Episode 2: Overcome Stereotypes and Recover True Identities

To be able to break the bamboo ceiling so that Asian and Pacific Islander Americans can unlock their potential to be in higher ranks in both careers and societies, Asian and Pacific Islander Americans need to know and understand what stereotypes they have to fight back. The mass media portrays Asian in Americans as "wimpy businessmen or bad guys" as Cary Tagawa said in The Slanted Screen and "nerdy or kung fu" (Lori, The Slanted Screen). 

Generally, Asian Pacific Americans have been stereotyped as:

1. Martial art experts or kung fu fighters: 

Although Bruce Lee is a legend of APAs in Hollywood, he unintentionally creates a stereotype that APAs are martial art experts. As a result, most of the APAs Hollywood stars like Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Donnie Yen, Lucy Liu, or Magie Q famous for their martial related roles.

Stars War

2. Geeks

APAs are often distinguished as boring, socially awkward like Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany. APAs often play roles of doctors, nurses, or tech nerd in motion pictures as well as commercial ads. 

3.Yellow Peril 

Yellow Peril is a stereotype that creates a racist fear of APAs. In mass media, APAs men often portray characters who dangerous to white women.

4. Dragon Ladies

East and South and Southeast Asian American women in mass media are portrayed as sexy, beautiful, but strong, deceitful, and domineering. 

Kill Bill

5. Sexy Women

As mentioned in Slaying the Dragon Reloaded, even Jackie Chan, an Asian actor, introduce Asian American women as sexy women in Rush Hour 2. Impacted by history, when U.S. Force was in Asia countries, Asian women's image were military brides or prostitutes. This image leads to the incorrect representation that APAs women are sexy. This stereotype has continuously appeared in mass media.  

Rush Hours 2 

Besides these stereotypes, in the 1800s and early 1900s, Asian Pacific Islander American males were often distinguished as lascivious or dangerous to white women. In the late 1900s and 2000s, they are portrayed as less attractive, clumsy, or nerdy characters. In The Slanted Screen, interviewees mentioned that history also affected the representation of Asian Pacific Islanders in America. I totally agree that when there were tensions with Chinese or Japanese or Korea, or other Asian countries, the mass media tends to perform the images of Asian American as evils and dangerous. 

The Asian Pacific Islander American females stereotypical representation as powerful, sexy, and submissive. As I see the analyzing from several researchers in the Slaying The Dragon Reloaded, I think the mass media has been affected by what actually happened during the time the US forces were in Asian. Many local Asian women became military brides or prostitutes and the mass media used their images to represent Asian women in America. 

Professor Darrell Hamamoto stated in The Slanted Screen that Asian Pacific Islander Americans need to steep into the ranks of writers, producers, executives instead of not only performing roles. Indeed, Asian Pacific Islander Americans have been finding ways to recover their true image. Flower Drum Song is one of the examples. The film shows that Asian American can dance, act, and sing at the same time. In addition, the film recorrected all the stereotypical representations about females and males Asian in American who are not kung fu fighters nor evils nor less attractive. Instead, the film shows how Asian integrate into the life of American. Together with their culture and traditional songs, dances, and activities in the Chinese community, Chinese Americans perform European ball dances in their party. In the Chinese style garden, Chinese Americans wear American gowns and suites celebrates their achievements in American life. Flower Drum Song distinguished to the mass media that Asian Pacific Americans integrate into the American culture and lifestyles while and still keep their original culture and lifestyles.

In the early stage of the history of motion pictures, there is a racist to Asian American by the "yellowface logic" which is defined as in the lecture slides that Asian cannot perform their own roles, but non-Asian performers take roles of Asian by wearing make-up. Yellowface is actually a bias and lead to the difficulty for Asian American in casting the decision in the later time. 

References: 

       Adachi, Jeff. The Slanted Screen. Asian American Media Mafia: 2006

       Koster, Henry. Flower Drum Song. Universal Picture. 1961

       Kim, Elaine. Slaying The Dragon Reloaded, Asian Union United: 2011