Portrayal of Asian Americans

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

attention is that it is a struggle to be an Asian in America due to the fact that Asians

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

Race in the media is a very sensitive issue now a days. When it comes to minorities we can still see that the media portrays us in a bad light. The image of blacks in the American media has changed over the past two decades with the civil rights movement, changes in attitudes towards minority groups, and increased sensitivity on the part of those who and project these images. An examination of the image of Blacks in the articles and advertisements to show attitudes subtly represented, and these attitudes can be linked to historical and social realities of the time.

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.

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”.

Throughout history, the media has been known to be influential towards how individuals of society perceive the world and their environment. This influence can lead to people creating prejudices towards those who are highlighted by the media. It also has the ability to change the attitude of one person towards another class of people and stereotype them in positive, but mostly negative ways. One population that has played victim to the repercussions of the mass media is Asian Americans, who have been oppressed and deemed a minority by Americans. The media’s portrayal of Asian Americans has had detrimental effects on one’s opportunities, performance, and their perception of the world.

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

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

As the conference chair for the Asian American Student Union, I spearheaded a school wide conference on Asian American issues and advocacy. This conference brought in speakers from across the United States, including members of the U.S. government, and had over 100 participants. In addition, I led a group of twenty students to the East Coast Asian American Student Union conference at Columbia University. I developed preparatory pre-departure workshops, handled scholarship distribution, and outlined travel logistics. As a member of the AASU board, I had the opportunity to develop my own general body meeting on the topic of Asian American portrayal in the media.

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

Throughout film history, the practice of racializing Asian actors have been a common issue in Hollywood. The episode, titled “Slapsgiving 3: Slappointment In Slapmarra,” in sitcom How I Met Your Mother seemed to highlight several surprisingly racist Asian stereotypes that have caused an uproar. In this episode, the masters were portrayed by the show’s all-white cast, Alyson Hannigan, Colbie Smulders and Josh Radnor. After watching this episode, people have wondered why American media did not give those opportunities for Asian actors, even when there were Asian characters in the story being told.

     Another stereotype depicted in the film was that every Asian character spoke flawed English. Not one single person through the film had a perfect grasp of the English language. This provides the comical relief in the film as any Asian man at any time could pronounce a word wrong or use the wrong word to the bemusement of the film watchers. The broken English that is used by the Asian characters in this film seem to heighten or display the fact that the Asian characters have visible flaws. The Americans never have to display such flaws, in fact the only part of the movie where an American attempts to spoke Japanese it is completely flawless, without hesitation or pause.

The UCLA Asian Pacific American Law Journal describes recoding as “marginalized subcultures,” in this case Asian Americans, using “popular media images,” in this case Easy A’s poster, to “push social boundaries” and examine privilege and oppression within our society (Aoki 59). The poster does this by showing the absence of Asian Americans in popular movies, while simultaneously reclaiming them through the diverse casting of Constance Wu as Olive. Despite being constantly excluded from media produced and taking place in California, Asian Americans produced a fun creative way to express anger and frustration and claim their place in our society. Recoding is a valuable way for minorities to make their mark on media that refuses to acknowledge them or their contributions to our culture, and allow them to make new meaning our of old images. For example, I discussed some of the new meanings of the Easy A poster earlier, but it also simply proves a point to say that Asian Americans exist and deserve to be represented fairly in popular media, like teen movies. Overall recoding can help Asian Americans, respond to the society that excludes

Films have the power to both influence and reflect society. The stereotypes prevalent throughout American culture are reflected in most films. While the United States is becoming an increasingly diverse country, this diversity is not portrayed within American cinema. Minority figures often occupy