How the Media's Depiction of Asian Women Harms Them
With news of the shootings in Georgia targeting Asian massage parlors, it’s time to look at how media, particularly Hollywood, has perpetuated harmful stereotypes of Asian women.
Yesterday, on March 16, a man targeted Asian massage parlors in the Atlanta area in a shooting rampage. Eight people were killed, six of whom were Asian and seven who were women. The news media is already giving the killer a platform to explain his motivations, and the narrative of whether these murders qualify as the obvious hate crime that they are is unfortunately likely to ring out in the press for months. The type of racism and xenophobia that leads to violence against Asian women specifically is very normalized, and unexamined. It’s important that we understand the roots of this issue, and how deeply embedded they are in our culture. Unsurprisingly, Hollywood has a lot to do with perpetuating it.
Historically, Hollywood’s portrayal of marginalized people is almost always rooted in a complex mess of reductive stereotypes, caricatures, and misinformation, reflecting a hard truth about America and its legacy of racism. Sometimes, this manifests as “harmless jokes” like heavily accented speech or making Asian women’s genitalia a punchline. More often, they perpetuate dangerous stereotypes of Asian women as exotic beings who are either hyper-sexualized temptresses or submissive and lack any agency. These stereotypes have reverberated through our culture for decades, leaving harmful effects.
This hyper-sexualized narrative leads to sexual objectification and violence. A 2016 report by the National Network to End Domestic Violence states that “the everyday racism and sexism against Asian women yields deadly results, as this dehumanization creates a climate that makes violence excusable.” The NNEDV also found that 41 to 61 percent of Asian women reported experiencing physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime, a higher rate than any other ethnic group.
Yet, these harmful stereotypes are still commonplace in modern media to this day. Unfortunately, this is far from a comprehensive list, and we haven’t begun to touch on the similarly shameful representation of Asian men in media, but keep reading for some examples of how media’s portrayal of Asian women harm them.
Piccadilly, 1929
Anna May Wong stars as Shosho, a Chinese dishwasher turned dance sensation at a London nightclub. It’s an early example of Hollywood’s portrayal of Asian women as hyper-sexualized beings. Shosho becomes the target of the proprietor’s lust, disrupting both his relationship with another dancer and her own with her boyfriend. She ends up getting murdered.
Full Metal Jacket, 1987
In a scene of Stanley Kubrick’s film about the Vietnam war, an Asian woman is portrayed propositioning two American soldiers in broken English. It reinforces a stereotype of Southeast Asian women as sex workers and ushered in problematic phrases like “me so horny” and “me love you long time” into the American vernacular.
Austin Powers in Goldmember, 2002
The third installment in the Austin Powers series featured a pair of Asian actresses playing heavily caricatured Japanese twins who seduce Powers. After a series of sexually charged jokes involving their names, the twins offer Powers a “top secret massage.” He then checks off “threesome with Japanese twins” off his ‘To Do’ list. Kourtney Kardashian revived the character as her costume for Halloween in 2018.
Mean Girls, 2002
Tina Fey has a history of racial insensitivity when it comes to the depiction of Asian people, and the much-beloved ‘Mean Girls’ is no exception. Trang Pak, leader of the Asian clique, has little significance other than being a horned up underage girl who has a clandestine affair with Coach Carr, an older white male.
Amy Schumer: Mostly Sex Stuff, 2012
Who doesn’t love a sex joke when it’s something everyone can relate to? It becomes a problem though, when those jokes target people of color specifically. In a 2012 stand up special, Schumer mocked Asian women and perpetuated several unfounded stereotypes, ending with one that reduce them to their genitalia, saying they have “the smallest vaginas in the game.” Comedy Central even used a clip featuring a shortened version of the “joke” as a promo for the special. The “joke” can be heard in full on our Instagram post.
Kung Fu Vagina, 2021
The opening image of the video, featuring a stereotypical “Wonton font” typeface.
Vagina egg proprietress Kim Anami’s music video parody of ‘Kung Fu Fighting’ went viral for all the wrong reasons. On top of the reductive stereotypes, one line of the song pokes fun at Thai women’s vaginas, calling them “funky.” Along with myths of tighter vaginas and sideways vaginas, the jab is just one of the many punchlines Asian women have endured.
These examples are all abhorrent enough on their own, but even more so when you take into account that these attitudes have spurned larger violence.