OPINION - The Writing Was on the Wall...

The writing was on the wall, but GM couldn't read it.

It has nothing to do with the lack of technology. Between 1996-1999, GM produced over 1,000 units of the GM EV1. This was an electric car available in California and Arizona for lease only. This was based on a design created by AeroVironment called the GM Impact.

Based in Monrovia, California--just outside of Los Angeles but within Los Angeles County, AeroVironment Inc. was founded in 1971 and is known for developing human-powered and solar-powered vehicles.

Not far away, in San Dimas, California, is AC Propulsion, the company that developed the tzero--a prototype yellow EV sports car. Only three exist and all three still run. From this came the Tesla limited edition electric sports car which uses the AC Propulsion technology.

The GM EV1 was taken away from the people who had leased them. GM refused to sell them and instead destroyed all but a few that were taken to museums. Why didn't GM have the foresight to continue development of the electric vehicle, even if they knew about the Smart car, a neighborhood electric vehicles?

Why didn't they allow people to buy a car they were going to crush. This is essentially the question that Chris Paine asked in his 2006 movie, Who Killed the Electric Car? Paine had owned and loved his EV1, but like Mel Gibson, was forced to give his up.

When the news came out that GM was
closing four truck and SUV plants in the U.S., Canada and Mexico and cutting jobs, I emailed Paine to ask for his reaction.

His response was quick.

In short two old cliches come to mind.
the writing was on the...
the chickens have come home to...


American car makers ignored early warning signs about peak oil and kept betting almost everything on their big profit margin SUVS and trucks. The fact that they willfully destroyed their own electric cars programs in the 1990s in spite of objections from their own board members and so many enthusiasts, makes them especially culpable.

We'll see if they can scramble fast enough to meet the realities of the changing world. Its a fascinating story with many players - which is how our first film came to life. And the story continues...

GM came out with an EV for the U.S. marketplace before Toyota came out with the Prius.

Now with the Prius out and plans for a consumer-ready plug-in Prius projected for 2010, GM is trying to catch up. That will come too late for the estimated 10,000 workers who will lose their jobs.

According to the AP article,

CEO Rick Wagoner said Tuesday before the automaker's annual meeting in Delaware the plants to be idled are in Oshawa, Ontario; Moraine, Ohio; Janesville, Wis.; and Toluca, Mexico. He also said the iconic Hummer brand will be reviewed and potentially sold or revamped.

Paine's movie noted that although there were financial incentives for buying an EV, the incentives were greater for the Hummer. That kind of planning is what got us where we are--dependent upon gas vehicles when we knew that fossil fuels would eventually run out. The promise of solar energy which can be converted into electricity has been always something for the future.

Recently, one plant was shut down due to a worker protest. Perhaps this protest comes too late. We should have been protesting, demanding better mileage and cars that looked toward a future without oil or gas, a time when fossil fuels would be gone and/or pollution would be destroying the world.

The writing was on the wall of the future, GM couldn't read it. Neither could most Americans. We knew this would happen in the future, but Americans weren't building bullet trains for better public transportation. We weren't demanding a move toward a less oil dependent future. We've been distracted by the promise of hydrogen when we had the technology for EVs. We can't wait 30 years for hydrogen technology to develop. The future is now and EV technology is ready if we are willing, as consumers and as voters, to demand a change.

If you haven't seen this movie, it's available on DVD. Learn more about plug-ins and EV technology at Plug In America.

MOVIE REVIEW: Hollywood Chinese: The Chinese in American Feature Films

Ten years in the making, Arthur Dong's Hollywood Chinese: In American Feature Films is an entertaining documentary full of surprises.

First, it's a bit shocking to see Nancy Kwan. Why you might ask? Isn't she Chinese? Well, as another actors comments, she is at least part Chinese. For a time, Kwan was everyone's favorite Asian woman--even if she was clearly Eurasian.

Dong doesn't shy away from that question, nor questions about her infamous portrayal of the Hong Kong prostitute, Susie Wong, (although she wasn't in the original Broadway cast--you might be surprised to see who was), nor her infomercials.

At least Kwan looked like she could be Asian. The usual practice was yellow face — Luise Rainer did that to much acclaim. Rainer played O-Lan in the 1937 movie, The Good Earth, dashing Anna May Wong's hopes. Dong touches on this and a report of Wong's screen test, but not on the Hays Code of anti-miscegenation which some resources consider a major determining factor once Paul Muni was cast. Rainer won an Academy Award for that role and defends her casting. Some of the Chinese actors compliment her portrayal and still there is that unsettling question about yellow face.

Yellow face was a difficult process, according to Christopher Lee. In the 1960s, Lee brought Fu Manchu to the silver screen. Dong cuts to some memorable and mostly amusing moments of yellow face — from Katherine Hepburn to John Wayne.

Hepburn starred in the 1944 Dragon Seed, also based on a Pearl Buck novel as was The Good Earth. Turhan Bey notes that Hollywood at the time was full of ridiculous situations. Born in Vienna, Bey's father was Turkish and his mother Czech. He was supposed to be related to Hepburn, yet that Tan family had a wide variety of accents. No wonder people thought Asians were inscrutable.

Dong does include a real Chinese American Tan, Amy Tan. Tan recalls how after her 1989 novel The Joy Luck Club became popular and people wanted to adapt it into a movie, how cautious she was until Wayne Wang became attached to the project. Hong Kong-born Wang wrote (with Isaac Cronin) and directed the 1982 Chan Is Missing, a work selected for the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 1995 for its realistic portrayal of Chinese Americans. After the 1993 The Joy Luck Club, which followed Smoke, Wang did more mainstream movies like Maid In Manhattan and Because of Winn-Dixie.


At the time, the 1961 Flower Drum Song was also considered progressive with Kwan starring beside a Japanese national (Miyoshi Umeki) and a Japanese American (James Shigeta)--something ironic after spending World War II emphasizing the differences between Chinese and Japanese--an issue that Japanese Americans have also noted in the past. The Chinese could even be played by an African American--Juanita Hall. There was something laughable about ABCs (American-born Chinese) dancing to a song celebrating chop suey--an American dish.

Playwright David Henry Hwang whose M. Butterfly won a Tony, and original Broadway cast member B.D. Wong also appear, but the cantankerous Frank Chin (who criticized Hwang and Tan among others in his essay, "Come All Ye Asian American Writers of the Real and the Fake" in 1991 anthology The Big Aiiieeeee!)does not. This certainly keeps the documentary more focused, but it's a notable omission when the documentary does include a historian and Dong is based in Los Angeles like Chin and Hwang. Chin, who was the subject of a 2005 documentary What's Wrong with Frank Chin, has his own blog and his latest entry (26 May 2008) mentions Tan, Shigeta, Wang and Hepburn.

Chin was interviewed by Jeff Adachi for the 2006 documentary Slanted Screen about the imagery of Asian and Asian American men.


The Asian American community has also been critical of Joan Chen for her portrayal of what was essentially an updated version of Susie Wong in the 1986 Tai-Pan. The Shanghai-born Chen continued to play exotic women, but found that with age, the quality of the movies decreased and unlike Kwan, moved on to directing. She was also in the much acclaimed The Last Emperor in 1987, but this movie was also criticized as being more a figment of the director's imagination by Lisa Lu, who was in this movie and Tai-Pan

There's also a Sundance moment, when someone criticizes Justin Lin's 2002 Better Luck Tomorrow which an audience member criticized for being made at all--even though it was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize award at Sundance. The audience member seemed to feel it was irresponsible to give such a negative and amoral portrayal of Asian Americans. Was this a case of someone wanting to preserve the good minority stereotype despite the very brutal 1992 incident that inspired this movie?

There are some surprising historical clips--not the archival portrayals of old China nor the ones of an imagined China--but old movies made for American-born Chinese produced and starring ABCs. The question remains today about why aren't ABCs doing as well as Asian-born actors and directors such as Ang Lee (who also appears), Chow Yun-Fat, Jet Li, Zhang Ziji, and Jackie Chan?

Unsettling questions about being American, desexualization of Asian American men (Long Duk Dong who was played by a Japanese American in the movie Sixteen Candles is cited), the exoticism of the women, the martial arts stereotype are raised as they were a decade ago.

Dong hopes that if this movie was ever part of a school curriculum it would find its way into the history department. Even-handed, avoiding some of the divisive arguments within the ABC community, this thoughtful movie does provide an informative look at American-born Chinese history which is undoubtedly an important part of Asian American history and the history of all Americans in this country.