Asian-American Stereotypes

Today, when society talks about diversity, often times, Asian-Americans are brought into the conversation and are talked about as highly looked up to individuals, but they haven’t always been this way. On television, many times, Asian-Americans are represented as “nerdy” and “socially incapable/awkward”, Asian-American males are mostly shown as being weak and stereotypically awkward, while Asian-American females are either shown as “exotic” or also stereotypically awkward and nerdy, as stated by Takaki in his book Strangers from a Different Shore on page 479,

Asian American have been depicted as malicious, sneaky and evil minded others that always threaten to rape innocent white maidens. They are thought of as not being able to speak proper English and in the American cinema there are three formulaic traditions regarding the way Asians are depicted in movies, according to Jun Xing: the yellow peril, the Madame Butterfly and the Charlie Chan stories (Jun, Xing. Asian America Through the Lens. Alta Misa Press. 1998.

Asians have been invisible in Hollywood lead roles. There have been many situations where another race has played an Asian role. When Asians do land a lead role it is very common to see pay difference between other ethnicity lead roles. Asian’s are very fimilar with service roles and not lead roles in films. Asian actors are still only a one percent of Hollywood’s leading roles. “According to a study that University of California, Los Angeles did out of the top 100 films in 2015, 49 of those films did not consist an Asian character and zero leading roles went to Asians (Levin 2017).” Asians seem be invisible when auditioning for lead roles.

Asian American actors and actresses are portrayed in Hollywood movies as always being the silent and yielding foreign victims to social injustice and prejudice. Whether or not these depictions are true, they are nonetheless stereotypes that Hollywood producers have come up with. According to the US Census in the year 2000, Asian Americans make up 4.2% of the entire American population, and knowing that most Asian Americans live on the west and east coast of the United States, many Americans living in central parts of this country have not really been exposed to any Asian Americans. Because of this fact, it is highly probable that most Americans get their exposure to the Asian American lifestyle only through television and movies. Even if

Whether it is on TV or movie screens, the faces of white actors and actresses have always been prevalent in the media. For generations, many teenagers have been exposed to countless movies with white people in major roles. Moreover, the few roles that are cast to minorities feature the characters in their stereotypical personas (Bonilla-Silva 179). Even in advertising, Asians are placed in business settings, upholding the hard-working Asian stereotype (Taylor and Stern 50). As Taylor and Stern mention in their paper, the “model minority” has made the issue of stereotyping seem less important for Asians. The majority of these actors that are examined, regardless of race, are typically middle-age and well established in their acting careers. However, there is a lack of research behind Asian youth acting and their perceived roles. To account for this knowledge deficit, I examine how whiteness influences the media to portray youth actors as individuals that stray from their stereotypes in an attempt to achieve whiteness. My research site centres around Fresh Off the Boat (FOB), a comedic television series featuring a Taiwanese family. The title of the show Fresh Off the Boat or “FOB” is also a term used to describe a person that is considered too ethnic and as a term of denigration. I utilize Pyke and Dang’s categorization of “FOB” and “whitewashed” to analyze the narrator, Eddie Huang. I chose to limit my research primarily to the first “pilot” episode where the audience is

Despite the fact that Asian Americans have been in Hollywood for decades, there are very few positive representations of them in film. More often than not, they’ve been depicted as stereotypical caricatures, and more specifically, as foreigners who can’t speak grammatically correct English. Moreover, the negative representations of Asian Americans in film has perpetuated certain misconceptions about their culture. Chan is Missing (1982) calls for more genuine representations of Asian American identities through its cast of complex characters and defiance of Asian stereotypes. The film also urges its viewers to critically think about their own notions of identity through the use of several recurring themes and filmmaking techniques.

directors have stated that they cannot well-finance their film if the name of their leading actor is not mainstream name (Kim). White Americans during this time too, probably believed that if Asians were casted in the film, it would not be as good as they did view Asians as inferior in every way including in the performing arts. Even when Asians actors were casted to play Asian roles, Asian Americans would go out of their way not to watch. David Henry Hwang, who would later go on to write his own version of Flower Drum Song, said as a young man growing up in the sixties, watching how Asian characters were featured made him feel “icky”. All the Asian characters that he saw were either portrayed in an unrealistic or comical way or as a character that was dependent on the leading white character (Hwang). It made it hard for Asian Americans to look to media for role models when they were hardly ever represented and represented in inhumane ways.

Although Asian Americans comprise only about 5% of the U.S. population, this group is the fastest growing segment of American society. Despite such rapid expansion, Asian Americans are widely underrepresented throughout media, whether in television, cinema, or literature. Moreover, there are different stereotypes associated with Asian Americans. One of the most pervasive stereotypes details how Asian Americans are a “model minority”. In essence, this myth describes how anyone who is Asian American will become a successful individual able to achieve the “American dream”.

Casting Asian actors as both a romantic lead and action hero challenge representation of Asian American masculinity, a figure incapable of love and unequipped for sexuality

Since the first half of the 19th century, Asian Americans have been involved in the media industry when the original “Siamese Twins” Chang and Eng Bunker became naturalized citizens of America. Roles in television and other media were scarce for Asian Americans, only available roles were very stereotypical. Early Asian American actors such as Bruce Lee and Sessue Hayakawa could only land stereotypical supporting roles in prime time television. While minority actors have progress through the years, Asian Americans in the media remains an issue. The misrepresentation of Asians Americans that continues the tendency of stereotypes and type casting. To this day, Asians Americans take on roles that tends to portray the stereotypical roles. Asian Americans becomes easily targeted and exploited from such representation. “Model Minority” Stereotype is consistently express through advertising and primetime television; Asians being nerdy: having type casted into professional roles ignoring real values and cultures, Asian women: seen as hypersexual, erotic, cunning and dangerous, Asian men: dangerous, unfriendly, master of martial arts, undesirable male partners and weak. Media representation of Asian Americans in America’s media history, continue to influence and reproduce dominant Americentric impressions, rather than the true authentic depiction of Asian American culture and behavior. Americentric stereotypes of Asian American women and men has led to limited roles of Asian Americans

When Americans think of famous movie stars, many think of Tom Cruise, Daniel Craig, and Brad Pitt, but Asian Americans usually take the smaller, sidekick roles. This misrepresentation makes Asian Americans feel subordinate to white people. Asian actors in Hollywood movies mostly play the roles of Dragon ladies, Kung Fu fighters, geeks, and foreigners. The rapper, Jonathan Park, featured in Dumbfoundead’s hit music video “Safe,” has his face photoshopped onto famous male leads in traditional American movies such as Johnny Depp, Leonardo DiCaprio and Toby Maguire. This illustrates how he succumbs to whitewashing in America, and how Asian actors don’t get lead roles.

The population of the United States has become increasingly diverse, while the famous actors is still showing mostly white people. Therefore, the purpose must be that the diversity of actors in film industry should represent the diversity in the population as a whole. The more that non-white people can see reflections of themselves on screen, and the more that white people can learn to empathize with people of color, the greater our society will be as a whole. All in all, casting directors need to diversify their thinking because Asian actors deserve to have equal opportunities in certain roles or other fields that they want to

“Minority actors claimed 6.5 percent of the lead roles in broadcast scripted programming during the 2012-13 season, up slightly from the 5.1 percent figure posted for the 2011-12 season”(Hunt, pg.13). There is a disadvantage to minority actors that are trying to compete with Caucasian actors just for a lead role. Because even with the increase of lead roles being played by minorities more lead roles in the past have been given to Caucasian

     Asian Americans only make up a small percent of the American population. Even more significant is that this percentage live mostly on the west and east coasts of mainland United States and Hawaii; leaving the rest of the American population to most likely get their exposures to Asians through television and movies. However the exposure they have receive throughout the history of cinematography has been hardly flattering. Throughout the course of history Asians in film have been portrayed as evil or the "yellow peril" as described by others. If Asians are not being classified as evil in this picture then they are most likely the comic relief, with their lack of coordination or grasp of the English

Secondly, there is not enough main roles for different races in Hollywood and TV shows as they are usually portrayed as supporting or minor characters. Every lead role in films usually go to the straight white male instead of a person of colour. This can be seen in The Martian where the lead role goes to Matt Damon. The Martian is about an astronaut that is stranded on Mars after a dust storm hits. Astronauts are not restricted by colour, as anyone can become one. Furthermore, the production team did not want to audition Asian-Americans for the role because they thought they would not fit the role just because of their race. All the people of colour that contributed to the film were reduced to small roles and had the races of the characters