The 20th anniversary of Roger Ebert’s Film Festival is happening in April — so the festival is right around the corner, and we are anxiously awaiting what guests and films are lined up for this year’s installment.
There’s another film festival happening as we speak, a very famous one — Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. I was on Twitter this afternoon and saw this tweet by Chaz Ebert, which included this video of Roger Ebert at the 2002 festival’s screening of Better Luck Tomorrow. In the midst of the film receiving criticism by a certain audience member about how the Asian-American characters didn’t “represent” their culture appropriately — Ebert had a thing or two to say about that.
Watch the crushing rebuttle:
I’m not sure who came up with this GIF, but well done:
Here’s a transcription of what Ebert said about the film, which he reviewed in 2003 and gave four stars:
“And what I find very offensive and condescending about your statement is nobody would say to a bunch of white filmmakers, ‘How could you do this to your people?’ … Asian-American characters have the right to be whoever the hell they want to be. They do not have to ‘represent’ their people.” — Roger Ebert
Do not mess with Roger Ebert, y’all.
