SFIAAFF: The Grace Lee Project

A small phalanx of SFisters were present for the screening of "The Grace Lee Project;" it was, an introducer-guy announced, "one of the most highly anticipated films in our program." Neat. As we waited, an offhand comment about authenticity (or whatever) inspired a game entitled Fake Asians Throughout Cinema History: how many can you name? John Wayne as Genghis Kahn, Yul Brenner in "The King and I," Katherine Hepburn was Asian in something or other, the unconvincingly Chinese lady in "Thoroughly Modern Millie," and wasn't Elizabeth Taylor Asian at one point? Cleopatra doesn't count.

"The Grace Lee Project" is preceeded by a short profile of Vera Koo, entitled "Top Woman Shooter" and made by Bryant Wang for the Parson's School of Design. Upon first inspection, Vera looks pretty mom-ish: quiet and smart, with pink lipstick and sensible shoes and her blouse tucked into her jeans. She is also the most accurate female shooter of firearms in the world, and it's all a little strange. One moment, she's hanging out with family; the next minute she's crouched on the ground firing those explodey rifle things with a string of bullets strapped to her wrist like Leon Kennedy. One of the best moments comes when she's unpacking her guns in a hotel room, and nonchalantly picks a baggie full of bullets out of a cooler, where it had been nestling with juice and sammitches.

The audience loved the repeated shots of Vera pumping out rounds of ammunition, giggling whenever she shifted from suburban gentlewoman to deadly markswoman. (Perhaps only in San Francisco is there an amusing implausibility to the idea that rational people can be gun owners.) But it's not played just for laughs; we really get to know Vera and her friends and family, and the amazing lengths she's gone to in order to hone her skill. "Top Woman Shooter" is a fun, sensitive story about a really neat lady who knows what she wants and goes for it; in the end, Vera explains, she just had to "step out of the box and try something new...there's so much to learn in this world." We find ourselves feeling strangely inspired by her ability to destroy small objects at a great distance.

And now, on to the Graces.

Grace Lee grew up in Missouri, where being a the daughter of Korean immigrants was fairly unusual. It wasn't until her adult life that she realized that there are a lot (SFist estimates between 458 and 72,800) other people with the same name. And they all seem to be the SAME person, too: quiet, motivated, polite, pretty, petit, kind, smart, hard working, and probably giggling shyly from behind a paper fan. "Grace Lee," it becomes clear, is a name generally attributed the qualities of the Obedient Asian Girl archetype. Her confidence in her identity somewhat eroded, GL the Filmmaker (or GLtF, as the kids call her) sets out to meet her sisters in Grace.

A lot of the GLs are, in fact, rather similar; mostly young, attractive, academically accomplished young women. GLtF despairs, "are all Grace Lees cut from the same cloth?" Even a BAD GL, a local girl who tried to burn down her high school, turns out to have been provoked by the stress of academic achievement. Assemblyman Leland Yee, about whose noble battle against evil zombies we have written in prior articles, speaks on the behalf of Grace Lee the Arsonist.

But as her search progresses, a more nuanced GraceLeeish mosaic begins to crystalize. One of the most remarkable GLs comes at the very end of the film, and sadly, we weren't quite able to make out what her story was because the right speaker in the theater suddenly blew out and started screeching. (We're not totally impressed by the facilities provided to the festival by the Kabuki 8.) But anyway, that final GL - we'll call her Grace Lee Ultimate - was adopted from Korea by an abusive American family, and now she's running a single-parent family and everything about her is just so WISE. Like, she's amazing, and funny, and kind; everything she says is made out of That's So True. We also like her cute, Star-Wars-fanfilm-producing son. GLU has such an amazing story about immigrating, and her adoption, and parenting and carving out a place for yourself that we just want to bask in the sheer magnitude of her GraceLeeness.

Other amazing GLs emerge as well; each GL has a really, really, really interesting story to tell, and like TAL's awesome contributors, GLtF has a knack for getting people to share. One GL is a successful high school student who plays two instruments and draws tableaux of violence and poop; another is an 80-year-old activist in the Detroit Black Power movement; another tried to burn down her high school; another was Korea's leading lesbian activist when the film was shot, but since then has become one of those scary ex-gays. Another GL is the wife of a minister, and has an unintentionally hilarious few moments in which she fumbles her way through a churchy sex-ed workshop. For her, just saying the word "sex" is tense and difficult, and her idea of a frank sexual discussion is presenting confusing metaphors comparing sex to a gift-wrapped package. She holds aloft a present and haltingly says, "now, let's say, this is ... your box." This leaves the audience in stiches, but GLtF isn't holding this GL up as The Silly Weirdo; she's simply presenting one facet of Grace-Leeism, that is, a woman who has convictions and focus and is giving herself the life that she wants.

And that's the one common thread throughout; although many GLs struggle through conflict and doubt, they've all got strength and goals, and derive strength from the knowledge that there are other GLs out there like them. And that isn't really a GL-specific trait at all -- it's only human. Oho, crafty "Grace Lee Project," you're so jokey and fun that we don't even notice that you're really about The Human Condition! Well done; your similarity to This American Life is now complete. Get a hipster soundtrack, Sarah Vowell, and online streaming in irritating RealAudio format and you'll be all set.