Skip to main content

Misrepresentations of Asians

By Yongjie Li
When I firstly asked Americans about the impressions of Asians, Kung Fu and Jackie Chen are the things that they came to their minds. In fact, it cannot fully represent Asians, especially in recent developing years. According to government datas, the number of Asian Americans in USA is 21.4 million in 2016 and 6.4% of total populations (Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, 2018), however, they are invisible in media. In order to better analysis of this situation, the impacts and stereotypes of Asians are the focuses especially in the movie Crazy Rich Asians.

Both of typical Asians and the tag of them is unchangeable during centuries. During 1840s, Fu Manchu and Charlie Chan were famous persons for Americans and represented the feminization of Asian American men, while Asian females were depicted as hypersexuality (Chyng, 2015). During 1970s, due to influences of Bruce Lee, Kung Fu became another tag on them (Chyng, 2015). Unfortunately, based on the approach to examine other racial people opinions of Asians images in media, they are still invisible, even after mass media production, and Lucy Liu, Jackie Chen and Jet Lee are typical Asians in American perspectives for continuing ten years (Chyng, 2015).

The movie Crazy Rich Asians brings new images for the public. In Tomatometer, 93% reviewers think it as fresh. It is the movie with the majority of Asians. Moreover, the previous movie The Joy Luck Club was in 1993 (Da, 2018). As a result, this movie gains a lot of public attentions which breaks the images of rigid Asians and submissive females. Furthermore, it fully depicts cultural conflicts between Asians and Americans that confuses this immigration and daily life of them in this movie. Chinese newspaper comments it as “ a great moment insteads of a movie” which means the movie brings the real cultures to the American society.

This movie indeed brings new image, however, it is not as real as whole Asians. It is because most of characters display as super-wealthy and higher-classes. Thus, materialism will be prominent and new tags for Asian Americans. On the one hand, materialism might be the problem of today higher-classes Asians, but the truth of middle-class and lower classes needs to be explored. Although the author is willing to convey that love exceeds everything, all of designers clothes, shopping and homes is 1.2 millions dollars (Ishisaka, 2018). Therefore, the focus on loves shifts to money and it cannot be a real and holonomic image. On the other hand, because of well-known movies, what might be results of this portray promotes the discrimination in mixed races society.

Even in nowadays, the misrepresentations still are prevalent in media production. I agree that “conceptual limitation” which it is about a lack of education instead of imagination (Chyng, 2015). Media becomes the one of important education in today, thus, how the producers convey ideas influences children perspectives of viewing Asians. Even though in Crazy Rich Asians provides new perspectives of Asians higher-classes images, it still brings negative point “materialism” to people who are not familiar with Asians and cannot offer sense of belongings to immigrants, thus it fully misrepresents Asians.

References
Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month: May 2018. (2018). United States Census
Bureau. Retrieved From
Chyng, S., Rachael, L., Allison, B., Sun, Y., & Rachel, W. (2015). Shifting receptions: Asian
american stereotypes and the exploration of comprehensive media literacy. The
Communication Review, 18(4), 294-314. doi:10.1080/10714421.2015.1085778
Da, X. (2018). Crazy Rich Asians. Retrieved From
Ishisaka, N. (August 10, 2018). ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ is a parallel Asian world of values I don’t
recognize, but I hope it’s a hit. Retrieved From:

Word Count: 524

Labels:

Comments

  1. KHDecember 5, 2018 at 7:50 AM

    Good work, Yongjie. You are a budding media sociologist!

    I was especially impressed that you brought in contemporary census data on Chinese people living here in the US. The lack, or invisibility as you say, of Chinese and Asians in American media is striking in light of the statistics you cite.

    Equally important, you've located, discussed and made effective use of an academic study that examines the limited but frequently stereotypical representations of Asian-American in US popular culture. Your opening paragraph featuring anecdotal evidence of Americans' limited understanding of Asian (and Asian-American) culture reinforces this study's findings.

    Finally, you offer a relatively new cultural object, Crazy Rich Asians, to consider in light of this material. The film seems to be a welcome break from routine stereotypes. But your fears that the film may inscribe yet another troubling stereotype is well taken.

    I'd like to learn more about your thinking on this. And I'm certain your classmates would benefit from a more elaborate discussion as well. Likewise, you cut short your discussion of the "conceptual limitations" afforded by US media representation of Asian-American lives and experience.

    Nevertheless, apart from some nagging issues with formatting and word choice (i.e., holonomic) this is a fine contribution to our semester-long inquiry into the relationship between popular culture and identity.

    27 pts.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Disney Princesses: A system of commodities?

Disney Princesses: A System of Commodities?  By Katharine McLean Growing up I loved all Disney Princesses, but Cinderella was my favorite by far. I envied her long blonde hair, admired her gorgeous gown, and wished for the day that my Prince Charming would show up on my doorstep with the glass slipper that would turn me into a princess. Now, at the age of nineteen, I cannot help but look back and wonder. . . have the Disney Princesses I’ve grown up with caused me harm? I argue that the stereotypical gender norms found in Disney Princess media and the capitalist nature of popular culture leads to a narrow-minded view of femininity. In Dustin Kidd’s book, Pop Culture Freaks: Identity, Mass Media and Society , he defines popular culture in a myriad of ways, but one that stuck out to me was the idea of popular culture as a system of commodities. Kidd (2014) states, “popular culture is art, transformed into commodity, working double time as advertisement” (p. 69). This d...
6 comments
Read more

NO MORE DAISY DUKES

By Colleen Kelly This thematic series has begun to establish that female sexuality is an aspect of the music industry capable of crossing genre barriers. Country music has traditionally been labeled the genre with the least emphasis on female sexuality because of its socially conservative themes (Aubrey & Frisby, 2011, p. 477). I challenge this notion with my assertion that sexuality has always been present in country music but has undergone a change from a form of feminist liberation to a tool to objectify women. In the history of country music, particularly visible in the 1990s, there is a long-standing tradition of female artists using their music to advance feminist ideals and reclaim their sexuality (Berlatsky, 2014). Let me be clear that I am not asserting that these musicians are the long-awaited saviors of women. Rather, these female artists utilized the media to challenge societal norms surrounding gender and sexuality. Shania Twain was not only one of the biggest ...
6 comments
Read more

NOBODY CAN HIDE FROM MENTAL HEALTH

By Graham Jaeger Mental Health has played a major role in schools across the country for over the past decade. Each and every year, students feel more and more pressure as they have to adapt from their summer into new school routines (Suldo, Shaunessy, Hardesty, 2008). Students suffer from mental health largely because of stress, but other factors such as addiction, rape, and even school violence are heavy contributors as well. A perfect example of mental health issues within high school students is displayed in the Netflix television series titled 13 Reasons Why . Throughout this show, you see depression take over kids lives which ultimately has a huge impact on the rest of the students in the show. 13 Reasons Why received a lot of criticism because suicide rates in teens rapidly increased after the show was released. Many say it was due to the connection they could feel with Hannah throughout the show, and others felt like they were in her position where they felt it was the only...
5 comments
Read more