"Japanese culture is hip in American mainstream, so the door has been opened for these Japanese-Americans to embrace the culture more," said Mr. Asakawa, who said he was jolted into consciousness about his heritage by the death of his father in the early 1990's.
Now that a film starring deaf actors, fully made in sign language has blazed a trail through festivals and has gone on mainstream release, a door has hopefully opened for other deaf film-makers to tell their stories on a bigger platform.
Now, by speaking out on a broader range of themes, Mr Bauer is shoving at the door of mainstream politics.This is forcing an intriguing change.
In the days after the election, his party has been rife with second-guessing and fraternal finger-pointing - most particularly about whether Mr Miliband's brand of full-throated liberalism pushed his party too far outside the political mainstream and opened the door for his political demise.
While the company has had a longstanding relationship with professional athletes (with Olympics connections since its very early days), when the door to mainstream fitness tracking swung open a decade back, the company quickly found itself crowded by competitors ranging from Fitbit and Jawbone to Apple and Samsung.
Mr. Leslie's success in pornographic films started in the early 1970s, an era when plot-driven, feature-length movies like "Deep Throat" and "Behind the Green Door" achieved mainstream success.
Nirvana's success opened the door to mainstream popularity for a wide range of other "left-of-the-dial" acts, such as Pearl Jam and Red Hot Chili Peppers, and fueled the alternative rock boom of the early and mid-1990s.
Her state, Tamil Nadu, had been the first in India to recognise transgender people, granting them ID papers and so opening the doors to mainstream life.
This phenomenon is putting people with disabilities in the mainstream spotlight and opening doors to hidden visions.
Drag may well be kicking down the doors to mainstream cultural acceptance, but it's not just the popularity of the art that has changed starkly in the time Magnus has been capturing his queens; it's the motivation.
