the Lincredible Linderella Linsanity

I care very little about the NBA (not since Michael Jordan retired) but I've been following the whole Linsanity phenomenon (mostly in the news, because actually watching NBA games requires more effort than this college basketball fan can muster) with interest that stems mostly from the glut of posts on my Facebook feed (what you get from having so many Asian friends) and from the novelty of having an Asian-American succeed in professional basketball.

Things I've thought:

- YAY AN ASIAN-AMERICAN PRO SPORTS STAR. (Caveat: there are probably others in, like, baseball or something. I'm no good with American sports, okay?)

- WTF IS THIS REAL LIFE?

- Dude, this is perfect inspirational overcome-the-odds sports movie material! Only if it were made into an inspirational overcome-the-odds sports movie, people wouldn't buy it, because it is too damned clichéd to be real. Holy cow.

- LOL, who am I kidding? They'll never make this into a movie. The lead would have to be Asian. Not only that: tall and Asian. And reasonably attractive, because it's Hollywood. Hollywood doesn't believe tall, attractive Asian-Americans exist! (My love life possibly agrees.) Moreover, the problem is that it's a story entirely about an Asian person who isn't a kung-fu master, accented comic relief, or exotic and mysterious foreigner. UNPOSSIBLE. Hollywood wouldn't believe a movie revolving entirely around an Asian person could sell successfully. Hollywood doesn't believe anyone but white actors and actresses can hold the sympathy and/or interest of the white audience for the entire movie, after all, and white people are the majority, so if they won't come to the movie, then Hollywood doesn't rake in the dough, and then the world would end. Poor Hollywood, so constrained in their casting choices because they can't help it if their majority audience is white! It's just demographics!

- Honestly, though, he seems like the kind of superstar Gary Stu everyone hopes they'd be like if they were ever in the same position: not just awesome, not just with a great rags-to-riches Cinderella story, but remarkably down-to-earth and humble, happy to pass on the credit to his coach, his teammates, and the system of play the Knicks employ. (Also, God. But maybe not all of us would share that faith if we were the Mary Sue/Gary Stu in question.)

SERIOUSLY, HE IS A REAL LIFE GARY STU. (But Asian. Gary Chu?)

Take away all my serious thoughts and it really does come down to: Damn, it's pretty cool there's an Asian-American getting some recognition. I feel like hyphenated-Asians in the US either get lumped together with the rest of Asia or overlooked entirely. Suddenly it's like this invisible subculture has been revealed to the Rest of the World. The news articles, jesus. There are Asian-American Christians? There are Asian-Americans into sports?! There are Asian-Americans raised by Tiger Moms who care about more than studying and good grades?! Good god, next you're going to be telling us they can sing and rap and dance and write and make movies too!