Asian-American Stereotypes

Asian-American Stereotypes

Overview

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 that could help Americans from other racial backgrounds realize that the stereotypical characters in Hollywood movie productions are unjust and biased. Furthermore, these popular movies do not reflect the true individuality of the typical Asian American living in America.

Hollywood has a tradition of portraying Asian women as exotic, subservient, compliant, industrious, and more than often, eager to please. These race and class stereotypes of Asian American women give the impression of what Asian American women are really like to other Americans as well as to Asian Americans themselves. This perpetuates race and class inequalities of Asian Americans by allowing these belittling Asian characteristics to appear repeatedly in society. The beliefs that Asian American women are weak or passive and allow themselves to be sexually and emotionally abused by men also prevail in common media. These stereotypes of a submissive, obedient Asian woman made up of sexual desires waiting to be rescued by a man were formed by mesmerized, ignorant Westerners who were not viewing Asians as people, rather as objects for their enjoyment. These Hollywood images of ?easy women? have spilled over into mainstream images of Asian women. In result, Asian women are viewed for their sexual desire and hyper-femininity

As mysterious and sexual, Asian women cannot be taken seriously by society. Ideally, these women are depicted as geisha girls, Oriental massagers, comfort women and prostitutes. With their main objective being to submit to their dominator?s every desire, Asian women are seen as sexually desirable. The stereotype remains that all of th...

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...nd that many non-Asian students at UCI had not even heard of terms such as ?Dragon Lady? or ?China Doll.? Though they did know the connotations behind the stereotypes, they were not familiar with the actual label. The Asian men in our study already knew those terms, most likely because they were raised within the Asian culture, which provides a biased viewpoint.

In conclusion, it is very obvious that the stereotypes that Hollywood creates about certain nationalities, ethnicities, races, and gender that are ingrained and prevail in the minds of many Americans. Though some can be as comical or entertaining, they should not be tolerated or continued. By allowing media to feed us with knowledge of the unknown only perpetuates the ignorance behind such atrocities like racism and hate related violence. The research conducted for this paper shows that these false stereotypes about Asian Americans cross all borders. Young Asian American males at UCI can identify the same false perceptions of Vietnamese American women that we find in the media, because that is where those ideas are taught. Until the media eliminates these negative stereotypes of all people, ignorance will prevail.