SPEECH

Geeks with weirdly big buck teeth, Nerds with square glasses, Asian neighbors who speak with a thick heavy accent, people with names like Ching Chang or Chang Ching. Seriously, can we come up with more creative names? Obedient teenage girls, Tiger moms, and Madame Butterfly. You might be wondering what these are? These are the stereotypes of Asians that we have seen in numerous movies, TV shows, and other forms of media for a long time. As an Asian girl, I have always wondered where these stereotypes came from. Watching these movies and other media certainly answered my wonder and broke my heart simultaneously. Seeing awful crimes and discriminations towards Asians leads to the question of if there is any connection between stereotypes created by the media and hatred towards Asians. This paper focuses on finding the connection between the media's ways of creating stereotypes and how these created stereotypes affect people’s feelings and misconceptions towards Asians.

Stereotypes that the media have created have worsened the misconceptions and stereotypes towards Asians in real life. For instance, when I first arrived in the United States of America, the first words I heard were “Ching Chong” or “Mulan” or Asian restaurant chopstick girl. I was only thirteen years old. Scholar Maya McGowan has claimed that “Similarly, the usage of the word, doll, implies features of beauty, smallness, and fragility and in using this term reduces women to these characteristics. It implies stereotypes of how Asian American women should look a certain way and act a certain way, implicating them as mere breakable objects” (6). We should acknowledge that these stereotypes have made people look at Asians with certain stereotypical images with jaundiced eyes.

One of the main reasons that created misconceptions and worsened this destructive cycle of the media industry is the exclusion of Asians in the movie industry as they continue to create prejudices. Scholar Joann Lee argues that Asians should be able to show who they indeed are by breaking constructed stereotypes. “All the actors talked about the need to develop their need to develop their ways to showcase their abilities as well for control and power, because they feel the opportunities to do big roles are very limited in film and television” (182). Lee adds on to her previous opinion by claiming that the film industry is definitely making progress but still in need for advancement as, “tend towards repeated characterizations such as villains, gangsters, and immigrants or filler roles such as professional, or sidekicks to the leading role. Asian-specific roles are fine, the actors say. But there is too little opportunity to go beyond that” (82).

The main point and question here are, how does the media's misconception of Asians affect peoples' thoughts, feelings, and understandings towards Asians? The answer is the media’s false representation of Asian race groups and negative stereotypes created have led to hatred and negative feelings towards Asians causing the extent of violence and racism. Scholar Mariana Fang claims, “The characters often amplified insidious tropes, like the ways Asian Americans are seen as perpetual foreigners, reinforced by movies in which characters speak with exaggerated Asian accents or are portrayed as not understanding English” (Fang). Her argument shows the media’s way of portraying misconceptions creates the image of exclusion towards the Asian people and the foreigners. Fang adds that on “‘Many of the films featured “violence, death, and disparagement’ of API characters, which is particularly alarming in a time when Asian Americans are facing a surge in racist violence”, alarming on how the violent treatments Asians receive on-screen affects people off-screen too, causing problems. 

When I first arrived in a foreign country, I was extremely embarrassed about my race due to the portrayals in the media. I was extremely embarrassed to just mention the movies that Asian actors were starring in with a cringy, crackly accent and voice in Hollywood movies that I hated going to the theatres with my friends at first. I was extremely embarrassed to even speak out loud since I was scared that I might sound like those weirdly portrayed Asian people in movies.  I tried desperately to avoid those stereotypes the media and movies had created by playing as many sports, arts, extracurricular activities as if I was trying to say I am not a Kung Fu girl and I can speak proper English. However, now I decided to stand and speak up about this long-lasting problem and bring awareness of how the media affects peoples’ minds and plant negative feelings towards Asians by giving wrong images and prejudices.

Bibliography

 Lee, Joann. “Asian American Actors in Film, Television and Theater, An Ethnographic Case 

Study.” Race, Gender & Class, vol. 8, no. 4, 2001, pp. 176–184. JSTOR, Accessed 24 

Sept, 2021.

Fang, Marina. “ Hollywood Movies Continue To Perpetuate Harmful Asian Stereotypes.” Huff 

Post, May 18, 2021. 

McGowan, Maya."Shattered Dolls: An Examination of Authorship and the Boundaries of 

Female Asian Stereotypes in Western Theatrical Literature and Film". Honors Projects. 

23,2020.