Today's
topic is about how Western society views Asian men. If you are an Asian
man, please share your thoughts. Since neither of us are Asian men, we
would love to hear your perspectives!
While
he is, of course, not the only person to comment on this fact, NBA
superstar Jeremy Lin put into words a noticeable phenomenon among
mixed-race heterosexual couples:
"A
lot of times we have Asian girls go for non-Asian guys but you don't
see a lot of the opposite," Lin said in an interview for New York Daily
News. "You don't see a lot of the opposite, you don't see a lot of
non-Asian girls go for Asian guys."
Jeremy
Lin in right. While Asian female/non-Asian male couples are extremely
common, it is rare to see an Asian male/non-Asian female couple. In
fact, multiple studies conducted based on data collected from online
dating websites has revealed that Asian men score far lower than Black,
White, Latino or men of other ethnicities when it comes to desirability.
In short, females (and gay men included in the studies) of all
ethnicities, including Asian, are less likely to choose Asian men than
any other.
To
give an example of how this looks in everyday life, the following is an
incident that happened when I was an undergraduate university student. I
can't even call it an incident because it was such a normal occurrence,
but it serves to demonstrate the attitude that, unfortunately, is held
by a majority of Western women.
She
didn't stop to think about it. She's didn't assess his appearance and
give her evaluation. She just labeled him "Asian" and therefore took him
off the table as being a sexually-desirable option to her or her
friend. Things like this happen every day.
Comedian
Steve Harvey made a joke on his talk show last year that brought
attention to a little-known book titled, "How to Date a White Woman: A
Practical Guide for Asian Men."
While
everyone agreed that the book itself was quite ridiculous, Harvey's
tasteless joke inspired the righteous anger of many people. It brought
to light the undeniable fact that, in Western culture, the majority does
not see Asian men as attractive sexual options.
Chinese-American
food personality Eddie Huang, whose autobiography "Fresh Off the Boat:
A Memoir" became a popular TV show, wrote an article for the New York
Times in response to the incident. The name of the article was: "Hey,
Steve Harvey, Who Says I Might Not Steal Your Girl?"
華裔美國廚師Eddie
Huang以他的回憶錄《初來乍到》著稱，之後它被改編為同名美國情景喜劇，在此事件發生後，他為《紐約時報》寫了一篇文章作為回答，叫做 "Hey,
Steve Harvey, Who Says I Might Not Steal Your Girl?"
（嘿，史蒂夫·哈維，誰說我不能搶你的女友呢？）
In
the article, he wrote, "There are still people who believe Asian men
are inept and undesirable to any women outside their race. Steve Harvey
is one of these people."
Huang's
insightful article taps into the author's own experiences to discuss
the boxes that a predominantly non-Asian society too often puts around
Asian people, and in this case, Asian men.
"No
matter how successful I was, how much self-improvement was made, or how
aware I was that stereotypes are not facts, there were times I
thoroughly believed that no one wanted anything to do with me. I told
myself that it was all a lie, but the structural emasculation of Asian
men in all forms of media became a self-fulfilling prophecy that
produced an actual abhorrence to Asian men in the real world."
So
how did this horribly misguided way of thinking come to be? It's
certainly not because there are no attractive Asian men. (See these nice
men below as proof.)
It
has to do with the standards of what society has decided are
"attractive" traits for men to have. And where did these standards come
from? It's no coincidence that Asian portrayal in Hollywood is as sparse
as the love Asian men seem to be getting from non-Asian women in
Western societies.
Asian
characters comprised less than 6 percent of speaking characters in
Hollywood films from 2007-2016, showed the results of a 2017 study
conducted at the University of California.
When
Asian representation is already so limited, the number of roles showing
an Asian man who fits the characteristics society deems to be desirable
in men- masculine, attractive, strong, heroic yet tender, virile- is an
even smaller percentage of that small percentage. Basically, almost
non-existent.
Fashion
photographer Tony Craig, whose Idris+Tony fashion photography venture
makes a point to feature attractive male Asian models, said of Asian
representation in media:
"Asian
masculinity is stripped away. And the way Asian men are depicted in
popular culture, we're never the object of desire ... we're still very
much 'just a friend."
There
have been efforts in recent years to bring awareness to the issue. One
example is a 2018 calendar "Hotties" calendar featuring only Asian men-
models, actors, professionals, and other men organizer Ada Tseng brought
in to be a part of the project.
Australian
actor Chris Pang, one of the models featured in the calendar, said he
wanted to be part of a project which shows aspects of Asian men that are
too often neglected in media representation, "I just wanted to see
Asian guys represented as being attractive and desirable."
Here are a few of the tropes you may find repeated ad nauseam in film and television:
下面就是一些你可能會在電影電視中曾反覆看到的令人不適的描述：
Hiro, Heroes
Leslie Chow, The Hangover
Long Duk Dong, Sixteen Candles
Han, Two Broke Girls
These
are caricatures; exaggerated one-dimensional figures. All media
exploits stereotypes for entertainment value, but when there is no
balance in media representation between the way people actually are, and
the way they are shaped to be onscreen, society's views of a group of
people become very distorted from reality.
Where
are the "normal" Asian guys? Where are the Asian leading men in
rom-coms? Where are the male Asian superheroes? Where are the Asian guys
who get the girl, who save the day, who ride the white stallion, who
make history, who dress in suits and drive fast cars, who raise their
children, who score the game-winning point, who rescue the citizens from
the burning building, who sing the theme song, who travel to the
future, who sit in the White House?
It
goes without saying that the views discussed in today's article may be
held by a percentage of people, but not every person. However, the fact
that these views are still so prevalent points to some major
shortcomings. What do you think? What would it take to change
perspectives about Asian men in Western society as a whole?
