So has anyone been keeping up with “Rob”? You know, on that channel with “How I Met Your Mother” and “Big Bang Theory”? Uh, I assume not. I thought the show was premiering tonight but I guess it has been on since mid-January. It stars quarter-Pilipino Rob Schneider who marries into a Mexican-American family. Surely this has to be great…I mean, all of Schneider’s movies have been hits right?
Schneider started in stand-up before joining Saturday Night Live during some of its best years, when Chris Farley, Chris Rock, and Adam Sandler were part of the cast. Post-SNL, his most memorable roles have been as the “You can do it!” guy in several of Sandler’s movies. In his own movies, his Pilipina mother usually makes a cameo, and he often gives shout-outs to his heritage – he delivers bibingka in “Deuce Bigalow”, while he wears an “I Love Cebu” shirt in “The Animal”.
Still, it’s not like he’s a highly regarded actor. His movies have boiled down to a simple formula of “regular guy transforms into something he’s not”. He’s also the owner of the 2005 Worst Actor Razzie Award for the universally panned sequel to “Deuce Bigalow” (a movie Roger Ebert said “sucks”). I pretty much turned on Schneider after seeing “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry”, and all-around painful-to-watch movie with many cheap jokes.
In it, Schneider again makes a cameo, this time as a minister who marries Chuck and Larry. An Asian minister. The most painfully dated, racist caricature of an Asian I’d ever seen in modern media. Giant glasses, bowl cut, mixing his ‘L’s and ‘R’s, speaking in an obviously faked accent, making bows at random. You can watch here as a supposedly proud Pilipino sets Asian Americans back about a century.
And now, he’s in a show that’s built on clowning on Mexican stereotypes. Just great. I’m not saying I’ve disowned Rob Schneider as a Pilipino just yet, but he’s not exactly someone I’m proud of. Let me know if he ever makes something worthwhile.
