Asian Portrayal in Media
The Fetishization of Asian Women
By Maya Campbell and Austin Li
The media’s objectification of Asian women is perfectly legal. However, ethically, it harms and saddens Asian women every day.
Carlmont student Celine Trinh has had negative experiences with peers and films concerning objectification.
“I just feel like I’m constantly being objectified and degraded by white people, both in real life and in movies,” Trinh said.
Objectification is a degrading practice in which one is compared to a mere object. Although a light has been shed on objectification concerning women, Asian women still feel objectified.
Many young, even teenage, Asian women have already experienced objectification as a result of stereotypes.
Trinh recounted an experience she had with a male peer around a year ago: “He always told me about how he loved Asian girls. When I asked why he said they were ‘submissive’ and I just felt disgusted,” Trinh said.
Government-Sanctioned Racism
Although the media cultivated much of the societal racism experienced today, The United States government also played a large part in furthering stereotypes concerning Asian women.
In 1875, after a surge of Chinese immigration, the Page Act was passed. The Page Act effectively banned Chinese women from immigrating to the U.S., and in essence legalized racial discrimination against Asian people.
The actual act bans “Chinese, Mongolian, and Japanese female prostitutes” from immigrating, however, almost all Chinese, and Asian women as a whole were stereotyped as prostitutes and prosecuted. Later, the Page Act became the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, which outright prohibited all Chinese laborers from immigrating into the U.S. Eventually, in 1943, the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed. However, in place of it, a quota of 105 permitted Chinese people was allowed to enter the U.S. every year.
Racially charged laws and decrees such as the Page and Chinese Exclusion Act have contributed to and furthered misconceptions about Asian people. Bitter, scared white people resorted to negatively portraying Asians in the media and in propaganda to ‘get back at them’ for ‘stealing jobs.’
The Dragon Lady
O-ren Ishii(Kill Bill) / Hersson Piratoba / Flickr / CC BY-NC-ND-2.0
An example of racism in media is the stereotyping of Asian women into two main categories. One category being the “Dragon Lady” and the other being the “Madame Butterfly.” The “Dragon Lady” is a deceitful, domineering, and sexual depiction of an Asian woman. She is usually adept at martial arts, wears traditional Asian clothing, and is extremely provocative.
Madame Butterfly
The Madame Butterfly character is submissive and utterly devoted to the white, male protagonist. The titular character of the Madame Butterfly stereotype even killed herself after being rejected by the male lead.
Madame Butterfly/Astghik.dallakyan2015/Wikimedia/CC-BY-SA 4.0
Both of these stereotypes have one thing in common, that their purpose is as an instrument of white mens’ sexual desires.
In the media-driven world that we reside in, it is only natural to be influenced by these depictions of racial groups.
For example, Black people have historically been represented in a mocking, demeaning matter through minstrel shows. Minstrel shows involved dehumanizing stereotypes about black people, starring white actors who dressed up as if they were black and furthered negative stereotypes about black people.
These more obvious displays of racism have since been abolished, however, media still has a way to depict black people in a racist way.
In the case of Asian women, racist, minstrel-show-esque oversexualized caricatures are all too common.
Full Metal Jacket
The iconic “Me love you long time” scene in Full Metal Jacket is an example of an oversexualized caricature of an Asian woman.
The scene depicts a Vietnamese prostitute attempting to seduce a couple of American GIs.
In heavily accented, broken English the prostitute says “Me love you long time.”
The woman is quite literally in the business of objectification, as she sells her body for sexual purposes.
Even though it is not outright stated, it is clear that the woman’s purpose, like in other depictions of Asians, is to be a sexual object for a white man to claim. The choice of making the prostitute Asian is just another example of furthering racist stereotypes in the media.
Even though the movie that the scene is from was made in the ’80s, the line has amassed so much infamy that it is now a pop-culture staple. For example, even modern shows and movies like South Park and the 40-Year Old Virgin have referenced the line on occasion.
Rush Hour 2
Another example of an oversexualized portrayal of Asian women is in Rush Hour 2. In the scene, a group of Asian women are presented to a couple of Western men as masseuse choices. The scene has a heavy sexual connotation, seen in the comments made by the Western men.This scene portrays objectification, as the women are simply commodities designed to submit to a white man’s whims.