"Fortunes for Cookies" is a video diary project by Hello Kitty is Dead Productions and seven high school teenage girls from New York City. The project was an 10 week long video workshop, in which the producers taught the basics of digital video editing, from storyboarding to shooting and post production work to the teens. The project aimed to use digital video to create concepts and produce a body of work that communicates personal experiences and identity as Asian American women.
The result is seven short videos from each of the participants packed up in one DVD. The themes of each videos are similar personal narratives, but the subject matter varies from family expectations, racism, existential questions, and growing up Asian American in New York.
From the producers:
In the Spring of 2003, Ann Poochareon, Geraldine Chung, and Vivian Wenli Lin, co-produced an experimental narrative video short titled, Hello Kitty is Dead, a response to exotification and negative stereotypes that plague Asian and Asian American women. The project was selected as a recipient for the ‘-ism’ grant offered by the Office for African American, Latino American, and Asian American Student Service and the video premiered at the ‘-ism’ gala in April 2003. Since then, Hello Kitty is Dead has been screening at other different venues to a rave review and positive response. On multiple occasions, we have been approached by teachers and other youth counsels and activists, suggesting that we screen the video to high school students.
Hello Kitty is Dead is a video collage of Asian/Asian American women portraits in the mainstream media, specifically the ones that convey the commonly known “exotic Asian woman” stereotype. We extracted clips and images from various sources in the American media, juxtaposing them to create a context which shows the one-sidedness of these multiple forms of representation, and questioning the effects and influences these images have on both the society and our identity as Asian American women.
The idea behind this project stemmed from a very personal place and it is our hopes that our work communicates and influences thoughts in other Asian American women who are all facing the same issue but may or may not be aware of it or know how to put it in context. As a continuation of this project, we want to reach out to the youth community to inspire them to think critically about the mainstream media, stereotypes, representation, and the effects these things might have on their identity, and also to give them resources and lessons on using digital video to express their ideas. Being comfortable with technology and able to use them for self-expression are what we focus on as students at the Interactive Telecommunications Program. We recognize that the ability to use tools to tell story and communicate is an important to bring about social change and education.