Harold and Kumar go to White Castle was a hilarious and irreverent buddy stoner comedy. But it was more than that. It was a movie incredibly ahead of its time in 2004, casting two Asian American leads and subverting stereotypes and the mold of what "movies" (particularly comedies) should be like.
The creators of the film, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, grew up in a diverse town in New Jersey and felt that most movies at the time did not offer diverse casts that resembled the friends they had growing up. They pitched the film to several studios but most of them, while loving the script, did not see Asian leads as marketable. One exec even notably told them "this movies is great, but why don't we do it with a white and a black guy?" One studio however, New Line Cinema, decided to take a chance and the rest is history.
Hurwitz and Schlossberg also took great pains to prevent the leads from being whitewashed. They wrote the script specifically to include ethnic specific scenes and dialogue so their Asian identities were inseparable from the plot. As a result, the audience saw Harold and Kumar as who they were, Asians born in the USA, without accents, and just two young and wild Americans.
Harold and Kumar were not portrayed as foreigners with accents struggling in a new country. They were not portrayed as stoic and unfeeling robots. They were also not portrayed as overachievers or mysterious wizards gifted with exceptional physical or spiritual abilities. They were just average Joes and likeable main characters that anyone regardless of skin color could relate to. This very simple writing decision was huge and incredibly ahead of its time. As an Asian American I hold this film near and dear and will never get tired of it, as I truly see myself and my best friend in Harold and Kumar. And in 2004, for the first time, my non-Asian peers finally understood us as well.
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/11b3pl6/harold_and_kumar_irreverent_buddy_comedy_that_was/
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