Let Us Be Heard

           At the 88th Academy Awards which honored the best movies of 2015, the host Chris Rock challenged the idea of the Oscars being “so white” throughout the night. First, in Rock’s opening monologue, he asked if Hollywood was racist. He believed that it is “but not the racist that you've grown accustomed to. Hollywood is sorority racist. It's like, ‘We like you Ronda, but you’re not a Kappa’”(THR Staff). Later on he brought three young Asian children on stage dressed up in black and white with briefcases to illustrate the Asian model minority and suggesting that they were apart of child labor. Soon after, outraged audience members and celebrities tweeted and posted about how close Rock’s act was between satire and slur.

           During the 1950’s and 1960’s, people were protesting against was on immigration laws and segregation instead of “no black nominees” at award shows and the fact that Asians have only received one percent of all Oscar nominations. This issue has been brought up to the public eye due to police brutality, Black Lives Matter and other minority movements for the past several years. With about 5% Asian Americans, there has not been a single Oscar win obtained by an Asian. This could possibly correlate with high expectations of parents that want to vicariously live the American Dream through their first generation children. Yet there are Asian Americans who do branch off into performing arts that can display stories of their relative’s transition to a new country or their lunchbox moments in grade school on a large screen or the ones in the living room. Once white dominant companies allow Asian American writers to produce their own film and Asian American actors get hired, these small increments of change in the entertainment industry can alter the negative representation of the ethnicity into one that is more sincere and authentic.  

In the American media, Asian are usually displayed in only one way; an intelligent, hard-working and talented student with no social life which the Asian American community no longer wants since there are other characteristics that represent their community. The term “model minority” was coined by William Petersen in 1966 which defines as “people who are succeeding in America despite their status as minorities by working and studying, saving and sacrificing for the future” (Saito 71). The thesis used Asian American as a buffer zone to reinforce the racial, economic and social hierarchies in America which would make one group of people pit against another group and create tension between economic classes and races. Not only that, but it isolates Asian Americans from other minorities. However, the same traits were used for “yellow peril” to contradict “model minority”. Yellow peril was a xenophobic idea which threaten Americans with immigrating Asians during the late nineteenth century. It originated from the time when Chinese workers agreed to work for lower wages compared to the white populations. Examples of the yellow peril in the media include The Purple Heart (1944) with a scene where “Dana Andrews is persecuted at the hands of Chinese governor and faces torture and death” and also in children cartoons such as in a Popeye episode “containing Chinese spies a third of the size of Popeye who change from baby outfits to Communist robes” (Paranguo 6). However, today, Asians are no longer seen as a villain or an enemy because whatever goes on Hollywood screens or televisions at home correlates with the actual events in America and around the world. During 2006-2010, in the population of people of 25 years and over with a bachelor’s degree, 50.2% of those people were Asian alone and obtained a bachelor’s degree or higher (Ogunwole 2). The media shows high standards for Asian Americans to be successful. Character such as Rajesh Koothrapalli in The Big Bang Theory and Kevin Gnapoor from Mean Girls support how the model minority fits in today’s media.

           Due to the increasing use of social media and technology use, Asian American are becoming more vocal by self-producing videos and expressing their opinions. Since Hollywood casting directors and companies limits Asian American’s chances of being behind the screen and on screen, they have used YouTube, a video-sharing website, as a stage for comedians such as “Freddy Wong … to show off their creativity, and for how-to gurus like Michelle Phan to showcase their knowledge about fashion … dance crews, such as Jabbawockeez and Poreotics, and indie music artists, such as David Choi and Kina Grannis” (Guo et al 392). The Asian American community on YouTube has gotten so much attention and completely have risen to popularity that from 2009 to 2011 Ryan Higa, also known by his username ‘nigahiga’ on YouTube, had the most subscribed users with 3 million fans. The channels listed above do what other normal YouTubers, but there are some channels that like to specifically focus on an Asian audience. For example, JustKiddingFilms uploaded a short video in 2012 called “Shit Asian Dads Say” which has 8.4 million views. The co-founder Bart Kwan was able to “define, articulate, and present differences between ostensibly first- and second- generation immigrants, setting apart “FOB” behaviors from those of a younger, more assimilated cohort” (Ho 7). Although his character was not ethnic specific, the target audience was young Asian Americans that would be able to relate and see similarities compared to their elder relatives. In addition to videos altered to the Asian American audience, channels such as WongFu Productions brings up this specific issue. For example, Philip Wang discusses in “ Don’t just TALK about whitewashing” soon after articles written about Tilda Swinston, a white Scottish woman, casted as the Ancient One, a mystical character of Tibetan descent, in Doctor Strange. His main points in the video include how Maggie Q an Lucy Liu cannot continue to fill in roles with Asian descent, Hollywood offers few roles for Asian actors because there are not enough Asian American writers to create roles that are authentic, and the community should be able to help if they want a change instead of complaining about whitewashing.

           It is evident that Asian Americans are misrepresented in the media from monotonous roles based on stereotypes. The way they appear is not necessarily their faults due to Hollywood’s refusal to create jobs for Asian Americans since their main focus is to make money from bankable stars. Because it is difficult to immediately to go straight to the big picture, the Asian American community took small steps by starting on a platform called YouTube. If the Asian American community wishes for a true, authentic story on their screens, then being a part of the entertainment industry should be appreciated.

 Citations

 THR. "Oscars: Read Chris Rock's Opening Monologue." The Hollywood Reporter. N.p., 28 Feb. 2016. Web.

Petersen, William. "Success Story, Japanese-American Style." New York Times Magazine 9 (1966): 20-21.

Natsu Taylor Saito, Model Minority, Yellow Peril: Functions of Foreignness in the Construction of Asian American Legal Identity, 4 AsiaAm. L.J. 71 (1997)

Parungao, Robert. "The Yellow Peril Chinese Representations in Hollywood Films." The Atlas: UBC Undergraduate Journal of World History | 2005 The Yellow Peril (2005): 1-10. Web.

Guo, L., & Lee, L. (2013). The Critique of YouTube-based Vernacular Discourse: A Case Study of YouTube's Asian Community. Critical Studies In Media Communication, 30(5), 391. doi:10.1080/15295036.2012.755048

Ho, Helen K. "Embodying Difference on YouTube: Asian American Identity Work." Defining Identity and the Changing Scope of Culture in the Digital Age (2016): 1.

Ogunwole, Stella U., Malcolm P. Drewery Jr, and Merarys Rios-Vargas. "The population with a bachelor’s degree or higher by race and Hispanic origin: 2006–2010." American Community Survey Briefs (2012).