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LA rapper Dumbfounded confronts Asian in stereotypes 'Safe' music video
A scene from Dumbfounded's music video "Safe."
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Screengrab via YouTube
)
Last Thursday, Los Angeles rapper Dumbfoundead (aka Jonathan Park) debuted his double-take-inducing music video for "Safe."
While the song addresses Asian-American stereotypes, the video tackles the lack of Asian representation in American media. "Safe" finds the Korean-American rapper taking over roles played by white actors in more than a dozen popular movies and TV shows: Pulp Fiction, Iron Man, Full House, Ghost, The Matrix, Casablanca and more.
But there's a twist to "Safe."
(Warning: The video below contains explicit lyrics)
At the end of the effects-heavy video, Dumbfounded, who's sitting on a couch with his TV-perfect, 1950s nuclear family watching the Oscars, is himself replaced — by a white actor.
It couldn't be more timely, coming as it does on the heels of the #OscarsSoWhite controversy and the more recent #StarringJohnCho meme, which imagines the actor in a slew of blockbuster movies. The idea is to encourage Hollywood to cast more Asian-American actors and actresses.
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Dumbfounded released the video along with the following statement: "After the last Academy Awards and the regular whitewashing of hollywood roles, i wrote this song and made this video adding my piece to the conversation."
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