PETE AND THE BANANAS
THE STORY.
The rules of datingland can be complicated for everyone, but certainly for a 'banana'. Pete Wu calls himself a banana: Chinese on the outside ('yellow') and Dutch on the inside ('white'). In the series Pete and the Bananas he is on a quest for answers. How does dating actually work for him? And how do other 'bananas' experience this? A series about love and dating between two worlds.
Different dating rules apply to a 'banana': they find themselves between two often clashing cultures. The Chinese culture of their parents and the Dutch culture in which they grew up. Together with other 'bananas', Pete discusses his own insecurities about the prevailing Western beauty ideals and the fetishization of East Asians. He also runs into walls, for example with the racist request 'No Asians' that he encounters on some dating profiles. How do the expectations and rules influence his dating life? And what if, as a 'banana', you can't meet either of those criteria? Pete's search takes him to a psychologist, brides, sex operators and models. And he goes on his first date with another Chinese-Dutch man to see if that changes his views of love.
THE PRODUCTION.
Pete and the Bananas originated from Pete Wu's debut book called The Banana Generation: About the Double Life of Today's Chinese Dutch people. We were paired up via the editor-in-chief of the broadcaster for the production of the web series.
With this series, we want to create recognition and visibility for other Chinese Dutch people, but also provide an insight into his world for non-Chinese Dutch people. "Dutch people of East Asian descent like myself are notoriously invisible and often forgotten in traditional media, while they form the fourth largest non-Western migrant group. So I hardly see myself in commercials, talk shows, major sports, politics, education and films, books and other arts - and this lack of stories from this group of Dutch people encourages ignorance, and thus discrimination and stereotyping," says Pete.
My role
Director, camera operator, editor, graphics designer
Release
June 2020
Length
3 x 20 minutes
Film location
the Netherlands
Year of production
2019 - 2020
Broadcaster
VPRO
More info on
www.vpro.nl
“The less is made about Chinese Dutch people, their thoughts, opinions and view of the world, the more one-dimensional the image of them becomes.”
DE STILLS.
