THE HERO WITHIN
One writer’s childhood search for the perfect role model
The infamous mirror scene from ENTER THE DRAGON.
By Jenn Fang
I was a late-80s and early-90s child, and in the brightly-colored worlds of that era’s Saturday morning cartoons and after-school specials, I found the heroes who could inspire my imagination. Though faced with hundreds of televised protagonists who resembled G.I. Joe’s blonde-haired and blue-eyed Sgt. Duke, I gravitated towards those who resembled the Asian side-character, Quick Kick. Playing make-believe, my secret games transformed me into those favored characters that represented the best of who I could be. I spun wildly through the house engaged in desperate battles invisible to all but me, much to my parents’ barking dismay over the safety of second-hand couches and antique coffee tables.
Exiled by my mother to the wet grass of our backyard where only the flowers were fragile, I called down the power of the mighty Sabre-Toothed Tiger Zord as the Yellow Mighty Morphin’ Power Ranger, only to have my lemon-yellow spandex morph into a full-length raincoat as I channeled the mutant powers of the X-Men’s Jubilee. In battling the ninjas of The Foot and the agents of Cobra, I moved through the shadows like Brandon Lee's Crow and harnessed the agility of The Jungle Book’s Mowgli to flank my assailants with the screaming Lightning Leg kicks of Street Fighter’s Chun Li. Afterwards, exhausted from an afternoon of spirited play, I would retire to the den to watch DRAGON: THE BRUCE LEE STORY.
Yes, I am of the generation of Asian American youths who grew up thinking that Jason Scott Lee was Bruce Lee.
Even reenacted by proxy, I was entranced by the story of this slender Asian man who shrieked defiant battle cries in warrior poses. Bruce Lee confronted real and imagined demons with equal resolve, emerging victorious by both impressive athleticism as well as a tactician’s mind. He did not allow physical, professional, or emotional injury to alter the course of his ambition. This man—who looked like me, who spoke like me, who could be me—not only outfought but outthought his challengers. Being a short, over-weight, runny-nosed ten-year-old girl with large horn-rimmed glasses, I wasn’t about to outfight anybody. And so, I vowed to be a thinker.
I met the real Bruce Lee in my college dorm room, hours past midnight, watching an old VHS copy of ENTER THE DRAGON. At that moment, I realized Jason Scott Lee wasn’t Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee was more myth than man; his fighting skills were his metaphor, his fluidity was his strength. He slipped and coiled like a snake, adapting his stances according to the villains he faced, only to have their bodies break against his sudden immovable might. In the final scenes of ENTER THE DRAGON, Bruce Lee encounters a dizzying maze of mirrors while in pursuit of the villain. Hundreds of false Bruce Lees dart before the screen, only to disappear as soon as confronted. Wavering for only a heartbeat, Bruce Lee shatters the distorted reflections and emerges from a shower of splintering glass as his true self.
Talk about metatext.
It has been more than three decades since Bruce Lee’s passing, and yet he has left an indelible mark on pop culture. Generations of Asian American youths like myself are rediscovering Bruce Lee for the first time in old original videotapes and new DVD re-releases of Lee’s instant classics. He speaks to us: the children who know him only as legend, not simply as a man who achieved the peak of martial arts skill, but as an inspiration. We—as Asian Americans, as immigrants, as simple men and women—can only strive to be ourselves, but in ourselves we can be anything we dream to be.
Jenn Fang is a graduate student in physiological sciences at the University of Arizona. In her spare time, she blogs at Reappropriate where she comments on race, gender, current events and pop culture in the Asian American community.