Asian Men Stereotypes

The Western Media has portrayed Asians as the model minority, the yellow face, and the ones with the “slanted, small eyes.” However, that isn’t the only thing the media has stereotyped; Asians, especially Asian men, are seen as emasculate. They are the race of the weak, the feeble, and the feminine. This collection of images, depicts how Asians have become the underdogs of false representation within Western media. This is overtly evident in the entertainment industry; the role of an Asian individual is either the nerd, or the one who is an expert of some high end martial arts. The problem with this is, that this stereotypical type of Asian role has been done over and over again, especially movies that are produced specifically for an American

K-Pop, J-Pop, C-Pop, you name it, are filled with male idols who are known to be in boy-bands, flashy with make-up, have fashionable clothing, and creating catchy dance moves. Although they are known to be manly in their native country, the West loves to fetishize these celebrities to be flamboyant, homosexual-like, and to be feminine. Most of course are androgynous, however that does not stop the media to strip their masculinity away. When is comes to stereotyping this kind of image, it also comes with fetishizing it as well; Xianh Nishi, formerly known as Max, is a Brazilian descendant who has gone under multiple cosmetic surgeries to look like a “Korean idol” (The Huffington Post, Simon McCormack). Nishi believes that he looks more “handsome as a feminine Korean male.” In Robert G. Lee’s essay “Asian Americans in Popular Culture,” he states that this type of behavior is not only fetishizing the Asian male body as feminine, but also creating the Yellowface. The Yellowface “reinforces the representation and gives racial stereotype its power to survive, mutate, and reproduce” (Lee