an asian american puzzlement

I am going to enjoy seeing the Hollywood Asian American response to the film "Team America World Police." Not only is it the most offensive, crass, rude, tasteless, disgusting film of the year, it is also the smartest, funniest, most perceptive and satirically sharpest movie to come out of Hollywood for some time.

Undoubtedly, many Asian-Americans will decry the film for "reviving a hurtful stereotype." Maybe even call for a boycott for its "racist profiling of Asians."

The cause? The film's wooden-puppet rendition of North Korean Dictator Kim Il Jong (voiced by Trey Parker). The foul-mouthed, pot-bellied, megalomaniacal villain is the very personification of the 20th-century Oriental stereotype. Kim sports a high nasal voice, squinty eyes, thick glasses, and can't pronounce the letter "R" -- everything but the buck teeth.

Here's where things get interesting.

The film also stars Team America member Sarah: a svelte, perky, perfect-English-speaking, Asian-American co-heroine.

Sarah is the role of which ALL ethnic minorities in Hollywood have been dreaming (well, except for the marionette thing). Her ethnicity, nationality, gender, eye shape, skin color, etc., play no part in either her character or in the story. She receives complete equality and parity on screen as a true-blue, heavily armed, dimwitted American.

What are the Asian-Americans to do? Picket "Team America" at Mann's Chinese theatre on Hollywood Blvd.? Or give it a Diversity Award for progressive ethnic casting of puppets?

Latino Comedian Paul Rodriguez was once asked, "Do you find stereotypical portrayals of Latinos offensive?"

Answered Rodriguez, "Not if it's funny, man."

Rodriguez, like all good comics, understand that social problems contain both rivers of pain and oceans of wonderful humor. Buster Keaton, Bill Cosby, and Charlie Chaplin found amazing stuff in poverty; Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, and Eddie Murphy discovered hilarity in ghetto-speak and racism; Yakov Smirnov unveiled laughter behind a thick Russian accent and communist repression.

These comedians have confronted their supposedly crippling stereotypes and used them to make millions of people laugh.

In "Team America," Trey Parker and Matt Stone have improbably found the Holy Grail of Asian American comedians: they have actually mined humor from the dull Asian stereotypes of funny accent and high intelligence.

If the Asian-American community ever listened to me -- and believe me, they don't, particularly because I don't believe such a community really exists -- they would forget awards and picketing. They would grant Parker and Stone full Honorary Asian American status.

In a presentation at -- where else? -- Mann's Chinese Theatre, grateful Asian American comics (who include, umm, let's see, Bobby Lee, Margaret Cho, that guy with the Texan accent, and ... umm ... ummmm ... ) would lie prone at their feet and worship them for teaching them to laugh at themselves.