Asian And Latino Women In Mainstream Media Analysis

Imagine a distant post-apocalyptic future in which a group of researchers discovers a stack of DVDs of 20th and 21st century Hollywood movies of Asian American actresses. After watching those movies, what might the researchers conclude about the characteristics of Asian American women in the movies? Certainly, they will view Asian American women as sexual and erotic objects of the society that white men can score with ease. Why do I assume they will think that way? The answer is a simple, yet controversial one: mostly, the media, as the history proves, portrays Asian American women either as erotic sex slaves of white men or as insidious personalities who lure their prey into a trap with their sex appeal. If we look into the history,

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.

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

Reports show that Latinos are the most underrepresented ethnic group in film affected by stereotypical issues shown via pictures in our heads and through watching. I concur with this information as stereotype starts from a personal level, which is definite through meditation, this does not include all the negative traits portrayed by the out-group. Although we have some general stereotypical agreements within in-groups that cannot change. This stereotyping is evident in a case where a foreigner defines Bandido accurately while a (North) American will involve them with laziness, being dirty and all sorts of negativity on them. These findings make me feel that Latinos and Americans will always be contrary to their film industry.

What is the image of the male Latino American in the media today in television, in the movies, and in other media? Is the male Latino represented fairly in American media? And if he is often presented as a stereotype, why is he portrayed in stereotypical situations? The answers to those questions come from a number of sources that will be presented in this paper.

The physical portrayal of Hispanic women in the media has a large influence on the Hispanic women and girls that view these portrayals. The media’s physical portrayal of Hispanic women is that they are voluptuous, dark-haired, tanned skin, and petite. There are many films, TV shows, and any other media outlets that portray Hispanic women as such. Examples of these portrayals are “Modern Family,” “Maid in Manhattan,” and “Girl in Progress.” In each of these movies or shows, the main character appears as the stereotypical Hispanic woman. This is what many Hispanic women and girls believe that the world sees them as. They also believe that this is how they should look. This especially affects adolescent girls that identify as Hispanic. “media use may play a role in the body image development of Latina adolescents” (Schooler, 2008, p. 134). Most of the time when watching television, Latinas see a white woman and their beauty standards. The difference between white women in the media as opposed to Latin women is that there is a greater variety of how white women in the U.S. look. When a Latina finally sees someone who is Latina, they expect to see themselves, instead, they see Eva Mendes, long wavy hair, curvy, and petite. When young Latin women see this, they expect themselves to be the same way. If they don’t look like that, it can result in a spoiled body image of themselves. “Latina women in this sample tended to hold the lowest perceptions of their bodies, the highest awareness of Consumerism as a factor in the body/beauty standard, and scored high in racial identification” (Poran, 2002, p. 79) Latin women understand who they are and when someone is of the same background. Many are also self-conscious about their bodies, and that is likely due to the fact that not only are actresses on TV shows thin and curvy, but many commercials are about the newest way to lose weight rapidly, or what to buy to get curves. All women of any race have issues with body Image, but as a Latina, the media plays a big role in how Latinas form their body image.

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”.

For 20 years, Asian Americans have been portrayed by the press and the media as a successful minority. Asian Americans are believed to benefit from astounding achievements in education, rising occupational statuses, increasing income, and are problem-fee in mental health and crime. The idea of Asian Americans as a model minority has become the central theme in media portrayal of Asian Americans since the middle 1960s. The term model minority is given to a minority group that exhibits middle class characteristics, and attains some measure of success on its own without special programs or welfare. Asian Americans are seen as a model minority because even though they have faced prejudice and

In 2013, Latinos accounted for only 4.9% of the roles in the top 100 films of the year. From the beginning, Hollywood had always been dominated by white men and women. However, as time progressed there was a very slight change in cultural and ethnic diversity. Though it is more likely now than ever to find a Latino or Latina in a Hollywood film, their roles are often small, stereotypical, and almost entirely unimportant. As if it wasn’t hard enough to get any role in any Hollywood film regardless of ethnicity, Latinos have to endure playing a harshly demeaning role. Latino men are often cast as comedic relief and play gardeners, janitors, or thugs. Latino women are often cast as maids or mistresses. Aside from this, when women are cast as mistresses they are often submissive to their white male partners, meaning that not only are these roles ethnically demeaning, but also sexist. Along with Latino female sexualisation, though, Latino men are also heavily sexualized. Both Latino women and men have to deal with the exploitation of their culture for stereotypical roles in a movie. However, these are only some of the vicious patterns that attribute to the everlasting ethnic misrepresentation in the biggest part of mass media, Hollywood.

Asian stereotypes are a product of prevailing myths propagated by various media, from books, plays, movies, television, to even historical propaganda. Generally speaking, the stereotyping of Asian women often swing to extreme types: the docile, subservient sexual object, or the dragon lady. Asian Americans only make up a small percentage of the United States population and live mostly on the west and east coasts of mainland United States and Hawaii. Consequently, the rest of the American population will most likely get their exposures to Asian Americans through television and movies. Popular media exposure to Asian Americans lacks one-on-one acquaintance with Asian Americans. It hinders the process

In the early turn of the 21st century, infant stages of media were brought to audiences all over. Small motion pictures were a new invention, enticing its viewers and creating a medium open to innovation. Since the development of silent films, stereotypes and racial discrimination have been the central overtones of cinema. The midst of the century entailed a dominant white society, with racial tensions at the forefront. Post-slavery morale and ideologies still existed in the states, recognizing the African American populations as blatant minorities. These attitudes on race were distinctively acknowledged on the big screen,

Another reason in which how Model Minority negatively affects Asian Americans is the expectation of many Asians in modern media. In a recent report by the University of Southern California Annenberg’s Media, Diversity, & Social Change Initiative, researchers have found that out of the top films, only about 5.3% of the actors and actresses are asian. On top of that, many of the actors and actresses in these films only have minor roles.

Asian American Women Stereotypes in the Mainstream Stereotyping of the Asian American women in the mainstream, also known as the Hollywood, has been a major challenge for many years. The Asian American women have been stereotyped as backward and submissive. In the Hollywood films, the Asian American women have been assigned to play controversial roles, with their American counterparts being assigned the dominant and good roles. Anna May Wong, who was sensational Chinese actress, was appointed to play roles such as a temptress, prostitute, doomed lover, and even a slave girl (Wang, 2012, 85). Anna May Wong once complained to the Hollywood producers, questioning why they had to assign the Asian Americans, especially the Chinese female actors,

action heroines is to be considered a celebration of the deconstruction of and liberation from the gender binary of masculinity and femininity (e.g., Edward, 2004; Hills, 1999) and other cultural scholars claim that the increasing depictions of Asians and other racial minorities are the manifestation of multiculturalism (e.g., Jiwani, 2005). However, I argue that such depiction of Asian women as female warrior signifies neither the fulfillment of feminism nor the realization of racial equity, for it must go through several stages of gender and race policing.