The Grace Lee Project
In The Grace Lee Project, Grace Lee (the filmmaker) establishes a documenting strategy that specifically revolves around a lack of assumption. Without knowing for certain whether or not the plethora of Grace Lees encountered throughout the road trip would be similar to each other because of their common label, Grace Lee's film argues that, in essence, a name is only a title and is therefore not an all-encompassing summary of a specific human condition. On the digital road, the only "assumptions" made are those of the film's basic framing: Asian American women named "Grace Lee" only. Beyond this essentially un-criticizable premise, the film's web-based "search" is simply a passive container--it makes no judgments. On the hard surface, this philosophy is taken to its logical end--the Grace Lees are allowed to tell their stories without active intervention or (manipulative) selective framing. Stereotypes are deconstructed precisely because the traditionally stereotyped are allowed to speak without a layer of expectations and inferences that stem from anonymous conjecture. The segment in which a son of a Grace Lee presents a filmed re-enactment of a scene from The Empire Strikes Back is particularly apt in that it revolves around the theme of identity--Darth Vader is revealed to be a human being; the "evil" enemy is shown to be the protagonist's father. "Darth Vader" is merely a title for, extending into the Star Wars series, the character of Anakin Skywalker--they are not really two different people simply because of a name change. A human being is not truly altered, is not predestined to be a certain way, because of their name alone. Grace Lee learns that a common name most certainly can signify shared traits, but also that it possesses no limiting binds on personality or self- creation.