Analysis Harold and Kumar

This is what really sets â€Å"Harold and Kumar† apart not just from â€Å"Stoner films† or the entire Comedy genre, but from every film ever made. Casting two â€Å"minorities† in the leading roles. The opening scene involves two â€Å"higher ups†, who we assume are Harold’s bosses, at an accounting firm who are trying to get out of doing their work for a night out. They pass the work on to our unsuspecting Harold, who reluctantly accepts the new task load because his job was threatened. This opening scene sets up Harold’s personal problems that at the end of the ovie, he over comes. This scene cuts between multiple shots of Harold’s bosses standing over Harold, and Harold looking up at them. They loom over Harold, looking down on him as a workhorse that they can pass their work loads to. Harold sits in his chair looking up at his two bosses, bewildered and somewhat frightened to stand up for himself. His two bosses are dressed in black suits which communicates to the audience that they are not only dominant but authoritative and for lack of a better term, evil. They are the first protagonists we see in the film. As they blast out of the office parking lot in their convertible, they justify their actions by saying that â€Å"those Asian guys love crunching numbers†. We quickly get the response to this with a cut of Harold standing in the office looking out the window the speeding convertible, angrily saying â€Å"Fuck†. From this we cut to a scene of Kumar being interviewed for acceptance into a medical school program at an undisclosed prestigious university. Kumar blatantly doesn’t care about the interview, or as we discover later, becoming a doctor like his father wants him to be. Kumar sits in the interview dressed in a disheveled suit and slouches in his chair. From these two scenes we are introduced into the typical roles that normally see in Hollywood movies. The quiet Asian being pushed around and the Indian guy trying to become a doctor. Each time though we see the problems that the characters have with both of these situations, this is the side that we don’t normally see in films. Harold hates his job because he feels like he isn’t respected, it is also learned later in the film that he basically fell into his job because that’s just how it went. Until the end of the film when Harold begins to take charge and stand up for himself, the audience has no problem believing that Harold just went with the motions and became an accountant. Kumar on the other hand is basically Harold’s polar opposite, yin and yang type situation, and resists falling into his â€Å"natural† role in society of becoming a doctor even though he is obviously very skilled in the field, by living off his fathers money (who is a doctor) and spending most of his days smoking pot. Throughout the movie there are scenes where a character is presented with a problem that in some way relates to a stereotype about their ethnicity. The movie deals with this in a joking manner, but the best part is that the character encounters it in a positive manner. Take for instance the character of Kumar, after visiting his father working in the hospital he steals an access card to steal medical marijuana, in the process of locating the marijuana, the duo find scrubs to disguise themselves in and in a mix up are confused as surgeons who are to operate on a gun shot victim. Kumar’s â€Å"natural† ability in health and medicine allows him to successfully operate on the victim and save his life. This ends up being the turning point in the film for Kumar where he decides to stop resisting his father and the typical role society expects of Indians, and become a doctor. For Harold, his turning point occurs at the end of the film when he stands up for himself at his destination, white castle. His two bosses show up at the White Castles from their night out with a pair of women, their attire has changed slightly, one has shed his black coat and the other is completely disheveled in his suit. Harold stands now, face to face with both of his bosses with a visibly angry face. He confronts his bosses and lets them know that he won’t take their bullying any longer. The two men look scared and are speechless since they were caught in a lie and that Harold has literally stood up to them, a contrast from the first scene of the film. About halfway through the film there is a scene where Neil Patrick Harris has stolen the car and leave Harold and Kumar stranded. The two are attempting to walk across the street at a completely vacant intersection. Kumar urges Harold to just walk across and disregard the street sign because there is no one around. As Harold takes his first step to cross, he is stopped by a police officer. The officer harasses the two of them and in a sign of blatant racism, he mocks Kumar and Harold’s ethnicities by asking if they have strange names. He asks Kumar if his name has â€Å"like five O’s or two U’s†. At this scene Kumar stands up for himself by belittling the officer and telling him he was loser in high school and is still one now. Although the officer has a much bulkier body type than Harold and Kumar, Kumar still stands face to face with the officer, representing his courage to go against someone he knows could take him to jail. I have seen â€Å"Harold and Kumar go to White Castle† MANY times before this paper and usually only watched it as it was presented, I laughed at the funny parts and would promptly move on to something else. Until this paper I had never thought to consider the representations the film portrayed of Harold and Kumar. I had never even noticed that the two leading roles were â€Å"minority† ethnicities. The way the film acknowledges the stereotypes that come bundled with the two characters and destroys them whilst making a completely mockery of them is quite fascinating. One of the more interesting facts is that the film was written by two Jewish men, and directed by a Caucasian man. They obviously didn’t want to make a comedy like any other with a white lead, they casted two very different men together and made an incredibly successful film. The film has spawned two sequels and each did very well in the box office. I would personally love to see a film cast more â€Å"minority† ethnicities in the lead roles, not just comedies but every film genre. I think that day is not too far ahead. Rangwala, Shama. Issue 5: Film Reviews.   Scope. Http://www. scope. nottingham. ac. uk/. Web. 06 Mar. 2012. lt;http://www. scope. nottingham. ac. uk/filmreview. php? issue=5gt;.