Brewery Removes Offensive Promotion after Yelp Complaint

Sometimes it pays to complain.

AsAmNews staff writer Mandy Day saw the above post on social media, and she could not remain silent. Long Duk Dong has been long the bane of Asian American men and Asian Americans in general. The character from the popular 1984 comedy, Sixteen Candles, represents much that is wrong with Asian American “representation” in Hollywood.

The exaggerated accent for cheap laughs, the image of Asians as the perpetual foreigner and the bumbling asexual Asian male were all wrapped into one characterization.

To see it resurrected in 2018 by a brewery in Pennsylvania was too much for Mandy.

On top of that, she saw a second posting from the brewery that didn’t make her feel any better.

This time it was another character from yesteryear. It was John Belushi’s Samurai Futaba  from the mid to late 70’s during the early years of Saturday Night Live. This character also featured an exaggerated accent for laughs at the expense of Asians. To make things worse, Samurai Futaba perpetuated yellowface.

Mandy took to Yelp to vent.

“Racism is alive and well,” wrote Mandy on her Yelp review. “Patron this place if you want to support White supremacy.”

The understated review worked. A few hours later the two promotions were removed along with an apology.

“While I appreciate Koehler Brewery has removed the ads and acknowledged their poor judgment, it’s all too common that businesses large and small to exploit minority cultures in order to make money,” said Mandy to AsAmNews.  It is a constant reminder that we’re still stereotypes in the United States, the perpetual foreigner.”
 
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