Better Luck Tomorrow by Justin Lin

In the article “Of Myths and Men: “Better Luck Tomorrow” and the Mainstreaming of Asian American Cinema” Margaret Hillenbrand utilizes the movie Better Luck Tomorrow to explain how working within the Hollywood industry and utilizing their narrative conventions can be tools to dismantle Asian American stereotypes in cinema and, quite frankly, many other communities. There is one specific line in this article that perfectly captures the immense power Hollywood has over social narrative, Hillenbrand says, “where else, if not in the image factory of mainstream cinema, are other ethno-American masculinities produced and marketed? […] male identities are made in the movies, even when those masculinities are the stuff of preposterous stereotypes” (55). Therefore, any type of masculinity in mainstream cinema that does not assimilate to the white American masculinity Hollywood tries to enforce will be perceived as a form of Otherness. The imposition of otherness to anyone who refuses to follow Hollywood expectations can be found in many other social issues, not just with masculinities. Better Luck Tomorrow is a great example of how a movie can utilize Hollywood conventions to subvert the stereotypes imposed in a community. In the movie, Asian American characters embody Hollywood’s white American masculinities, which disrupt the expectations of the audience and allows the Asian American community to refuse Hollywood’s serotyping.