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Is 'Licorice Pizza' racist? Paul Thomas Anderson’s film slammed over fake Asian accent

‘Licorice Pizza’ stars Alana Haim and late Philip Seymour Hoffman’s son Cooper Hoffman in the lead roles

One of the most highly-anticipated movies of the year, ‘Licorice Pizza’, was finally released on November 26 but it soon came under fire for a scene that reportedly mocks Asians. The film helmed by Paul Thomas Anderson includes a scene where a White businessman converses in a fake Asian accent with his on-screen wife, who is Japanese.

One screenwriter and director, who saw the film a bit earlier than the audience called out the film on Twitter and dubbed this coming-of-age comedy-drama as racist. Many other social media users too slammed the movie for mocking Asians. Will Smith-starrer ‘King Richard’ was in news recently after it got dubbed as “sexist” for keeping the title on a man while the movie sheds light on the success of Tennis global champions, Venus and Serena Williams.

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Is 'Licorice Pizza' racist?

While the film has overall garnered a tremendous response, a particular scene mocking the Asians led to a new controversy. In one of the scenes, actor John Michael Higgins appears as a White male restaurateur who speaks to his Japanese wife with a fake Asian accent, as reported by NBC News. He repeats the same act in another scene with his new on-screen wife which did not go down well with social media users.

‘Licorice Pizza’ stars Alana Haim and late Philip Seymour Hoffman’s son Cooper Hoffman in the lead roles. The film is about two people growing up in the San Fernando Valley in California in the 1970s. The movie also stars Sean Penn, Bradley Cooper and Tom Waits in prominent roles.  There has been no response from the makers or the actors on the new controversy. The film had a limited release here but will be released widely on December 25.

‘Irresponsible to use racism against Asians as a running gag’

“I saw #LicoricePizza over a week ago and it's taken me this long to process it. There's an incredibly racist, seemingly pointless (other than a cheap laugh, which it got at the screening I was at) scene that mocks Asian accents," said one user as another posted, “When we lose our ability to laugh at ourselves the world becomes some weird dystopian Star Trek episode. I'm against abuse of anyone. We have API family members, Korean and Samoan. We can go through life with grace and humor or we can waste our time seeking victim status.”

One added, “Appropriation is the WORST”, as another mentioned, “Damn, can’t us Asians ever have anything nice? Some of my fav white male Directors: PTA, Wes Anderson, Denis Villeneuve all have been making real amazing films lately and then there’s a fake Asian accent or a sneaky Asian character trope. Let it end.” The next one concluded, “It’s irresponsible to use racism against Asians as a running gag...Racist stereotypes like the accent are a cheap way of getting laughs because you don’t need to explain anything- even though there is nothing funny about accents.”