11th Annual DC APA Film Festival

Macho Like Me

Due to Live Performance by Helie Lee, Special Event Pricing will apply.
Not eligible for Flex Pass or Group/Senior/Student discounts.

Do you ever wonder what it would be like to be the opposite gender? Many of us may imagine how the other half lives, and often the grass seems greener on the other side. How many women, for example, consider the comparatively easy lives of men as they go through their tedious primping routines that either go completely unnoticed or is the only thing that is noticed.

Macho Like Me documents filmmaker Helie Lee’s social experiment as she transforms her outer appearance from an established Korean American woman to the uncharted territory of “Asian American man.” Helie’s film documents the motivating rationale behind her project and proceeds to cover the transformation, her experiences as a “man,” and the surprising conclusions she draws as she returns to her more familiar womanhood. While initially excited by all the things that being male seems to offer, Helie soon encounters unanticipated challenges, emotions, and questions about the true meaning behind “woman,” “man,” and gender in general.

As told to a live audience and interspersed with footage from the experiment, Macho Like Me is a fun yet introspective look at one individual’s brief journey to the other side of gender. This performance will have both women and men nodding their heads in agreement with Helie’s experiences and conclusions, while also sparking discussion about gender roles in Asian America society today.
—Grace Choi

Preceded by:

The future is bright for one little girl who imagines three different grown-up lives for herself based upon three pairs of shoes that catches her attention from underneath the table. Her conclusion? Boys are icky, dinosaurs are cool, and the future is wide open.

An Asian Girls Empowerment through Media (AGEM) Production, I’m Not Even That discusses racial profiling, stereotypes, and media’s affect on Asian American stereotypes from the point of view of the young filmmakers, as expressed through selected interviews that show their perspectives and a Hollywood example that seems to against said stereotypes.

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