SHORTCOMINGS in Nichi Bei Times
Updated October 5, 2007
Tomine's ‘Shortcomings' Is Anything But
From the Nichi Bei Times Weekly October 4, 2007
By BEN HAMAMOTO
Nichi Bei Times
"Why does everything have to be some big statement about race?" Ben Tanaka, the main character in Adrian Tomine's new book, "Shortcomings," proclaims. For the entirety of his career, Tomine has told human stories in which race and politics, if present at all, are relegated to the background or subtext. "Shortcomings" is probably the closest he will come to making "a big statement about race." For the first time in his comic book career, Tomine puts both racial and political issues front and center, however, much like his other work he explores the issues from all sides, rather than pass judgment. The surface confrontation of racial themes is one of many firsts that "Shortcomings" represents for the author. While Tomine has gained international recognition for his short stories that usually run up to about 30 pages, "Shortcomings" is his first graphic novel, a sustained narrative weighing in at over 100 pages.
It tells the story of Ben Tanaka, a Japanese American slacker who manages an art house theater near UC Berkeley. His girlfriend, Miho, programs a local Asian American film festival. Their relationship, which seems to have been on the decline for some time, starts to reach its breaking point after a screening of a cheesy film one of Miho's friends directed. Ben, who is relentlessly, aggressively negative, is especially critical of the film, going as far as saying "everyone knows it's garbage, but they clap for it anyway because it was made by some Chinese girl from Oakland."
The argument escalates and Miho accuses Ben of "being ashamed of being Asian." Her suspicions are not eased when she later finds a set of porn DVDs in his desk starring only white women.
Ben discusses his failing relationship over lunch in a Rockridge Crepery with his best, and only, friend, Alice, a Korean American grad student doing her best to hook up with as many girls at Mills College as she can manage.
Alice is, though flawed, by far the most likable character in the book. Despite having a stereotypical "Korean temper" and being given to impulsive actions, she is practical enough to make these things work for her.
Alice knows how to handle Ben and keep him from stepping over boundaries. She acts as a patient voice of reason and tells him that he is the opposite of one of their old dorm mates who used to blame all his problems on anti-Asian discrimination. Ben, she says, refuses to acknowledge the way race impacts his life. He brushes off her analysis as his eye wanders to a white woman at the restaurant counter.
Making Ben such a disagreeable character is a bold decision on Tomine's part. In his first long form comic, in which the reader's interest needs to be sustained over many more pages than his previous work, he sets up a protagonist who is more irritating than ingratiating. Making a reader care enough to want to continue reading about a character like Ben is a tough job, but Tomine does it admirably. He manages to make the reader care about Ben. Each decision he makes, each cruel or stupid word that comes out of his mouth, doesn't make the reader hate him. Instead it makes the reader feel embarrassed on his behalf.
And while it is obvious that Ben is overdue for some comeuppance, and obvious that it will be good for him in the long run, the reader is afraid to see what he'll be left with if his defensive negativity is taken away. So when Miho decides to take a summer job in New York, the reader can only dread what will happen next.
The two relationships with white women that Ben pursues begin to expose the source of his bitterness and he is suddenly faced with his own hypocricy and limitations. His troubles only worsen when Alice moves to New York as well. She makes a surprising find in the big apple however, and is thus able to lure Ben out to see it with his own eyes. When he arrives a series of events unfold that forces him to accept some uncomfortable truths.
Ben's realizations in the last stretch of the book are indicated subtly, with a facial expression here, or a few words there. And though he has learned things, we are given no indication of how he will apply the new-found self knowledge.
In "Shortcomings," Tomine takes on race in much the way he takes on all aspects of humanity; he treats it as something convoluted, contradictory, and ultimately unsolvable. As mentioned earlier, the book opens with a scene from a sentimental, obvious Asian American film, complete with a voice over about identity and intergenerational conflict. Tomine is poking fun, but he is also signaling self-awareness about what he is doing. The same can be said of what he is doing by opening the second chapter with a pretensious piece of deliberately disagreeable underground "alternative' art. He is dismantling the alternative with these pages and again signaling something about what his own art strives to avoid being.
For the last chapter, he shows an American apparel style set of fashion model photos, a mix of the populist, obvious sensibility from the first chapter and the pretensions edginess of the second. Needless to say, it manages to be more despicable than the sum of its parts.
In the book, Tomine dismantles self-righteous views on race in a similar fashion. He lampoons Asian fetishes, but also self-righteous, hypocritical critiques of it.
As Alice points out early on, but Ben and his dorm mate are wrong. Her girlfriend Meredith later makes what is perhaps the most rational argument by telling Ben not to make "moralistic generalizations" about Asian white couples and then tells him "if you dig deep enough into anyone's sexuality, you're bound to find something you'd rather not examine too closely."
She then, however, uses that as grounds to ignore the issues.
By taking this approach however, Tomine might not be leading anyone to a direct conclusion, but will hopeful give anyone who has considered these issues something to think about.
And for all the seriousness, Tomine doesn't forget to keep the reader entertained and occasionally go for a laugh. There are three panels in the scene where Ben meets Miho's lover which are comedic gold.
With "Shortcomings" Tomine proves that he is capable of doing graphic novels and taking on Asian American issues with the nuance and subtlety that has made him famous.
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