Rush Hour 2 is your typical action comedy. Chris Tucker plays the roll of LAPD Officer Carter and Jackie Chan plays the roll of Detective Lee. Together, this unlikely couple battles against the most dangerous gang in China; the Triads. With a lot of action and alot of laughs, nothing would seem more appropriate than emphasizing stereotypes against roles of a typical black, chinese, or white man.
Chris Tucker, as Carter, is your loud, boisterous black man. He is overly sexual and is always distracted when a beautiful lady comes into the picture. We see him fawn over a "buffet line" of women during the spa scene which later developed into a mass fight scene. We see him fawn over Agent Isabella Molina, as he asked her to show him her badge again during the rooftop scene so that he could take another peek at her bosom. We see him fawn over the sexy Chinese bad girl, Hu Li, even after she almost blew Jackie Chan's face off with a bomb. Besides him being loud and horny, he is also portrayed as having no real fighting experience or training, but rather is seen as a street brawler. He uses a lot of slang words and bad grammar when he communicates, is sometimes vulgar, and uses alot of racial terms. Carter's racial ignorance comes out when he accidentally punches Lee in the face and says, "all ya'll look alike."
Jackie Chan is portrayed as your work-a-holic asian. Not only that, but fits the stereotype that every asian is a great fighter and is very acrobatic. He is very respectful toward everyone and is hard pressed to disagree or argue with authority, as he is often told by authorities to leave the case and go home; he complies. Asian's sexuality is also often touched on during this movie. During the spa scene, Carter gets a glimpse of the one of the Triad's penises and says, "no wonder you're mad." This implies that all asians have a small package and are therefore de-masculinzed because of it. This also emphasizes the stereotype that all black men have large packages and are more masculine because of it. Also, detective Lee gets the opportunity to spy on Isabella while she is changing, and once knocked out of his trance by Carter, says that it is disrespectful and wrong to keep watching. Later, Isabella undoes her robe and shows the men her goodies. Carter stares while Lee looks away. Race stereotypes are expressed even with this simple look at a half-naked lady. The femal side to being an asian was also stereotyped in this movie. Hu Li, one of the Triad Leaders, has her name translate into Fox. Fox meaning hottie, babe, etc. To us, this touches on the fact that asian women are often idealized as sexual objects. However, toward the end, the crazy asian female comes out, as she is an agressive fighter and was willing to kill herself in order to kill Carter and Lee.
Whites are not really touched on too much during this movie. Carter does say, "every crime has a rich white man behind it," while he and Lee were on the plane back to LA. This gives us the impression that White men have a large amount of authority and power. At the end of the movie, the white gang leader was about to steal all of the plates and get the hell out of the casino...leaving a big mess for everyone else to handle. We saw this as a way for the director to express that whites run away from problems and always look for the easy way out. Also, there was a gay white man in the film (presumably). He was shown when Lee and Carter were shopping for outfits. He was very feminized and hit on Carter and Lee.
Rush Hour 2 was a great film, nevertheless. It had action, comedy, and sparse moments of romance. Looking closer into the film, racial stereotypes definately were used as a means to make the movie funnier, and we feel that these stereotypes have no intention to upset or offend anyone who watches this movie. It's just for simple pleasure.
