''The Claudia Kishi Club'' is a 2020 short documentary film directed by Sue Ding.

Background and synopsis

''The Claudia Kishi Club'' revolves around Claudia Kishi, a character from

Ann M. Martin Ann Matthews Martin (born August 12, 1955) is an American children's fiction writer, known best for ''The Baby-Sitters Club'' series. Early life Ann Matthews Martin grew up in Princeton, NJ. Her mother, Eden Martin, was a preschool teacher and h ...

's novel series ''

The Baby-Sitters Club ''The Baby-Sitters Club'' (also known as BSC) is a series of novels written by Ann M. Martin and published by Scholastic between 1986 and 2000, that sold 176 million copies. Martin wrote the first 35 novels in the series, but the subsequent nove ...

''. A Japanese-American, Claudia was a notable exception to a dearth of Asian-American characters in children's literature, particularly a character that had a large reach as a part of a popular series and often resisted stereotype. Sue Ding told the ''Daily Bruin'' that in 2013, she noticed an outbreak of content from Asian-Americans about Claudia; in 2018, she successfully crowdfunded a documentary project. In ''The Claudia Kishi Club'', director Sue Ding interviews multiple Asian-Americans who grew up with ''The Baby-Sitters Club'', discussing the impact Claudia had on them as a child. The interviewees include Naia Cucukov, producer of a 2020 TV adaptation of ''The Baby-Sitters Club''; Sarah Kuhn, a sci-fi novelist; Gale Galligan, a graphic novelist; C. B. Lee, an author;

Phil Yu Phil Yu (born 1978), also known as Angry Asian Man, is a Korean-American blogger. Early life and education Yu's parents are immigrants from Korea. Yu grew up in the Bay Area in California. Yu graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Radio/TV/Fi ...

, a blogger known as "Angry Asian Man" who circulated memes of reworked covers of ''The Baby-Sitters Club'' such as "Claudia and the Racist Little Shits"; and

Yumi Sakugawa Yumi Sakugawa is a comic artist based in California. Her work has been published online, in feminist magazines and in book form. Sakugawa also edits a blog about wellness. She was nominated for an Ignatz Award in 2014 for her mini comic, ''Never F ...

, an artist who created a 2013

zine A zine ( ; short for '' magazine'' or '' fanzine'') is a small-circulation self-published Self-publishing is the publication of media by its author at their own cost, without the involvement of a publisher. The term usually refers to writ ...

titled "Claudia Kishi: My Asian-American Female Role Model of the 90's", which was noticed by Ding in 2013 and featured in the documentary.

Release and reception

''The Claudia Kishi Club'' premiered July 10, 2020.

References

External links

* * 2020 films Netflix original documentary films American short documentary films The Baby-Sitters Club 2020 short documentary films 2020s English-language films 2020s American films {{US-documentary-film-stub