Throughout Interior Chinatown, Willis Wu continually seeks to play the starring role in his own life. He aspires to the character Kung Fu Guy; he believes it is the pinnacle of the Asian American roles available to him. However, Willis does not recognize the dangers of conformity until much later. Through Willis’ experience in various roles throughout the novel, author Charles Yu elucidates that stereotypes are dangerous because they are static and incomplete. Consequently, the best solution is to break out of the template that perpetuates these roles altogether.
While Willis wants to become Kung Fu Guy, many important
people in his life caution him against it. Notably, his mother tells him to “be
more” near the start of the book (56). Willis is confused because he does not
think he can be more. He genuinely believes Kung Fu Guy is all he could want
out of life. He does not yet see the trap of conforming to the stereotypical
role because he regards Kung Fu Guy so highly.
In fact, Willis does not make this realization until he
becomes Kung Fu Guy (180). He achieves his childhood dream and, in so doing, he
is immediately disillusioned. The role came at the expense of his identity and
his family. In the court case, Willis reflects on this experience, positing
that he wonders “why I wanted this so bad” because “Kung Fu Guy is just another
form of Generic Asian Man” (244-245). In this scene, Yu clearly illustrates how
Kung Fu Guy is a rebranded stereotype that does not offer individuality or
identity. It is a continuation of the faceless bit parts Willis played before
and it is predicated on racial stereotypes and biases.
Because none of the stereotypical roles ought to be life
goals, Yu asserts that people ought to break out of the template. Willis
demonstrates this by acting outside of the boundaries of a Generic Asian Man. For
instance, the screen writing for the love story montage is as follows: “LOVE
STORY FOR A GENERIC ASIAN MAN??? They’re rare, for your kind, but if you’re
lucky, in a lifetime, you might get a good one” (166). This thought process
expresses how Willis behaves out of the norms of the Generic Asian Man stereotype.
He breaks the template and, in so doing, finds the love of his life. He lives through
a similar experience with Phoebe, where he realizes that he is more than a bit
player in his daughter’s life. With his daughter, he is “something better. The
star’s dad. Somehow you were lucky enough to end up in her story” (202). Again,
Willis breaks out of the template. He does not have to be the Kung Fu hero or
star of the show. Rather, he is Phoebe’s dad, and that is enough. Thus, through
both examples, Charles Yu illustrates that leaving the template and the script
of a stereotype allows one to live a satisfactory life.
Your points about conformity and individuality as they apply to the novel made me think of our class discussion on Willis' dream and the criticism of it throughout the book. Just as you point out, Willis thinks that "Kung Fu Guy is the pinnacle" (56). At the beginning of the novel, he looks to Older Brother as one of the few to have achieved success in these narrow parameters: he is the ultimate Kung Fu Guy, deserving of his own "Awesomeness Montage" (25), and what every kid in Chinatown should aspire to be. In reality, however, Willis is the only one who sees that life "has" to be this way. The characters around him, such as his mother and Karen, reveal the novel's claim that there is more to life than playing a role when they push Willis to "be more" (56), as you have already portrayed. Yu points out how wrong Willis is to chase such a stereotypical dream, even though he may feel boxed in and invisible in an American world. Giving in to the stereotypes of the Kung Fu moves, the fake accents, and the restaurant scenes just for the "Congratulations" (180) of making it to the top of the construct of the Asian roles, just like Ming-Chen and Older Brother also did, ultimately fails to be fulfilling for anyone and is something that Willis Wu learns for himself in the course of the novel.
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