Carl Douglas -- Kung Fu Fighting and Other Great Love Songs
One of the difficult things about collections of things from earlier times is acknowledging sometimes the art is problematic, if not just downright racist, reductive, or stereotypical. Let's go ahead and call this 'the Carl Douglas Problem'.
First off, we wouldn't even be having this conversation if 'Kung Fu Fighting' wasn't a banger. His opening 'ooo ooo ooooo ooos' are amazing, the beat is incredible, and you can tell it was made with such joy. I read it was recorded in less than an hour as a B-side to another single. Let's also remember this was 1974, and martial arts movies were huge. Bruce Lee's 'Enter the Dragon' came out the year before. People were into it.
There's nothing wrong with the general idea of the song, but it's hard not to cringe when he says 'funky Chinaman' (strike 1). As a term, it apparently moved from being descriptive (like 'Englishman') to offensive sometime around the beginning of the 20th century. I don't like it, either.
What makes the song most uncomfortable to me, though, is the use of of the 'Oriental riff'. It's right up there with the gong in terms of 'hey, we're going to let you know we're making fun of Asian people'. I can imagine it's really demoralizing.
'The Carl Douglas Problem' basically encapsulates recognizing you may have grown up with some uncomfortable stereotypes, and you may have enjoyed some questionable shit when you were younger. I certainly don't think Douglas was being intentionally terrible when he wrote the song. It probably was a product of it's time. It also doesn't help that Douglas continued to write more Kung Fu themed songs, including side two's 'Dance the Kung Fu.'
And, to be honest, I can't even tell if we've moved on from this. I mean, it was featured in 'Kung Fu Panda,' an Olympic ice skater did an amazing exhibition program as the Kung Fu Panda recently.
It's too deep a subject for me to get into without hours of research, so sorry about that.
The rest of the the album is okay, but it really does all pale in comparison to 'Kung Fu Fighting.' The last song on the album 'Blue Eyed Soul' is an instrumental disco gem written by Douglas's producer Biddu, and it makes me think of the 'Love Boat' theme in all the best ways.
