Harold & Kumar strike another blow against white supremacy - review
by Asad Ali
The
‘road trip’ genre is about heterosexual Anglo men going on a
carefree odyssey filled with cheap-shot jokes that perpetuate
prejudice and white male supremacy, and end with the redemption of
the heroes being better prepared for their subservient role in
capitalism.Harold
& Kumar Go to White Castle,
released 2004, subverted this theme with two men, one Korean and one
South Asian, as the heroes. The jokes were still toilet-humor, but
with a twist, because at least some of them ridiculed racism, white
supremacy, male chauvinism, and petty-bourgeois illusions. The ending
was a feel-good moment a much wider audience could relieve their
anxieties with, and the privileged if not the powerful were at the
mercy of the film’s messages to power for a change.
Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay is the subversion of the road trip genre coming out of its cocoon. The movie isn’t restricted to road-trip tropes, although they’re still there, and explores Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay, interrogations at the Homeland Security Department, and George Bush’s private lair. The jokes change direction pretty rapidly and aren’t ideologically consistent, which is what separates this movie from its betters such as A Fish Called Wanda. But in the end the movie has successfully ridiculed the complex ideas of homophobia, sexism, the many forms of racism, ruling class hypocrisy, the unreliability of the bourgeoisie as allies, drug war paranoia, non-sequitor right-wing demagoguery, the prison concentration camp system, and even attempts to explain anti-imperialist resistance.
Some of the left-wing critics think that the latest Harold & Kumar is insufficiently serious and takes lightly dark issues like Guantanamo Bay. The critics forget that this series is subverting a traditionally white male supremacist genre to attack the ideas this genre perpetuates. The humor formula makes this the wrong place to explore the semi-secret concentration-camps around the world run by the US government and the resistance of the inmates and targeted peoples of the wars on terror and drugs.
The movie hits at some truths, and as someone who has been forcibly interrogated thrice by the Homeland Security Department in the United States I can share with you that the combination of illiteracy and white supremacist impulses of the interrogators can be just as perplexing and worrying in real life as on the screen. A catharsis like this is over-due.
One important idea the movie briefly explores but stands above all jokes is the necessity of working class whites to initiate opposition to racism to build the trust that can overthrow the irrational current capitalist system. Pay attention when one of the privileged characters rebels to help Harold and Kumar.
There are still elements from White Castle, where the primary plot device is marijuana, and yes there is still Doogie Howser ex machina. If you’re looking for a good laugh, don’t mind exposed genitals and scat, and can get past the grave nature of the topics the movie deals with, go and see Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay. Also, keep watching past the credits, there is a surprise at the end.
