rocky right now, right? With the whole affirmative action thing. And I think it's tense. Yeah, between affirmative action, what you see from Asian hate and everybody tying everything together. Even people tying in things from Africa and Asia and all this other, it's crazy. Yeah, it's and it's it's but I think what people are like, man, like I think there's a sense from people that like, man, I get it. There's all these things you can pick apart from this media this clip, somebody who looked like me did something to somebody who looked like you and somebody who looked like you did something to somebody who looked like me whether or not it was you or me. It was like people who look like you or me, right? I think the comedy in this Rush Hour just speaks to people's individual lives and just reaches the people like the people of like your life. Your life is about the black person, you know about the Asian person, you know, it's not about the Asian person in Asia or the black person in Africa. It's like literally just we're here. We're trying to do something and that's people miss that. Like I guess I guess unity. No, for sure. I mean, I remember growing up. I had my friend, you know, Chris Fortson, Matt Johnson, shout out to them and I always felt like our relationship was a little bit like Rush Hour. Yeah, you know, we would get at each other for sure. Yeah, you know what I mean? And it was still like bros. It wasn't like one side just taking all the jokes of the other one, you know, dude, and you know what I'll be honest like even when I was on the sports teams with different types of guys, we would make a lot of racial jokes to each other and they would get me pretty bad and you could say oh well Andrew because that guy's white talking to you or that guy's black talking to you then you're kind of losing out on that, right? We know I even from my friends. I will say this and some people are not going to take this right Andrew. I'll take a small a small weenie joke, you know what I mean? Yeah, but I think what I'm saying is like even if you try to calculate it out like oh, he's like he's got the upper hand 51% because he's like a light-skinned black guy saying it to an Asian guy and I'm like it's way more girls or whatever but I'm just like at the end of the day at some point. It's your own life and you just got to want to feel United with somebody you want to feel that camaraderie like when we do comedy. We have a comedy show called Asian ology next show is Tuesday July 25th. We got Vince Chang who's part Chinese Jamaican and I think being able to riff with him and kind of joke on him about things whether it's his Afro Caribbean side or it's his Chinese side and he gets to make fun of us back. It's like you just feel like you're really bonding with each other. You're talking about a subject that like people at work might get in trouble for joking about but you guys are such good friends that there's that pathway. Oh, right, right and shout out to Chris Forte. I remember he used to always tell everybody that Danny Fortson was his uncle on the Sonics somebody said can we just go back to this type of Unity? I mean the truth is it's hard to say though, right? It's hard to achieve that because we were all growing up and we were at the same age same grade all playing on the football team all playing on the basketball team together his mom and dad knew our mom and dad. They weren't like best friends, but they could they you know, they could speak English reasonably. You know, I mean our parents could speak English reasonably well enough with them. How do you get that feeling back because it is this situation because not everybody's going to be in a military platoon with each other. Not everybody's going to be on the football or basketball team together trying to win the game. I do think you have to team up with these people man. You have to team up with different types of people man. And I'm not saying it has to be a sport. It doesn't have to be a physical sport even if it's pickleball or you mean an activity. No, I think like even doing martial arts with different types of people. It just it just puts people at an equal playing field, you know, and that's what I think is really missing right now. And I think that's what people talk about this bond in America that's missing and I think oftentimes it comes from like white people were like, oh what people are losing America America was better when it was white and I'm like honestly, I think it's what you should say which is a better sell to minorities is that that even though they're not technically wrong, they're trying to make some sense but I'm saying you should say that America was a lot better when we could bond over certain things when we could bond over like when we could all play games together. We could all eat at each other's restaurants and when it wasn't all about identity, right? You think it was white people's job to give people something bigger than identity, you know, man. I do think why they are the system. Yeah, I think white people made some mistakes along the road, but I mean, I don't think it's too late guys. It's not forsaken by the way guys. I get it. I don't think it's easy to be, you know, the system runner or whatever Asians, you know, we're like the lowest on the depth chart in terms of running the system. We would get put in last place to be honest. Um, somebody just said they don't make comedies like anymore this anymore. It's too raw for cancel culture. Somebody will be be offended by its lack of diversity or that like they're both, you know, it's a straight black guy being friends with like a straight Asian guy and they're both cops being accomplished problematic solving crimes who knows like is everything is anything even going to be okay anymore? You know what it is. What I love is that I've sawn some other comedies that are out but I it feels like sometimes the mission in the goal of the movie is something more frivolous than not everybody can agree on like when it comes to saving the minister's daughter or whoever the time is. Yeah, the ambassadors daughter. That's something that everyone can get around save this kid save the child, right? But then sometimes it's like yo, we got to throw this big party for my pride or like for my for myself like my insecurities or whatever and something like you know what I mean? Like and then it's like that's the goal of the movie and I don't think that always Unites people as much as like saving the day. Right, right, right big bomb strap, right? Exactly. Our whatever and like I think when you see the other person save the other person's life, it means something different. Yeah. I mean, what do you think about people talking about the stereotypes? Somebody said listen, there was a lot of stereotypes in the movie. I get it. Everybody's real sensitive about that stuff now, but it's just supposed to be funny. It's not really like based in full reality. Yeah. I think the only issue people would see is like, oh, well, what if the same jokes are made? I'm like, what do you think there's different jokes to make but yeah, some of the stereotypes are still sticking around guys. It's only been like less than 30 like 20 years 20 some years 25 years. I think I think there's comments about cancel culture. That's why I can't because cancel culture exists. That's why there couldn't be movies like this anymore. I think that's do you think that's true man? I do think the jokes are going to be toned down like they're not going to be maybe they'll be quippier or wittier and another way in rush hour for because that's like I think it's for sure going to happen but it's just going to be different. It's going to be different but I'm still looking forward to it. I'm still going to watch it. You know what? I think I should think I think they should swing for it and just get in trouble for it because that's going to make people want to watch it more than if they tone back the script and then there's nothing good about it. That's going to make it worse. So I think they should throw in some tough jabs in there. I really think so and I think they should go as hard because I think here's the thing about like I think most people agree. Listen, there's groups in America that need help and that should deserve help and because history has done them wrong and and all this wokeness and all this stuff. I think at the end of the day people were like man being too woke is getting in the way of fun and America's about fun. Yeah, you're saying overriding everything else, you know being a very progressive fast-moving society dynamic fast changing landscape that America is I'd say faster than any other country because it's obviously like the most newest craziest experiment of a country. You're saying it's still at the end of the day once the wokeness hit like an 8 out of 10. It was like it really wasn't fun anymore people want to go back to fun. Think about it. This is such a fun country. We got drugs. We got cars. We got guns. You can buy guns. You can have sex do all this stuff with it within and everybody has a lot of money. Yeah. Yeah, and you can get a lot of this stuff. Not just a little bit. You can get a lot of this stuff an unlimited amount. Yeah, the country is so fun America is all about freedom and fun. And I think that some a lot of people feel like and a lot of people even low-key feel like that all that stuff got in the way of American fun and at the end of it all I think America likes to have fun. Maybe you could ask me maybe too much fun sometimes. Yeah, but but the rush hour movies fit in with that one. Those are fun movies do America's about fun guys, you know, it you know, for me one thing I would never say is like, you know, I know our dad kind of acts a little bit like Jackie Chan and his voice sounds like Jackie Chan to because obviously Jackie chance from Hong Kong. Our dad is from Hong Kong. So I have people in my family and it's certainly if not people in my direct family people that have been around in restaurants, etc, etc, you know, just all these settings that I found my life in up in my due to my are upbringing. I mean, I was always cool with it man because I was like sometimes it just you got to be able to talk about the differences in culture, you know, like do it. Everybody's different man. Get get on a team with someone. I think that's the best way just get on a team. Anyways guys you guys let us know about the rush hour movies why that's trending top 10. Are you going to watch it on Netflix? I might I don't know man. I might start on right now. I just don't on for the vibes. All right, everybody. Thank you so much. And until next time we out. Peace.