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APA - PSA

Forwarded over from the sexy goodness that is Manja.org

http://manja.org/haroldandkumar/

July 24, 2004

Dear Friends, Fans, Haters, Players, and True Money Makers,
Hey! This is Kal Penn (aka Kalpen Modi) and John Cho
writing to encourage you to go see our upcoming comedy from New Line Cinema, “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle,” opening nationwide on July 30th.

This film marks the first time a major studio is releasing a project with two Asian American males as the leads.

We don’t have stereotypical accents, we don’t passively tread through the story, we’re not asexual or hypersexual, there are no martial arts scenes, one-dimensional cab driver segments.

We play a couple of all-American guys who happen to be of Indian and Korean descent. Our characters (Harold and Kumar) are post- collegiate buddies who get the munchies and end up going on the adventure of their lives as they set out to satisfy a spontaneous craving for White Castle burgers. Ebert and Roeper just gave our movie “Two Thumbs Up”! We hope you will too. Read on.

The opening weekend for any film is extremely important.
Studio executives (the people who make big decisions about movies) track the numbers from that first weekend’s ticket sales and make all kinds of decisions based on that data.
They decide if they will add more screens to show a film, if they will spend more money in promoting it, if they will start investing in a sequel… but most importantly, they
decide if elements of the film work and whether they should do it again.

In our case, that means they will be asking, “Will a strong script and story succeed or fail with 2 Asian American guys in non-stereotypical roles?”. We personally think it will
succeed, but we need your help! This film is our chance to prove that realistic, nonstereotypical depictions can make an audience have a blast, and take in enough money to make this happen in the future.

By buying a ticket to “Harold and Kumar go to White Castle”, you aren’t just gonna get to see a really funny movie with two dudes who look like you. Nope. You’re also going to be
saying to media outlets, “I support accurate representation of Asian Americans and would like to see more.” You have the power to change things simply by buying a ticket to a film that we believe you’ll have fun watching anyway!

Please go to the theaters on the weekend of July 30th, and watch “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle”. We look at this awesome opportunity like we do voting in an election. Every movie ticket someone buys is a VOTE, and the cool part is, you’re allowed to vote as many times as you want.

With your support of the film, we will show decision-makers in Hollywood that supporting movies like these is not only the right thing to do, but is also good business. We’ll also show YOU what it’s like to ride a cheetah, hang glide off a cliff, pick
up a hitchhiking Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie Howser), tell off a bunch of ignorant punks, get love interests, and sing Wilson Phillips at the top of our lungs.

So just hold on for one more… week, and check out the website at www.HaroldandKumar.com. This film opens the weekend of July 30th! Send this email to all of your friends. Throw parties. Order food. Make a night (or weekend) out of
it and go see “Harold and Kumar go to White Castle”!

This is a landmark opportunity for the Asian American community, and we are proud to be the faces involved. With your support and the success of this film, we hope that it’s only the beginning of many more Asian Americans on screen…

Enjoy the movie,

Kal Penn and John Cho
“Kumar” and “Harold”

New Line Cinema’s “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle”

http://www.haroldandkumar.com

Are we going? Let’s go!

Y’know, personally I was planning to go opening weekend just because it looks like fun. I honestly hadn’t even considered the ethinicity of these two guys (aside from the obvious references to it in that one preview, the bit about how to spell his name), and when I saw that posted on your blog, I wondered for a second what the connection was.

I wonder what exactly that means — whether or not the ethnicity of the lead characters actually *does* mean anything to the mass public, when they’re not played as stereotypes. I don’t think that I’d've been as interested in this flim if they *had* been played up as stereotypical roles. Instead I see the previews and think, “Hey, these are my friends from college” (whom I never thought of as Asian either, come to think of it). And, y’know, this is coming from a guy who grew up in the middle of whitebread-cornfed Ohio farmland with one or two token black guys as the only “ethnic” subculture of his school.