Angry Little Asian Girl
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Angry Little Asian Girl, Five Angry Episodes is a compilation of five animated shorts created in 1994 by Lela Lee.
The first of the five episodes is titled "Angry Little Asian Girl, the First Day of School," and was created in 1994 while Lee was a sophomore at UC Berkeley. Upon completing it as a project for her video class, she hid the episode fearing it was too angry. About three years later, an entertainment friend showed Lee "South Park, the Spirit of Christmas." The similarities of kids with foul-mouths made Lee bring her ALAG video out of a drawer to show to her friend. Lee was then inspired to add four more episodes, creating "Angry Little Asian Girl, Saturday at the Park," "Angry Little Asian Girl, Lunch with Sally," "Angry Little Asian Girl, Pat," and "Angry Little Asian Girl, Park Bench." Each episode is based on Lela Lee's experiences growing up in an predominately white neighborhood.[1] In April 1998, the five episodes of ALAG was screened at the American Cinemateque where it received positive reviews from the audience and critics such as Kevin Thomas of the LA Times[2] Ernest Hardy of the LA Weekly.
Lee realized she had struck a nerve [3] and made a batch of 300 T-shirts which she sold out of the trunk of her car and on her website.[4] As she was selling shirts, she encountered non-Asians who loved the ALAG shirts but were too afraid to wear them. She also noted that a lot of females understood the sentiment of being angry and not being able to express their anger.[5] MTV had gotten wind of the buzz about the animated shorts, and sent a messenger to get a VHS copy of "Angry Little Asian Girl, 5 Angry Episodes." The feedback she received from the MTV executive was that "there's no market for Asians." Lee was determined to show the executive that he was wrong. Lee expanded her main character's world into Angry Little Girls that included other girl characters who express anger differently- into a comic strip, multiple books and a line of merchandise.[6][7] 2014 marks the 20-year anniversary of ALAG's creation. Angry Little Asian Girl is a web series.[8]
References
- ^ "Seattle Times Young Chang September 5, 2003". Retrieved 13 September 2014.
- ^ "Los Angeles Times, April 30, 1998". Retrieved 13 September 2014.
- ^ "PBS Documentary Searching for Asian America". Retrieved 13 September 2014.
- ^ "Noguchi, Irene. "'Asian Girl': Comic Strip of a Different Stripe." Washington Post. August 27, 2001". Retrieved 13 September 2014.
- ^ "Seattle Times Young Chang September 5, 2003". Retrieved 13 September 2014.
- ^ "LA Weekly Shelly Leopold May 14, 2008". LA Weekly. 4 September 2014. Retrieved 13 September 2014.
- ^ "Seattle Times Young Chang January 18, 2004". Retrieved 13 September 2014.
- ^ "Los Angeles Times Ahn Do April 24, 2013". latimes.com. 25 April 2013. Retrieved 13 September 2014.