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The Pros And Cons Of Asian-Americans

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Many Top Charts movies have spectacular main actors. Although these actors are very talented, were any of the main actors Asian-Americans? There has been a controversy whether or not Asian-Americans are in enough movies or TV shows. In the 2015-2016 season, only 3%-4% of Asian characters made it. Of the Top 100 films of 2015, 49 had no Asian characters and 0 had leading roles that went to Asians (Levin). Asian’s are discriminated in entertainment industries by rarely becoming the main roles, are whitewashed, and play similar types of characters in movies/TV shows.

Asian-Americans can be discriminated in entertainment industries because they rarely become the main roles on movies or TV series. They have many chanced to audition to become the main roles, but some things happen making them become more of a lead role or lower. Sam Levin, a reporter for the Guardian US in San Francisco, implies that, “Okatsuka said she had also lost lead Asian roles to mixed-race women who looked much more white. The message she received was: ‘You’re more fitting for this more soft-hearted, kind, kimono-wearing friend of the lead”’ (Levin). Okatsuka finally had her chance to become the lead role, not even a main one and still got it taken for someone whiter. She wasn’t even able to get the main role and came so close to getting lead roles but have lost them for the similar reasons as before. It is hard for Asian-Americans to get main or lead roles. When they can’t seem to be able to do it they
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There are popular shows with good South Asian representation like “The Mindy Project” and “Pitch Perfect.” There was also a “Totally Biased studio audience a few days before the premiere of the ‘The Mindy Project.’” The irony of the way “The Mindy Project” was presented is to show how drastic the change of finally having more representation has affected South Asians. The misrepresentation of South Asians often leads to bullying; they get called slurs or mocked through Apu. The effects of being stereotyped are real and have consequences for the people being oppressed, not the ones doing the oppression, and it is unfair.

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His argument clearly states that African Americans are playing more roles in Hollywood blockbusters as mentors or in this case “god like” for the main characters. However, many of the roles played by African Americans are that of mentors and are not receiving the proper applause they should be receiving. Matt Seitz presents great material in his article that doesn’t sound bias and enough information to make him credible. Interesting enough, Matt Seitz isn’t biased in his argument. This is because he defends the saying “Magical Negro”, a politically incorrect term from Spike Lee (Seitz).

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But with the immigrant population at such a high percentage compared to previous years, there is still a lack of recognition. There is a lack of representation in everything from politics to film. From classic Hollywood films to movies being produced now, there is lack of color. If someone of color were to be casted, they would only play as a character that are based off stereotypes. There are a films that try to move away from stereotypes, but in Hollywood films they usually tend not to.

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he past 40 years have witnessed an increase of Asian athletes in American sports. In addition to their low population, earlier Asians lived in an era when racial discrimination and oppression impeded their access into sports (Zhao & Park, 2013). Asians had been discriminated against since the arrival of Chinese immigrants as cheap labor for the railroad and mining industries during the mid-1800s. This discrimination became more obvious during World War II when thousands of mostly Japanese Americans were forced out of their properties, separated from family and friends, and placed in internment camps. There they were subject to horrific living conditions, extreme deprivation and brutality.

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This resulted in Asian Americans being labelled as the model minority as a minority group was able to be somewhat

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Minorities in sitcoms were less portrayed in contrast to an accurate representation of the time period. Ironically, minorities in sitcoms were not always represented by minority actors and actresses. Sometimes makeup was used on a white actor so he could portray an African man. It was not until the 1950’s when African Americans were shown on television. African Americans were often portrayed as crooked people with poor English and less education.

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In turn, it can result in limited opportunities for several ethnicities, specifically minorities, and be cause for type casting. Type casting is casting an actor for the same types of roles continuously because of their appearance. Personally, I’ve never felt like I was stuck in this so called “box”, mainly because I didn’t allow my appearance and ethnicity to define me or dictate the roles I took. Have you ever filled out an application or form asking for your race

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In chapter three of The Hypersexulaity of Race: Performing Asian/ American Women on Screen and Scene, Celine Parreñas Shimizu explains the historical and performative impacts of stereotypical oriental femininity in Hollywood. She presents her argument by analyzing the movie stars, Anna May Wong, Nancy Kwan, and Lucy Liu. Importantly, Shimizu goes beyond simply pointing out the issue of stereotypical representations and delves into analyzing the roles and responsibilities of the viewers and performers within representation. To begin, Shimizu directly addresses how hyper-sexuality has been tied to Asian/ American women with countless examples from the acting careers of Wong, Kwan, and Liu. An example is The World of Suzie Wong (1960).

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Stereotypes are making it hard for women of color to be seen in a positive light on and off the screen. For example, Tichina Arnold who is Rochelle from Everybody Hates Chris, plays a mother who is short-tempered, strict, and loud but successfully runs the household on a tight budget. Rochelle fits the stereotype that black woman are ghetto, angry, loud, obnoxious, strict, and humorous. Rochelle expresses these qualities repeatedly throughout the show but mostly when is disciplining her children. Not only does she fall into the typical black mother punishment style, but she falls into the welfare receiving black mom category.

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For example, there is a group of alien women that are trying to get the Continuum Transfunctioner and they form a vee shape with five women. In the middle, you have a white woman. In the back-left, there is a black women. And in the middle of the right side, there is an Asian follower along with white women everywhere else. Even though minorities are almost always in the background, it’s quite intriguing that they are some of the only characters that have legitimate

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However, using stereotypes in movies is common in the film industry. In "Where the fierce Asians at?", David Yi mentioned how a comedian's jobs which "illicit laughter”, even using stereotypes to make the humor sense (Yi 1). However, while audiences happy by jokes on the screen, "dozens of Asian-Americans sitting in public, misty-eyed” (Yi 2). Back to the year 1994, the sitcom "All-American Girl" finally has an Asian female character played by an Asian cast. It attracts a lot of audiences who curious about the American-Asian lifestyle.

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Asian culture is extremely beautiful and diverse; it deserves to be portrayed as such. Hollywood’s constant use of typecasting in it’s films contributes and reinforces stereotypes and racial biases towards the Asian American community. Historically, Hollywood does not have a very good track record of being kind to actors of color. The use of black and yellow face was quite popular in the early 20th century to portray people of color as unflattering.

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Diversity in Hollywood includes more than race and more than acting. There is little diversity not only in front of the camera but behind the scenes too. Likely hood of seeing a nonwhite cast or set of directors is low since the industry is own by Caucasians. Hollywood cast their movies base on their liking. Which they would cast an all Caucasian cast instead of being diverse.

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Is the integrity of race sacrificed in order to obtain these large audience ratings? Original author of the book, Eddie Huang seems to think so as he expresses his worry to journalist McDonald, “The network's approach was to tell a universal, ambiguous, cornstarch story about Asian-Americans resembling moo goo gai pan written by a Persian-American who cut her teeth on race relations writing for Seth MacFarlane” (1). Huang’s main concern is in what he calls “reverse yellow face” meaning the portrayal of white ideals and values through asian actors. This was clearly seen with Margaret Cho as she faced this issue in her 1994 sitcom called All-American Girl (Jones, 1). However, what these two shows are going through are not the same.

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Some may argue that Hollywood directors and writers should not be burdened with the responsibility of avoiding the stereotyping of racial characters. However, these stereotypes poorly represent the traditions of ethnic groups, send out harmful messages to children (who are easily influenced by movies), and give very little opportunity to talented actors/actresses who are judged more on their race than their talent. By casting ethnically-accurate actors/actresses for characters, Hollywood directors and writers can help increase the racial diversity of actors/actresses in the movie industry. By casting different races in movies, a cycle can be created where Hollywood directors and writers can discover more talented and ethnically diverse actors/actresses to play future roles and increase the cultural accuracy in

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