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Asian stereotypes in US Hollywood films essay
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The “submissive China doll”, the “the exotic geisha” are examples of stereotypes which has led to Asian women being dehumanized and seen merely as sex symbols. Until now these stereotypes dominate the U.S films, mainly in action films. The listed factors below are believed to have been the origin of the said stereotype. Orientalism Voyages. The European countries were known for expanding their empires. They were eager to discover new lands such as Asia which led to establishing ”Orientalism” or what culture critic and theorist Edward Said referred to as “persistent exoticizing and feminization of images of the East (Conger, 2016).”
Movies are a new edition in today’s culture. They are a new form of art medium that has arrived in the late 1900s and were a new way to express ideas and viewpoints of the time. A good example of this is the movie The Manchurian Candidate. The movie had a simple plot a man is kidnapped after the Korean war and is hypnotized to work for the communists and take down the U.S. This movie showed the American public’s fear of communism at the time. If a movie like this can easily portray the fears of the American people at the time then it can easily portray stereotypes of gender. There have been thousands of movies where the male protagonist is a rough tough dude but there is one movie that has that stereotype is broken. That movie is none other than Napoleon Dynamite.
The small environment no longer had enough resources to sustain such a large population which motivated them to subdivide and move on. They expanded southward and eastward. They developed seasonal rounds of activity and movement. Climate change expanded the temperate forest throughout North America allowing them to become more familiar with their land. Early Americans. Soon the domestication of plants and animals established. They developed different cultures traditions diets and languages. During the late fifteenth century, Europeans developed the navigational technology and ambitions which allowed them to explore and conquer the world's seas. The Atlantic Ocean once a barrier became a bridge to vast lands and people. The Europeans traveled to the West Indies and India by traveling around Africa. The new discoveries transformed Europe into one of the most dominant continents. European Christians first felt surrounded by their Muslim neighbors. The Muslims were more a more powerful religion extended to North Africa, Southeast Asia, and Central Asia. The Europeans Christians got an opportunity to break out of the Muslim world and spread their beliefs to the newly discovered world and search for the trade riches such as gold, silks, and
As new ideas traveled main trade routes, such as the Silk Road and the Mediterranean, the effects of such were felt through an influx of contact between countries due to increased desire for new information and countries gaining a larger presence on the world stage. This phenomenon can also be seen through the lens of cultural exchange that took place during this same time period in Eurasia. A major component of the Eurasian trade networks, such as the Silk Road and Indian Ocean, was that they fostered interregional contacts that had ceased to previously exist. When a country had a desire for study or technology, they earned more respect on the global stage. This can be further examined by looking at Marco Polo’s voyage into Asia.
Lee, Robert G. 1999. Orientals: Asian American in Popular Culture. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
The Age of Exploration in Europe developed along with the Renaissance. In Western history, both periods served as transitional movements between the early modern and Middle Ages periods. The evolution as well as advancement of abroad exploration was fueled by competition between growing European empires like England and Spain. The size as well as the influence of European empires expanded greatly during this time as it was motivated by profit, religion and power. The exploration’s effects were felt both abroad as well as in the geographical boundaries of Europe itself. The political, cultural and economical influences of Europe’s early stages of international exploration affected the continuing development of European society as well as the whole world.
The Scientific Revolution indulged Europeans to look at life through different aspects as well as experimenting, searching for answers (, being open minded). The rise of the Ottoman Empire meant that Muslims could dominate the Middle East, so they charged Christians major taxes for all of the goods that would come their way towards Europe. Christopher Columbus, an explorer, sought for a way to avoid the taxes and set forth by sailing west to get to Asia. Spain, England and France all looked for trade routes to Asia. Columbus suggested crossing the Atlantic believing he would hit Asia, not knowing that there would be a country in his way. Every country was at “war” claiming land and trying to colonize. A numbering amount of men died and neglected their expedition by living with other tribes and taking some for wives.
The “lotus blossom” stereotype is an Asian American female stereotype that portrays them as feminine, submissive, and desirable romantic interests for the white male protagonist (Tajima 309). Although the stereotype is the production of films fetishizing the “traditional Orient” culture, the stere...
He meant that economically open doors for countries throughout Europe to stimulate their economy. Describe the different global economies that Europeans participated in or created during the European age of expansion. A global economy was made solely reliant on produce of its province; gaining free labor from slaves also shipment bringing in byproduct colonies. This encouraged growth for Europe to extend their boarder and riches. One of the most striking features of Indian societies at the time of the encounter with Europeans was their diversity. Support this statement with several examples. Examples of this can be irrigation, roadway systems, the pyramids, and the diversity of different languages in different cities. Compare and contrast European values and ways of life with those of the Indians. Consider addressing religion, views about ownership of land, gender relations, and notions of freedom. The Indians believed that if they lived on property then it is theirs but if it is not inhabited then it is free where as Europeans believe that wealth comes from land ownership and fortune. Indian women won homes and tools and European women do not. What were the main factors fueling the European age of expansion? The main factors for expansion were resource, new route to India resource and pillaging. Compare the different economic and
Asia and Asian peoples have typically been portrayed by western culture to fit certain perceptions. Stereotypes and pre-ordained ideas about Geisha have been created due to many reasons. These reasons are misrepresentation in Hollywood and film, a culturally western gender-based male language as the dominator of language, a lack of esthetic-cultural appreciation and understanding from foreign males who encountered geisha, and finally the confusion between the geisha and prostitute districts and what curtails as a true geisha. Orientalism, which is a western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient, by placing limitations on it and defining it as the “Other” (Said, 3, 1979), has influenced the creation and strengthening of the submissive, exotic, and decadent geisha. Unfortunately these romanticized images continue to persist and are used to give false understandings of the geisha.
Living with their traditional Chinese culture in American society, these eight Chinese-American women suffer the problems of cultural conflicts in compliance with their gender. Asian women were looked at as being "positive, subservient, compliant, quiet, delicate, exotic, romantic and easy to please" (Mulan). They are nicknamed "China dolls" or " lotus blossoms", which are sexually loaded stereotypes of Asian women. These stereotypes discriminate against women by degrading their worth as people. By men taking advantage of their obedience and submissiveness they are showing that these women are not valued and that they have no voice. Judith Butler responds to these roles by saying, "Gender is an act, a performance, a set of manipulated codes and costumes rather than a core aspect of essential identity". By the middle of this century, Chinese women had been playing this manipulative, subservient role for m...
...ding white, male superiority. Back in high school, I dated a non-Asian male from my class who often talked about how Asian women are “hot and sexy” yet “more faithful to men and less aggressive than White women.” At the time, I thought this was a compliment and I often tried to conform to this stereotype in order to satisfy my partner. Images of Asian-American women as both innocent and dangerous have legitimized any racist and sexist policies directed at Asians and women.
U.S. media history has been plagued with limited representations of Asians and Asian Americans. Specifically Asian American female roles have been limited to stereotypes such as the Lotus Blossom/Madame Butterfly and the dragon lady. The Lotus Blossom and the Madame Butterfly stereotypes are seen as being sexually attractive, alluring, passive and obedient. On the other hand the Dragon Lady is seen as sexualized, sinister and conniving. These stereotypical representations of Asian females are what Darrel Hamamoto refers to as “controlling images”. The repetition of these loaded representations within contemporary media has created a limited perspective of Asian American images. According to Hamamoto in “Monitored Peril: Asian Americans and the Politics of TV”, controlling images involve the process of objectification, subordination, and justification. These images are used to create a hierarchy of gender, race, and class; this hierarchy can also be understood as media racial hegemony. In their book “Asian Americans and the Media” Kent Ono and Vincent Pham articulate media racial hegemony as the way people think about how race is represented through media and how media representations help guide and regulate beliefs and actions of those within society in indirect ways.
“If more Asian women were used in fashion and advertising, it would change people’s ideals,” said Grace Park, who was forced to undergo double eyelid surgery by her mother, because of her slanted, one-folded eyes. People of East Asian descent have been the most susceptible to the obsession over “Western” beauty as the “East Asian” face is rare in Western Media. Editor-in-chief of Jade Magazine, Ellen Hwang, says everything in the media consists of the “Eurasion” look, “big blue- eyed blondes.” “Here in the US, even more than in Asia, the models and movie stars you see and who girls want to emulate are Caucasian. Yes, there is Lucy Liu, but most models are Western. And young girls often want to look like those models.” Chinese American, Shin –Yu Wang, who was born with double eyelids and was thoug...
There have been a variety of themes in Asian American cinema history, both contemporaneously and in the past. The Mask of Fu Manchu played on the Yellow Peril theme, serving as propaganda to help western society view East Asians as the evil in the world. Better Luck Tomorrow used the model minority stereotype in a way that parodied it, making it ridiculousness enough that it helped to remove the constraints of various Asian American labels. Lastly, Chan is Missing helped to highlight the difference in the shifting nature of Hollywood films. Asian Americans used to be cast as the evil opposition in The Mask of Fu Manchu, but now Asian Americans have a voice in how they are portrayed in media as more and more begin to make movies. Different, diverse themes are abundant in the history of Asian American films.
Disney’s 1998 film, Mulan, attempts to tell the heroic tale of a Chinese woman fighting for her family and country while defying gender roles, but looking into details such as song lyrics enforcing both male and female gender stereotypes, and bland visualization of characters, one can see that this film in fact enforces gender role inequality.