I’m currently working towards creating a graphic novel about the multiracial experience and often look to various sources of inspiration and ideas. The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam (2007) is a graphic novel written by Ann Marie Fleming, a multiracial artist and filmmaker about her great grandfather, Long Tack Sam, a world renowned magician.
Although the novel focuses on Long Tack Sam,, the novel also uses Sam’s magician identity as a metaphor to represent the experiences of her cross-national, multicultural and multiracial family. Due to many wars, and international political events, racial segregation and discrimination her family had to often “escape”, “disguise” themselves. I identified with the way she explains how being part of two racial categories you are often like a chameleon, magically perceived one race in one context and another race in another context, and all the different complexities that come with this. She is also able to together conflicting stories told by different people into a collective whole to make sense of who she is.
Anne Marie Fleming originally created this story as a film, and you can see short clips of it here: http://www.longtacksam.com/
Here’s an interview with Ann Marie Fleming, the author: ttp://www.smithmag.net/memoirville/2007/10/05/interview-ann-marie-fleming-the-magical-life-of-long-tack-sam-author-artist-and-filmmaker/
Here’s a review of the graphic novel on the Asian American Comics website:
http://www.asianamericancomics.com/comics/magical-life-of-long-tack-sam/
I find it fascinating to see the increase in positive representations of Asian or Asian-American heroes and heroines in American popular culture. Anne Marie Fleming even touches on this issue in her graphic novel when she talks about how Long Tack Sam refused to let his daughters act in Hollywood films because they would only represent Chinese people as “bandits, opium smokers, asexual murderers and all around bad guys” (Fleming, 2007, 112). She even questions at the end of her novel, why it is that Long Tack Sam has been forgotten even though he did achieve as much popularity as Houdini during his time.
Diem Dangers
Although the novel focuses on Long Tack Sam,, the novel also uses Sam’s magician identity as a metaphor to represent the experiences of her cross-national, multicultural and multiracial family. Due to many wars, and international political events, racial segregation and discrimination her family had to often “escape”, “disguise” themselves. I identified with the way she explains how being part of two racial categories you are often like a chameleon, magically perceived one race in one context and another race in another context, and all the different complexities that come with this. She is also able to together conflicting stories told by different people into a collective whole to make sense of who she is.
Anne Marie Fleming originally created this story as a film, and you can see short clips of it here: http://www.longtacksam.com/
Here’s an interview with Ann Marie Fleming, the author: ttp://www.smithmag.net/memoirville/2007/10/05/interview-ann-marie-fleming-the-magical-life-of-long-tack-sam-author-artist-and-filmmaker/
Here’s a review of the graphic novel on the Asian American Comics website:
http://www.asianamericancomics.com/comics/magical-life-of-long-tack-sam/
I find it fascinating to see the increase in positive representations of Asian or Asian-American heroes and heroines in American popular culture. Anne Marie Fleming even touches on this issue in her graphic novel when she talks about how Long Tack Sam refused to let his daughters act in Hollywood films because they would only represent Chinese people as “bandits, opium smokers, asexual murderers and all around bad guys” (Fleming, 2007, 112). She even questions at the end of her novel, why it is that Long Tack Sam has been forgotten even though he did achieve as much popularity as Houdini during his time.
Diem Dangers
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