Educational Media Reviews Online

Proving that it’s never too late for a sequel, Re:Orientations finds filmmaker Richard Fung returning to his 1984 documentary Orientations: Gay and Lesbian Asians. Seven of the fourteen participants from the original documentary return to reflect on changes in their lives and their conceptualizations of their queerness, and are joined by new, mostly younger participants.

Although the film has little to say on the macro level, it is an exciting opportunity to hear opinions from Fung’s diverse group, which includes everyone from a biracial lesbian politician to a gay man recently retired from the postal service. Their opinions on marriage equality are especially fascinating, as some embrace it while others reject it as an extension of an outdated institution. Seeing the seven core participants react to the original film is also interesting, as most conclude that, in essence, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The new participants – among them two professors, a lawyer, and Fung’s own assistant, a young trans man – add an extra layer of meaning to the film, as they discuss how the themes of the original film fit into their experiences and those of their friends and colleagues. Of course, the intersection of queerness and Asianness sits at the core of the film, and the participants’ variety of experiences of that intersection are a perfect representation of the messiness of privilege and oppression.

Although the film does not provide a great deal of academic fodder, and has an unfortunate tendency to drag slightly, it remains a worthy addition to a public library or any LGBT+ focused collection, or indeed an academic library seeking to serve information needs related to LGBT+ issues or sociology (specifically, privilege and intersectionality).