The final installment of the Yonemotos' Soap Opera Series uses the deadpan syntax of television melodrama to tell the story of Sumie, a young Japanese woman who marries an American surfer/filmmaker for the green card that will allow her to pursue her artistic career. Falling prey to the seductive Hollywood fantasy of romantic love, she loses her "American Dream" of independence. Casting an ironic eye on the Los Angeles lifestyle and art scene of the early 1980s, this stylized narrative asserts that the delirium of Hollywood "reality" — the collective memory of the media — has a manipulative impact on the "truth" of our personal lives. As Sumie says, "The way we see family, friends, relationships — even love — is mass media propaganda."
Videoplay: Bruce and Norman Yonemoto. Producer: Bruce Yonemoto. Director: Norman Yonemoto. Camera: Norman Yonemoto, Nikolai Ursin. Story: Sumie Nobuhara. Performers: Sumie Nobuhara, Jay Struthers, Kyoko Watanabe, Nobi Tanaka, Francis Washington, Wenden Baldwin, Gary Lloyd, Lin Hixson. A KYO-DAI production.
-- EAI
This title is available for exhibitions, screenings, and institutional use through Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), NY. Please visit the EAI Online Catalogue for further information about this artist and work. The EAI site offers extensive resources for curators, students, artists and educators, including: an in-depth guide to exhibiting, collecting, and preserving media art; A Kinetic History: The EAI Archives Online, a collection of essays, primary documents, and media charting EAI's 40-year history and the early years of the emergent video art scene; and expanded contextual and educational materials.