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Ethnic stereotypes in American media

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This article discusses ethnic stereotypes in American media. As art is often a reflection of any given society, these stereotypes can be said to represent some or much of the American society's dominant view of different ethnic groups. Early media portrayals of Africans, Asians, Native Americans, the Irish, Germans and others tended to be overtly racist. As media technology advanced and the broadcasting age emerged, the American media became national in scope, and as such the nature of ethnic stereotypes became shifted to reflect a "melting pot" ideology. Thus, while overtly racist media portrayals were largely marginalized in the early 20th century, perception and claims of more subtly racist portrayals may continue to the present. Ma, Andrew. ["Racist images persist in films".] Ka Leo O Hawaii, February 26, 2004. One criticism of stereotype theory, however, is that if virtually any portrayal can be said to fall into innumerable stereotypes, often contradictory, this begs the question of whether criticism of "stereotypes in the media" is not based on circular logic, or can be manipulated for any political agenda.

Contents

Asians

Asian Americans are often depicted in a limited and predictable range of jobs: restaurant workers, Japanese businessmen, Indian cab drivers, TV anchorwomen, martial artists, gangsters, faith healers, laundry workers, and prostitutes. This misrepresents the diversity of the Asian American workforce. Because distinctive Asian characteristics are less common in the United States, movies and TV shows often use them for quick and easy gags or gasps. For example, the thick accent of the goofy Chinese exchange student in Sixteen Candles — who is given the name "Long Duk Dong" — is used for cheap laughs, while the numerous Fu Manchu movies have presented the Asian character's culturally distinctive speech and appearance as emblems of unfathomable evil. A common stereotype, especially in action films, is that of the "Asian bad guy" — a tough, taciturn character who uses martial arts to subdue his victims.

Asians are often relegated to supporting roles in projects with Asian or Asian American content. Even when a project features Asian subject matter, the main character will still usually be white. For example, the internment camp movie Come See the Paradise focused on a white protagonist, pushing its Japanese American characters into the background, while The Last Samurai portrays the last surviving Samurai as a white American. However, the success of Gandhi, The Last Emperor, and The Joy Luck Club proves that mainstream audiences will pay to see Asian and Asian American actors in lead roles.

Historical origins

The origins of stereotypes of Asians are almost certainly influenced by early contact between Western nations and Asian nations. Often this was in the context of colonialism and military occupation, resulting in asymetrical power relations. This was further exacerbated by specific cultural contexts, such as relatively low status of women and widespread proliferation of prostitution in some countries. In military occupations, such as US military R&R in Thailand during the Vietnam war or while stationed in South Vietnam, prostitutes flocked towards a lucrative market with higher earnings (due to wealth disparities). This can be said to create a distorted impression of the local populace among customers, who then brought these images back to their home countries. (eg. Full Metal Jacket's infamous portrayal of a Vietnamese prostitute speaking pidgin English is a good if disturbing example [link] and is still referenced in Asian fetish pornography). A similar phenomenon occurred during Shanghai in the 1930s, resulting in a very negative and sensualized image brought home to the West. The lack of cultural understanding between the West and Asia during early contact, combined with racy images and stories brought back home, resulted in a distorted image that lingers to this day.

East and Southeast Asians

Asian Sexuality

Although Asian women are frequently portrayed as positive romantic partners for white men (e.g., Sayonara, The World of Suzie Wong), Asian men are rarely positively paired with women of any race. Asian men are usually presented either as persecutors of white women, or as lacking any romantic feelings. For example, in the action movie Showdown in Little Tokyo, the Asian villain forces himself upon a white woman and murders her before threatening the Asian female love interest. The white hero ultimately kills the Asian villain and "wins" the Asian woman — while the hero's Amerasian sidekick is given no love life at all.

Joan Kee observes the same consistent pattern:

"Asian American male sexuality has long entailed a discourse of nothingness. The Asian or Asian American male is perhaps best known for his absence in the colonizer's sexual hierarchy. This strikes a sharp contrast to the colonizer's perception of the Asian female as an embodiment of excessive sexuality. Asian American males have been consigned to positions of inferiority within the hierarchy — the Asian male as sexually impotent voyeur or pervert is a reoccurring icon, appearing throughout American cultural history and especially in film. Notable examples of this include Mickey Rooney in "yellowface" as the bucktoothed Japanese landlord who sneaks peeps at Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) or the pathetically asexual nerd Long Duk Dong in John Hughes' adolescent classic Sixteen Candles (1984)." [link]

The Joy Luck Club is particularly consistent with this racial cliche because it portrays Chinese culture (especially Chinese males) as being negative and restrictive to the freedoms of Chinese females. This in turn might allow for a refreshing picture of white men to somehow liberate Chinese women. About the time the movie made its debut in theatres, many Asian Americans (many of them Chinese American) were offended by the negative portrayal of Asian men in this film. Such screen portrayals are consistent with the restriction and/or absence of Asian American masculinity in the western media. (See ["Vanishing Son: The Appearance, Disappearance, and Assimilation of the Asian-American Man in American Mainstream Media"] by Amy Kashiwabara for more on this view of western media's portrayals of Asian and Asian American men.)

There is also a belief in the West that Asian men (mostly businessmen) have sex with very young girls and have a fetish for crying. This is most likely due to the large amount of hentai that involves young girls unwillingly committing sexual acts.

Stereotypes of Asian womanhood

Asian women have been portrayed as aggressive sexual beings. Western film and literature has promoted stereotypes of Asian women, such as depicting Asian women as cunning "Dragon Ladies" The Thief of Bagdad (1924)Daughter of Fu Manchu (1931)Tong, B. (1994). Unsubmissive women: Chinese prostitutes in nineteeth-century San Francisco, University of Oklahoma Press., as servile "Lotus Blossom Babies", "China dolls", "Geisha girls", war brides, or prostitutes Tajima, R. (1989). Lotus blossoms don't bleed: Images of Asian women., Asian Women United of California's Making waves: An anthology of writings by and about Asian American women, (pp 308-317), Beacon Press.. UC Berkeley Professor of Asian American Studies Elaine Kim has argued that the stereotype of Asian women as submissive sex objects has impeded women's economic mobility and has fostered increased demand in mail-order brides and ethnic pornography . Other contributors to these stereotypes come from the widespread proliferation of pornography, especially on the internet and the globalization of the industry. Japan, especially, has one of the largest adult video markets in the world [link] and many of these are exported overseas, contributing to a highly sexualized image of Asian women in general.

More nuanced treatments of stereotypes come from movies like The World of Suzie Wong (1960) (also a book) where the Asian woman's appeal comes partially from her "orientalness" expressed through their clothing, language and attitudes, and from the fact they serve as cultural and gender guides for foreign men. In these movies, white men are fairy-tale knights and their love functions as a redemptive force for fallen asian women. Stacie Ford concludes that stereotypical depictions of women in general created by sexist Asian men, specifically Chinese, and White men continue to haunt movies even though they now have a disguised form.

The \"China Doll\" stereotype

The "China Doll" stereotype insinuates that Asian women are hypersexual, submissive, "exotic", feminine, and eager to please white males. The stereotype appears in countless media presentations:

It is common to see a white man paired with an Asian woman (or nonwhite woman) in western movies, but seldom is an Asian man paired with a white woman. Asian women are often depicted as easily falling in love with white men. This depiction has been termed the "unmotivated white-Asian romance", as the Asian woman usually falls in love with a man only because he is white ([MANAA]). In Daughter of the Dragon, the daughter of Fu Manchu lays her eyes on a British detective and instantly falls in love with him. Miss Saigon and Come See the Paradise also contain scenes where Asian women fall in love with white men at first sight.

The \"Dragon Lady\" stereotype

The "Dragon Lady" stereotype refers to a seductive, untrustworthy Asian woman. This would seem to contradict the "China doll" notion of submissiveness and attractiveness. Movies and novels dating to the early 20th century have promoted this stereotype. The Fu Manchu novels are examples of some works that depict the Dragon Lady stereotype — a classic example is the character of Fu Manchu's daughter. For the most part, the Dragon Lady is the female version of the "Asian bad guy" stereotype. The difference is that, whereas the Asian bad guy uses his martial arts, the Dragon Lady uses her hypersexuality to gain the trust of white male characters, only to betray them when they least expect it (at least, until her eventual defeat by the white male protagonist).

Further examples of empowered Asian women are: Miho (played by Devon Aoki) in Sin City and Gogo Yubari (played by Chiaki Kuriyama) and O-Ren Ishii (played by Lucy Liu) in Kill Bill

The Nerdy stereotype and other stereotyping

In the cartoon Juniper Lee, Juniper Lee represents a non-sexual lead East Asian American/Korean American protagonist. The Eurasian half Japanese American Phoebe Hyerdahl was not portrayed as sexual. She was portrayed as nerdy and sheepish. In the cartoon 6teen, the Chinese American girl Nikki Wong is portrayed as being a rebel who is not submissive.

Near Easterners/Arabs

In his essay "Arabs in Hollywood: An Undeserved Image", Scott J. Simon argues that of all the ethnic groups portrayed in Hollywood films, "Arab culture has been the most misunderstood and supplied with the worst stereotypes":

Rudolph Valentino's roles in The Sheik (1921) and The Son of the Sheik (1926) set the stage for the exploration and negative portrayal of Arabs in Hollywood films. Both The Sheik and The Son of the Sheik represented Arab characters as thieves, charlatans, murderers, and brutes.

Other movies of the 1920s share a common theme of power-hungry, brutal Arabs ultimately defeated by white westerners:

Simon singles out A Son of the Sahara (1924) as "the strongest subconscious attack on the Arab culture of all the Arab movies of the 1920s." [link]

The same themes prevailed into the 1970s and beyond:

Billionaires, bombers, and belly dancers

A report titled "100 Years of Anti-Arab and Anti-Muslim stereotyping" by Mazin B. Qumsiyeh (director of media relations for the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee) specifies what some in the Arab American community call "the three B syndrome": "Arabs in TV and movies are portrayed as either bombers, belly dancers, or billionaires":

Thomas Edison made a short film in 1897 for his patented Kinetoscope in which "Arab" women with enticing clothes dance to seduce a male audience. The short clip was called Fatima Dances (Belly dancer stereotype). The trend has shifted over the years and was predominated by the "billionaires" for a short while especially during the oil crises in the seventies. However, in the last 30 some years, the predominant stereotype by far has been the "Arab bombers." [link]

In a piece in the Los Angeles Times published July 28, 1997, Laila Lalami offers a 12-step guide to making a successful Arab-bashing movie, including such items as "the villains must all have beards," "they must all wear keffiehs," "they must all have names like Ali, Abdul or Mustapha" and "have them threaten to blow something up." [link]

Jack Shaheen, Professor Emeritus of Mass Communications at Southern Illinois University, documented these trends in his book The TV Arab (ISBN 0879723092), which identifies more than 21 major movies released over ten years which show the U.S. military killing Arabs. These include:

In Reel Bad Arabs (ISBN 1844370194), Shaheen writes that "television's image of the Arab is omnipresent [and] is becoming a part of American folklore." He also writes that Arabs have "consistently appeared in American popular culture as billionaires, bombers, and belly dancers." [link]

Arab Muslims are fanatics who believe in a different god, who don't value human life as much as we do, they are intent on destroying us (the west) with their oil or with their terrorism; the men seek to abduct and brutally seduce our women; they are without family and reside in a primitive place (the desert) and behave like primitive beings. The women are subservient — resembling black crows — or we see them portrayed as mute, somewhat exotic harem maidens. [link]

The movies which Shaheen identifies as the three worst in terms of negative portrayal of Arabs in modern films are:

In response to 9/11, previous negative portrayal of Arabs in the media (including their Muslim and South Asian counterparts) may have incited hate crimes against the Arab-American community.

Africans/Blacks

Negative images of Black Americans

The Black Image in the White Mind by Robert M. Entman and Andrew Rojecki (ISBN 0226210758) illustrates ways in which negative media images of African-Americans are disproportionate and arguably harmful to race relations: Pizarro-Eckert, Susan. [Discussing "The Black Image in the White Mind".]

  1. Black female movie characters shown using vulgar profanity: 89%
  2. White female movie characters shown using vulgar profanity: 17%
  3. Black female movie characters shown being physically violent: 56%
  4. White female movie characters shown being physically violent: 11%
  5. Black female movie characters shown being restrained: 55%
  6. White female movie characters shown being restrained: 6%
See also:

The \"Magic Negro\" stereotype

Main article: Magical Negro
The "Magic Negro" refers to a subordinate character designed to support white protagonists in films, books, and television programs.

In The Matrix series, the The Oracle (played by Gloria Foster) can be seen as an example of the "Magic Negro".

In Bruce Almighty, God, in the form of a wise black male (played by Morgan Freeman), plays a supporting role to Bruce Nolan, the central (white) character (played by Jim Carrey).

Another example is John Coffey in The Green Mile played by Michael Clarke Duncan. Coffey actually is magical, having the ability to extract illness and even resurrect small animals using only the ability of his hands. In the story, Coffey is wrongfully imprisoned and later executed despite his magical talents.

In the film What Dreams May Come, protagonist Chris Nielsen (played by Robin Williams) receives a "spirit guide" to heaven in the form of a young black man (Cuba Gooding, Jr.).

In the film Bedazzled, Brendan Fraser's character is persuaded into selling his soul by the devil (who is a white woman, played by Elizabeth Hurley) for seven wishes. Later, a black man (Gabriel Casseus), who is supposed to be god helps the hero.

The \"wuss\" or \"hypermacho\" stereotypes

Many depictions of African-American males portray them as weak, or a "small dog with a loud bark". This stereotype can be seen in Chris Tucker's character James Carter in the Rush Hour series of films. Carter is a fast talker, and clearly less competent than his partner played by Jackie Chan. Tucker also portrayed a hyper-effeminate show host called Ruby Rhod in the film The Fifth Element.

This stereotype is shown in programs like Power Rangers, where Zach (the original Black Ranger) is portrayed as an easily frightened black man.

Sometimes black men are instead portrayed as hypermacho. In many television shows and movies, the black male is considered the most powerful of all races (e.g., Roadblock in G.I. Joe and Mr. T in almost every role), and despite often being obnoxious and loud, is immensely formidable. Based on the stereotypes of these shows, it would seem every African American male carries a gun around at all times.

Native Americans

The Media Awareness Network of Canada (MNet) has prepared a number of statements about the portrayals of Native Americans in the media:

Social commentator Ward Churchill issued a report entitled "A History of Native Americans in Cinema" on November 1, 1998, which thoroughly lambasted Hollywood and the West for its negative and inaccurate portrayals of Native Americans in cinema. [link]

Latinos

In 2003, Serafin Mendez-Mendez and Diane Alverio of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists reported the following findings:

EthnicMajority.com, a minority empowerment organization, states: "Who we see, hear, and read on television, radio, newspapers, and in movies has a great deal of influence on shaping the attitudes of all Americans. How African, Hispanic (Latino), and Asian Americans are portrayed in these mediums often stereotypes and reinforces negative images of each ethnic group." EthnicMajority.com. [Diversity in the Media and Entertainment Industries.]

University of Michigan students Brian Schulz and Jessica Farris made the following statements in their report, "Latino Representation in the Media":

National media watch group Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) points out that the flip side of media's overrepresentation of minorities as criminals and druggies is their underrepresentation as experts and analysts. FAIR's studies in the late 1980s and early '90s documented that 92% of Nightline 's U.S. guests were white, 90% of the NewsHour 's guests were white, and 26 out of 27 repeat commentators on National Public Radio over a four-month period were white. Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting. [Racism and Mainstream Media.]

Univision, the largest Latino cable station, shows an almost universal bias toward white Latinos despite a giant population of Afro-Latin Americans.

Examples of latin stereotypes include: Scarface which perpetuates the stereotype that latinos are incestuous megalomaniacs. Selena which features the stereotypical homely latina with big dreams. Latinos are often portrayed as knife-weilding; Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Training Day, . Con Air hit several points with the stereotypical homosexual latino felon.

Jews

Jews are often portrayed as bickering humourists, over-intellectuals who share exclusive social codes. They also are known to avoid manual labor and deal with large amounts of money and also are very cheap. They are often portrayed as nebbish and often dealing with mother issues; Woody Allen is an example of the Jewish neurotic. They also tend to be depicted more often then not speaking with New York accents even if they do not live there. Many Jews have spoken out against the film Passion of the Christ for its portrayal of Jews as a rat-like, hooked nosed people with a tendency for mob mentality. The film also presents the stereotypical Jewish self-martyr who appears in the form of Jesus Christ. Also the stereotypical Jewish prostitute, Mary Magdalene. Also the stereotypical back-stabbing Jew, Judas.

Italians

Italian Americans over the years have been portrayed on television and in the movies as gangsters belonging to the mafia. Films such as The Godfather and Goodfellas, and TV shows such as HBO's The Sopranos, have perpetuated these stereotypes. These roles have angered Italian American advocacy groups such as the National Italian American Foundation, who have long worked to eliminate these negative portrayals from the media.

In reality, a tiny percentage of Italian Americans belong to the mafia, as most have moved up through society working at a respectable profession. Still, portrayals of Italian Americans in the media persist.

British

It is increasingly commented in the British media that, in recent years, American films have portrayed white British characters as 'baddies', or conversely given British accents to evil characters. [link] [link] [link] A prominent example is that of the Imperial Officers in the Star Wars movies, most of whom had British accents. Such reports often neglect to mention that "goodies" Obi-wan Kenobi and C-3PO also had British accents.

Disney has given a number of villains and undesirable characters British accents. A few examples are Judge Frollo (although the character is French, he is voiced by Tony Jay, a British actor), Jafar, Maleficent, Professor Ratigan, and Lady Tremaine (Cinderella's stepmother).

Characters in movies set in historical periods are often given British accents, even if the story doesn't take place anywhere near Britain. This stems from an American stereotype that the British have a high regard for propriety. In some cases, British men are portrayed as so proper that they are considered prudish. A popular Family Guy sketch portrays a British couple where the man says "You know we could have sexual intercourse right now... but let's not!" Family Guy also features Stewie Griffin, a Rex Harrison derivative, who speaks eloquently and despises most women. This distaste for vulgarity is often connected with homosexuality in American media. One could argue that characters like Henry Higgins, C-3PO, and Stewie Griffin represent a prudish if not gay stereotyping of British men, but this theory, among many others, is challenged by the popularity of James Bond movies.

Many of the most popular villains in cinema are British, or played by British actors (eg. Hannibal Lecter; Emperor Palpatine; Hans Gruber etc.

Northern Europeans/Whites

White people are stereotyped in terms of various factors, such as their gender, nation, class, sexuality and/or ability etc. Dyer, Richard. "The Matter of Whiteness." Routledge 1997: 11.

They are at times portrayed as being stupid, cowardly and stubborn. Most often these characters have to be 'taught' to be better by others (usually non-whites), before they are of any use to anyone. The Matrix and Hellboy both feature these type of characters.

Also, in many urban comedies, whites are portrayed as exaggeratedly nerdy, tense, rich, unstylish suburbanites, whose "butts are real tight when they walk." The trend is often cited as having began with Eddie Murphy's experimentation with Whiteface.

Conversely, whites are portrayed as white trash on certain occasions, in movies like Gummo and The Heart is Deceitful above All Things. Or sometimes they are portrayed as hopelessly typical people, such as in Can't Hardly Wait.

Good and bad whites (in various different media genres), are often separated through color-coded iconography, such as by means of their eye, hair and skin color and/or their clothing wear. Good whites are mostly visually depicted as being lighter, while bad whites are mainly portrayed as looking darker, in reference to some or all of the prior factors.

When interacting with non-white individuals (of the opposite sex):

In many Westerns (for example), the white male explorer is represented as having to guard himself against the "temptations" of the "black woman abroad," i.e. the supposed dangers and allures of "darkness". The "white woman at home" on the other hand, is a symbol of the safety of what is known and familiar. For the white male, a partnership with the latter is also a way to avoid any kind of interracial relationship with the former, that would especially result with "mixed" children and thus supposedly degrade his "bodily spirit" to that of "earthly matter".

The white female on the other hand, is at times depicted as being able to exercise power over both non-white men and women. Because of the "privilege" of her whiteness, she may become the "civilizing center" of a narrative, but only in the absence of her white male counterpart. Such representations are most common within individual European colonial texts. Dyer, Richard. "The Matter of Whiteness." Routledge 1997: 17, 29, 35-36.

However, one could also argue that white characters and personalities are represented as "... individual and/or endlessly diverse, complex and changing" within the North American media. Dyer, Richard. "The Matter of Whiteness." Routledge 1997: 12. The same can't be said said for non-white individuals, who are mostly portrayed through a limited scope i.e. as objects that are oppressed, amusing, sexual and/or dangerous. Razack, Sherene H. "Looking White People in the Eye." University of Toronto Press: 3-4, 6. Furthermore, in Western/North American media based representation, "... [w]hite [people] are overwhelmingly and disproportionately predominant, have the central and elaborated roles, and above all are placed as the norm, the ordinary, the standard." Dyer, Richard. "The Matter of Whiteness." Routledge 1997: 3.

\"Mixed\" people

Examples

A sample list of films with racial clichés

Racial clichés refer to the certain recognizable patterns onscreen which have been consistently identified by viewers as being negative towards non-whites. Racial clichés are considered offensive towards non-whites and have been said to be responsible for influencing society's broad perception towards non-whites negatively and subconsciously. For example, a racial cliché that has been identified by the public is when a non-white character predictably dies, or is associated with drugs, criminal tendencies, hostile behavior, or at least gets the lower end of the bargain in comparison to white characters. Likewise, if non-white characters do play protagonists in storylines, they often team up with a white protagonist (making non-whites appear inferior and unable to solve challenges by themselves).

Below is a sample list of films which have been identified as carrying racial clichés:

Taye Diggs plays the antagonist and is the only black character in the story. Unlike the white character in this movie, he is unable to overcome the evils of his surroundings and is killed. The main protagonists are played by Vin Diesel (multi-racial actor) and Paul Walker (white actor). Rick Yune (Asian actor) plays the villain who leads a corrupt Asian street gang. Ultimately, Paul Walker's character defeats them all. A black police officer (played by Danny Glover) and his white partner (played by Mel Gibson) together overcome the villain, an Asian martial arts expert (played by Jet Li). In the final fight scene, the black officer is knocked unconscious; the white officer ultimately kills the villain. A black police officer (played by Danny Glover) and his white partner (played by Mel Gibson) together overcome the villain, a white South African diplomat (played by Joss Ackland). In the final fight scene, the white officer is shot; the black officer ultimately kills the villain. There are many more movies with good black guys and bad white guys. Jake Hoyt, a white police recruit (played by Ethan Hawke), prevails over Alonzo Harris, a corrupt black officer (played by Denzel Washington). In this film, the U.S. special forces team is composed of many non-white characters. The villains are non-white as well (the lead villain is portrayed by a Briton and a suicide bomber by a Hispanic). Halle Berry is the non-white female who finds herself caught up in the hostile situation. Oliver Platt is also cast in the movie as a white male hero. In the end, the white protagonist played by Kurt Russell saves the day and wins the heart of the non-white female. Although [John Leguizamo] (Latino actor) plays a major role in this film, the fate of the plane (and all the passengers) is truly in the hands of the characters belonging to Kurt Russell and Oliver Platt. Beatrix Kiddo (played by Uma Thurman) is a white female protagonist who kills scores of Asian men. She also kills a hostile black female (played by Vivica A. Fox), a Eurasian female villain, and ultimately an Asian female villain (played by Lucy Liu). Tia Carrere is the Asian female character who is the love interest of the white male protagonist, played by Dolph Lundgren. The main villain in this movie is an Asian male, played by Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa. Most of the Asian men in this film are villains as well (many of them get killed off as expendable extras). Brandon Lee plays the good Asian male sidekick (support role) to Dolph's character. Lee's character and Carrere's character almost never interact in this film, although it could be speculated that they would have made a better romantic pair. Instead, however, this movie follows the repetitive white male/Asian female hook-up. Many pornographic websites feature interracial content. A number of porn sites feature black males with females of different races, white males with females of different races, and Asian males with females of different races. Since most Latina porn sites include American Indians (Mexican Indians) under the category of Latinas, there is a great deal of cross-connection between Latina and American Indian porn sites. There are relatively few Middle Eastern porn sites. Most gay and transgender porn sites are not interracially themed, but feature a huge amount of interracial content. In gay and transgender porn, Asians, whites, and blacks play the roles of top and bottom, but mostly blacks are top in transgender porn.

When the term "interracial porn" is used as a category within the industry, it usually consists of black men having sex with white women. Websites which feature Asian men with women of other races also use the term "interracial porn".

Criticism

The difficulty in defining stereotypes are that any character in a movie is necessarily a simplified version of a real person. Extroplating from movie and TV characters to general media stereotypes therefore is open to limitless theorizing and manipulation. In other words, someone wishing to show that Asian females are portrayed largely as "submissive" will be contradicted by the "Dragon lady" stereotyped mentioned above, or by countless other Asian female "stereotypes". This begs the question, if there are so many contradictory characterizations around, do any dominant stereotypes actually exist, or is there sufficient multiplicity to portray human complexity and to accommodate human variation.

Counter-criticism

Admittedly, the same multiplicity is not observed for Asian men, whose disturbing stereotypes are seldom contested by alternative, positive characterizations. Few realistic characterizations exist to contradict it, where "realistic" discounts the figment of the martial arts hero that is more readily ascribed to a fantastical world.

These stereotypes are held by many Asian American men (AAM) to have the malicious effect of setting them back in an unfathomable range of social domains, including work relations, schools, intimate relations and the service industry, in which indisputable trends and mounting anecdotal accounts of racial prejudice point to racial stereotypes. With reference to the markedly low incidence of interracial dating involving AAM and white women [link] [link], it is thought that white American women have been suggestible to these stereotypes and thereby deterred in having relations with AAM. A similar line of reasoning exists in relation to the phenomenal rate of out-dating among Asian American women, in particular to white American men. This is thought to affirm the privileging of the dominant in-group, concomitant to the preclusion of AAM via processes of media representation.

See also

References

 

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