Doctor Strange Whitewashing

This trend is Liu’s opportunity to get rid of either sexploitation or a dragon lady. Elementary is for her transformation of media. She chose to play Joan Watson who is more than a sexploitation or action, but a classic adapted character. As Richard Dyer suggests, ‘that stars are representations of persons which reinforce, legitimate or occasionally alter the prevalent conceptions of what it is to be a human being in this society’ (1979b: 31). Thus far I have discussed the role of such personae in films. However, major sites for elaborating star personae exist outside films in studio promotion departments, publicity agencies, newspaper and broadcast journalism, TV chat shows, film criticism, fan magazines and so on. The circulation of subsidiary star texts provides opportunity for gossip and speculation, serving, in John Ellis’ words, as a kind of ‘moral barometer’. Generally, ‘the way you progress in your life is how you progress artistically – especially as an actor, where you bring such complicated and personal experiences into what you do everyday’ (Tseng

“Slaying the Dragon” by Deborah Gee is a comprehensive look at media stereotypes of Asian and Asian American women since the silent era. From the racist use of white actors to portray Asians in early Hollywood films, through the success of Anna May Wong’s sinister dragon lady, to Suzie Wong and the ‘50s geisha girls, to the Asian-American anchorwoman of today. The movie also shows how stereotypes of exoticism and docility have affected the perception of Asian-American women.

His men get defeated by other white gangs which clearly shows that Hollywood wants you to think that Asians are inferior to white people. In Richard Fung’s analysis on Sally’s Beauty Spot, “The fact that Sally never kisses an Asian unfortunately reflects the absence of Asian men from Western sexual representation” (Fung 169). Asian actors rarely get to be involved in on-screen romantic relationships with their co-star Asian actresses because Hollywood does not believe Asian men are capable of being sexual. They would rather have them doing fighting scenes or even playing nerdy roles than to allow them to do romantic scenes. Similarly, in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies, only Bond is involved in a relationship with the Asian female character played by Michelle Yeoh. And majority of the time in most films, Asian actors and actresses are instructed to speak with an Asian accident and in broken English. Likewise for Asian actresses, they have been pictured as exotic, highly sexual, overly feminine, and eager to please women capable of easily falling in love with white men. But what Hollywood really fails to portray about Asian women in Asia is that they are prostitutes trying to make a living to put food on the table for their families. People do not realize that these Asian women come from poverty and did not receive the same education as American women. These Asian women are not choosing to have sex with white males, but because their clients have

culturally inaccurate. At the time, Asians were still very much underrepresented in film and many

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.

As the movie continues and the characters begin to break down their walls and get to know each other, both them and those watching see that they really are not all that different, despite their very different stereotypes.

As an Asian-American woman, I want to see better representation for the Asian community; if media is supposed to reflect the real world, then there is no excuse for leaving Asians out in American films. I want to dissect why Asians are still marginalized and stereotyped today when there is a demand for more diversity in media. In addition, I want to cover the history behind the stereotyping and whitewashing of Asians in Hollywood and how that still has a negative impact today. In fact, recent movies have white-washed Asian roles in favor of white actors. In May 2015, Sony released “Aloha,” where Emma Stone portrayed Allison Ng, a part Chinese-Hawaiian fighter pilot. This blatant erasure is also evident in Dreamworks’ casting of Scarlett Johansson

The satirical play Yellow Face by Jeff Liu exposed the racism toward Asian- Americans in the United States. Yellow Face began as a reaction to the casting of a Caucasian as an Asian role in the Broadway play M. Butterfly but unraveled to be a challenge of the status quo and stereotypes. In the play, almost all the actors were cast to represent multiple characters, but I was mostly impressed by the performances of the father Sab Shimono since he added an emotional appeal, the protagonist of the play, Ryan Yu, due to his alert reactions, and Christopher Gorham through his emphasis on his role as an ”Asian.”

Many fans are upset with the casting choice. Although the majority of the cast is Asian, the main character is not. Instead of casting an Asian actress, like Lucie Liu, to take on the role as Major (Motoko Kusanagi), they casted Scarlett Johansson. Many fans speculate why the studio did not pick an ethnically appropriate lead

Anna May Wong’s role within this show started her pathway to a road of notable legacy. With this, there was a foot in the door for Asian American actors and through Wong’s film appearances and prominent magazine features that helped humanize Chinese Americans, especially to the white audiences, during a period of what was seen as an overt of racism and discrimination. However, despite Wong’s roles, which brought attention and “peace” to Chinese Americans, not all was happy with Wong’s portrayal in films such as “Dragon Lady” and “Butterfly” which embodied stereotypes of the Asian population while Chinese Nationalists did not portrayed such that in mainstream American media. Following Wong’s success in television, it would not be until roughly a decade later when actor George Takei was casted as Lt. Hikaru Sulu in the second Star Trek pilot. Within his time as an actor, he was also casted as Science Officer in the original pilot of Star Trek and has since appeared on various media outlets, providing the voice for multiple science fiction cartoons and video

I was in a predicament, and I had to decide immediately. Because of my lack of auditioning experience, I wanted to respect their choice, but my morals held me back from stereotyping Asian-Americans. This was the first time I was dealing with this type of blatant racism in the theatre industry, and I knew I had to make a decision in a matter of seconds. With much hesitation, I politely asked to not do a Vietnamese accent and proceeded to perform my monologue in my natural dialect. My rejection to this note perhaps hindered my audition, but I wanted to correctly portray Asian-Americans through the media, even if this was a small role. As much as I wanted to be this character, my morals made me think twice about misrepresenting

Email written between two actresses, Tilda Swinton and Margaret Cho about whitewashing of an asian role.

Stereotypes affect people throughout the world by creating doubts about identities. "Where is my Country" by Nellie Wong expresses the loss of identity from various stereotypes that specify her absence or present characteristics of a stereotypical Asian. People, who rely on stereotypes, influence Wong into writing a poem arguing about the negative impacts. Despite many wrong classifications, the statements vary from each other, confusing Wong of whom to believe when stereotypes identify her as various nationalities besides her own. Wong communicates the loss of identity people from all races have from stereotypes that differentiate them from their actual nationality by using metaphors, repetition, and colloquial diction.

While the movie progresses, the minority group shown in the movie intensifies and takes on a larger role in the movie. The two stereotypical views portrayed in this movie are the common ones, such as Asians are weak and smart and or the view that Asians drive around in lowered cars and cast themselves as thugs. One scene

The movie begins with the introduction of Graham Waters, an African American detective in the Los Angeles Police Department, and his female partner Ria that had just been rear-ended in a car accident. Ria, then exited the car to confront the woman who hit them, during which Graham was seen rambling to himself during the scene. As she exits the car, she sees a Chinese woman named Kim Lee, Kim was a smaller woman with black hair and a strong Chinese accent. In less than ten seconds after she left the car both women started to exchange racial insults to one another, each blaming the other for the crash incident. Waters then exits the car himself and starts walking towards a police investigation crime scene. Where Waters learned about a discovery of a dead body. As shown here, the conflict, tone and movement of the movie are already established.