Ok, so to her credit, Cheryl Rave did send me an apology. It's the same apology that she's been cutting and pasting and sending to everyone else. I think she probably has like 3 or 4 versions flying around. One she sends to angry men, one she sends to angry women, one she sends to angry UCLA college kids, and one she sends to older industry affiliated exec types, etc.

My friend Michael K. wrote on a listserv in response to an original letter of complaint that Wyn Ngo sent around, "SHE is not the enemy. She made a mistake, a bad piece of judgement." And said that Wyn's hateful approach in his letter of complaint to Cheryl Rave is as ineffective and racist as the casting call itself. And Michael writes, "Two wrongs don't make it right."

Someone else wrote on a listserve that we shouldn't shoot the messenger. Even though she is taking the blame, he guesses that it's all a PR move to divert the negative attention from the big Hollywood people who probably came up with the idea and to keep the bad attention from the movie itself. And that there is only so much that directing our anger at this woman can do to actually make a difference.

And then I have seen emails from people, who despite having seen the multiple letters of apology floating around, still want to wreak havoc on this woman and on the post party she is supposed to coordinate. And so many of these people who want to wreak havoc seem to think that I am best qualified to do it. (Now, why ever would you think that? ;>)

The point is when do we just say, "Ok, apology accepted. Let's move on."

Can we ever say that? Why are people not satisfied with her apology? I am split. At first I was not satisfied. I already knew I was going to get that letter from her, because I saw so many letters floating around that looked identical to mine. Then I thought, "I probably can't accept the apology because it doesn't seem sincere. Or because she hurt us so much to begin with that all she did was throw a bandaid on it." Then part of me does feel for this woman. That maybe she is just the messenger and because she sent the awful casting call around, she now will never be able to work with the Asian community again. Even if she is a good person who just made a really bad mistake.

Cheryl Rave did something the Abercrombie & Fitch people didn't do after the whole t-shirt fiasco-- she wrote personalized letters of apology to people. Abercrombie just took the shirts off their shelves and publicly said, "Oops, we thought Asian people wanted to wear these (racist, humiliating, overpriced) t-shirts."

This has just made me reflect on the nature of "I'm Sorry" and apologies in general. Apologies just don't seem to cut it these days. Never have in the history of mankind. Take the redress to Japanese Americans decades after internment. Nope, didn't quite seem to make up for an entire race humiliated, separated, and made to suffer. Better than not saying anything at all, but still, not good enough. And what a lot of people would say is "too late."

And look at wars, how many wars happened because people couldn't suck up and take "I'm sorry" like a man? Or how many wars happen because people can't even say "I'm sorry" to begin with.

I think about things that people have done to me that really hurt me. "Sorry" never seems to be enough to cut it. Only time. And even at that, that's still not enough to totally heal the bitterness.

I think about things I have done to people. "Sorry" was sometimes accepted but didn't bring things back to where they were before.

Only making the other person feel as hurt as you did does. Only making someone suffer as much as you did feels right. And that's not right either.

And even at that, doing something back never seems good enough. It just creates a cycle of destruction. And hurt never seems to go away sometimes. And words never seem to make us satisfied again, just reflective. And it's still up to us after we receive an apology to find our peace and figure out how to move on.

And that's what's so hard about the nature of feelings.

And now that you read through that whole thing, you get rewarded with these pictures of me dressed as a Japanese school girl.

Why am I dressed like a walking fetish you may ask?

It's for a new Spielberg movie called "The Terminal" with Tom Hanks. Think "Castaway" but set in an airport terminal. It's about a guy who can't leave America to go back to his Eastern European home, so he has to live in the airport for a year, in hiding. See that behind me. It's a store in the airport terminal. It's so cool, the set looks like an airport, but it's not. It's really a hangar in Palmdale. The magic of Hollywood!

Steven Spielberg talked to me. He said, "And you two can be playing with this camera machine." Freaking amazing. The girl to my left in the top picture is named Shelly and she kept talking to Tom Hanks saying dumb things like, "You are tall!" and "Have you been to New York? I love New York!" I kept telling her to leave him alone, but she wouldn't let up. She only got away with it because she was dressed like a school girl.

Look for me in the movie walking in front of Tom Hanks when he drops a quarter. Inside that store we are posing in front of.

Anyway, it was very interesting to be a grown ass woman dressed as a school girl. Like a sociological experiment. And to hang around with the other women all today was interesting. None of us are Japanese except the girl behind me who is half Japanese, but I thought she was Pilipino at first. We are all Chinese and Korean. And we are all way too old to be dressed like that. A couple of the women are married. Ah well. I guess I should be flattered that I still look 15. Except the skirt is all the way, three inches above my belly button. Everyone else had hips apparently and wore their skirts where they were supposed to be. I kept expanding my gut under my skirt to the amusement of the other girls and the crew.

Two of the girls were Chinese originally from Hong Kong. I sat in the middle of the most offensive talk they were having about race during lunch. It was weird. It's been a while since I have heard Asian people tear apart other Asian races the way they were and insist that "a Chinese person wouldn't do that." I interjected a lot and wanted to say so much, "Those crazy, psychotic qualities that you say a Chinese person wouldn't have-- that's me..." I forget how so many people who immigrate from China or another Asian country describe race differently than those of us informed by the political "Asian American Studies sensibility." Like they kept referring to white people as "American" and I kept screaming, "Hey! You are American too!"

I remember listening to them and thinking that if they saw Cheryl's casting call, they might have submitted for it.

Anyway, time for a list.

Things that happen when you are dressed like a Japanese school girl...

-- Strange things happen, like male crew members introducing other male crew members to you and then running away embarassed.
-- People talk or smile to you like like you don't know English, even though they should know it's a movie set and nobody is who they are dressed to be.
-- ADs saying things like, "The crew is going to have fun today!" right to your face.
-- Male crew members applauding to you when you walk by.
-- You suddenly feel the power to get away with tons of stuff you usually can't.
-- I started humming "Hit Me Baby One More Time".
-- You get away with sneaking the non-union school girls through the SAG lunch line as long as you giggle into your palm and squeal "Mochi Mochi!" when the 2nd AD approaches you.
-- Security guards bow to you.
-- Smitten continuity guy will take multiple polaroids of you dressed as school girl for you to keep as a souvenir (and also take one to keep for himself).
-- Constant sound of "Aw...so cute..." following you wherever you go. Like a fly buzzing around your ear.
-- You feel very, very, very watched. And not necessarily in a good way.