Essay on How Asian Americans are Portrayed in Hollywood Movies

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,

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.

America consists of a melting pot when it comes to races and cultures. However, society tends to fall back onto stereotypes to distinguish each racial community. In the case of the Asian community, there are a vast number of common stereotypes that are used to label Asians. For example, one common stereotype is Asians who are foreigners. There are countless Asian people who have resided in the United States for all of their lives, yet Asian Americans are often seen as perpetual foreigners. This kind of representation disregards the fact that America is home to generations of Asian Americans who have also been a part of building America from the ground up. This stereotype is frequently mirrored in film and television with Asian characters who

I saw the highly promoted movie adaptation of The Hunger Games in spring of 2012, and I left the theatre wondering one thing: where were all the Asians? This is not an uncommon occurrence: as a second generation Japanese-Canadian, I have grown up surrounded by American and Canadian media that lacks representation of Asians to the point that seeing an Asian on my television is an thrilling. This is the sad reality of the state of representation of Asians on television. I have learned and experienced first hand that the lack of

The truth is; Caucasian movie stars have been guaranteed to have a huge hit in the box office. The water is completely safe when a movie stars a Caucasian. With an Asian movie star, the movie would most likely drown.

Since the early days of Hollywood, Asian-American women have played “dragon ladies”. Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong, who played a series of roles in the 1920s with a “Dragon Lady” persona, is often accused of starting the popularization of the stereotype in Hollywood cinema (Nittle, Nadra Kareem). Sick of being type casted as a dragon lady, she left the United States to act in European films. She explained in a 1933 interview with the Los Angeles Times, “I was so tired of the parts I had to play. Why is it that they screen Chinese in nearly always the villain of the piece, and so cruel a villain – murderous, treacherous, a snake in the grass?

According to Helen Zia, the author of “Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People,” she had stated, “The ‘Asians’ produced for mass consumption. Their faces filled me with shame whenever I saw them on TV or in the movies...they weren’t even played by real Asian actors. They were white actors in hideous ‘yellowface’ makeup, playing cartoon characters created by non-Asian writers” (110). The discrimination of the Asian American community has influenced the image of these people, as even younger individuals notice the drastic difference of representation displayed within mainstream culture. Helen Zia stated that these ‘Asians’ were created for the mass media, attributing to the ‘yellowface’ makeup and exaggerated cartoon characters. The model minority of Asians in mainstream culture and media have impacted the roles available for these growing actors. Additionally, the lack of representation within media develops a lack of role models for young

Did you ever really notice how Asians are really been portrayed within modern day media? As a fellow Asian-American. I have noticed that the media displays the Asian community in only one way, the foreign genius who excels everything, like kung-fu and math. You never really ever get to see a main character, who is a independent, courageous Asian "that doesn't know kung-fu", in any movie or TV shows. Many actors in modern day media prove these stereotypes to be true such as; beloved actor Ken Jeong, Jackie Chan, James Hong, Lucy Liu, and John Cho.

Over the last fifty years, whitewashing has become a disastrous word people used to associate with the film industry. As the global market continues to expand, filmmakers have to search for alternatives to boost box office revenues. One feasible way would be to cast well-known actors to gain exposure. Hence, there were occasions whereby white actors took on roles that were meant to be played by people of other skin colours. The practice of whitewashing caused a worldwide uproar as more white actors began to dominate the big screen. Looking at the recent controversy over Scarlett Johansson being cast as the lead actress for Ghost in the Shell, it creates the impression that Hollywood is disregarding the presence of Asian actors once again. The

The background roles played by Asian in television and films are cooks at Chinese or Korean restaurants, laundry and dry-cleaning workers, or involved with gangs and martial artists. These representations are seen in movies such as Sixteen Candles where the Chinese foreign exchange student is played by a Japanese actor, whose character is subdued, awkward, out of place, nerdy and being exploited by his host family by doing dishes and laundry (Vasan 2014). Law and Order, Fresh off The Boat, The Mick and The Pitch, to name a few, still play to some of the stereotypes that are associated with Asians. The biggest concern with Asians in media is the lack of representation they have. Roles that a designated for Asian are being whitewashed thus furthering the perceptions and judgments about Asian Americans, which are largely aligned with the media representations, and these stereotypes impact people's intent to interact with Asians (Zang 2010). Whitewashing roles means a character that is known to be of Asian descent or Asian is played by a white actors and/or

1928 and 1929 were important years for Los Angeles-born Chinese actress Anna May Wong. News reports about her Hollywood movies decreased, instead, according to an American gossip columnist visiting Europe during Wong’s tenure, she was “acclaimed by nobility” in several European newspapers (Petersen, 2014). Severely limited by the noxious roles she was offered in Hollywood, which misrepresented Asian women, Wong left the United States for Europe (Vechten, 2003). She then spent two years in Germany, England and France, where she gained global attention and worldwide stardom. This special period in Wong’s life was also a sensitive period for Chinese immigrants and all the ethnic actors and actresses in Hollywood, who barely made livings under

One of the most common myths pertaining to Asian males is that they lack a collective female favorite, machismo. This trait is frequently considered outlandish in terms of Asian males and is a characteristic most Latinos and Caucasians are believed to have. A big contributor to this disbelief is depicted trough the modern-day media, where, “most depictions of Asian males in the popular media are not the same as their Caucasian counterparts.” (Chan “The 11 Differences Between Dating an Asian Guy vs a Caucasian Guy”). An example would be Jackie Chan, who is rarely shown as a hunky or virile star of the show. This unruly problem has also occurred throughout all of Hollywood whereas the subordinate roles that Asian men acquire are commonly presented in a non-appealing fashion. These stereotypes that media projects are “Asian-American men as sidekicks who serve as comic relief, who are extremely nervous or silent around girls, are short and deeply accented, and sidekick samurai warriors” (Sun, “4 Lies We Need to Stop Telling About Asian-American Men”). Since the media plays such a big role in what society tends to believe, Asian men are most likely opinionated as the perpetual foreigner who has a black belt in martial arts along with a doctorates degree in

With most actors often getting nominations for performing demeaning roles in Hollywood movies.  The Asian characters often receive stereotypic roles in the

Another type of East Asian character in American films are martial arts heroes with broken English who fight against criminals but lack of romantic or sensual senses with females, which can be seen in the legendary Bruce Lee (Huh 2016). These models are different to white heroic male characters that are normally featured in affairs with female characters. A possible solution to this problem is to feature East Asian characters which have those stereotyped characteristics but with embedded familiar characteristics as well. Examples of this are characters played by Jackie Chan, who are Kung-fu masters who are also funny and sometimes act in silly ways which make them more ‘life’ and close to the audience, unlike other characters that are always

This nightclub is a glimpse of Chinese American’s live that Americans perceived. At that time, film cinema matured into the most popular entertainment to relieving from stress. Anna May Wong was