Asian Majority

There has been the resurfacing issue of Asian-Americans not being treated fairly. With these articles, I always find it interesting how non-Asians try to actually defend that people should just suck it up or that other minorities are treated poorly too. Yet, many just can’t relate since they have not felt the brunt of that burden.

I think a recent example is the top 10 report by Steven Colbert: racist video.

I’m disappointed the Steven has a Ching Chong Ding Dong character. Again, if he tried to impersonate Africans, I think the outrage would be much greater. And yet, the general US population lets the Asian character slide.

Just listen to how hard the people in the audience laugh and clapping when either Rush’s or Colbert’s character make fun of Chinese by trying to imitate the language. Now listen again to the audience when Rush imitates his version of “African American”. Much more silent. The right answer? Outrage for both. It’s not entertainment for one and outrage for another.

Bill Hing writes an excellent post about the recent suicide of Private Danny Chen and other atrocities throughout US history in this article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-ong-hing/ching-chong-chinaman-the-_b_1176564.html

After spending a few months living in China, I know that many of the stereotypes that Americans think of the country are not true. Even as one who prides myself on being as understanding as possible, it is impossible to know what to expect until you get there. I stayed mainly in major cities, so that in itself is exposing myself only to a sub-culture within China as you would expect if you only went to major cities in the US but none of the small towns.

Anyhow, there is a lot more order than I remembered yet a lot more chaos too. There are a lot more liberties there which is probably due to not having the same sort of litigious society. You want to jump on the ice on a lake at a tourist location? The guard didn’t stop people even with the signs that forbade it. You fall through the ice? Well, you’ve been warned. Don’t think you can sue for your own actions.

You want to drive your scooter on the sidewalk? No rules against that. But, on the highest level of expression, it does get trickier. Yet, day to day people are actually very nice people, but the power holders are the ones who are limiting what can and can not be shown and said as seen in this article.

There is a breakout hit TV show in China called “If You Are the One” which is a sort of dating show which is considered racy by standards of Chinese TV. Note that I say Chinese TV and not Chinese culture. In many ways, US is a lot more repressed except for in the media. One is not necessarily better than the other, but we are not as different as people would have you believe.

At the end of the day, I see that change is coming. As Americans, we believe it should just happen immediately and quickly, but given the nature of the number of people, how people have grown up, the need for a smooth transition, I don’t think a country like China can do that without a phased approach. I think that is what we are seeing.

Now there still may be some things the government does that are not ideal, but change is coming. Change is happening. I really hope some of the more negative practices disappear as well.

Article about If You are the One: NYT Article

For those who have been following, we are big fans of Harry Shum, Jr, and the positive role model he provides in the huge hit show Glee. After not much of a story line since the whole conflict with his father surfaced, we were happy to see that it was finally revisited. This gave him some more screen time and some singing lines as well. It would have been nice if they allowed him to flex his dance muscles more though it’s tough when he’s part of a bigger number to get a lot of solo dance time.

In the end though, the story line was dissatisfying unfortunately. Rather than stretching it out a bit and developing the story more as they have with other characters. Yet this one ends very abruptly with the father turning around 180 with little struggle or explanation. So, although grateful for the story line, it would have been nice to have more attention on it. It was more of a “let’s get this story over with so we can focus on others.”

On that front though, I must say that aside from the “positive” stereotype that Asians are smart and good at math, people should start thinking that Asians are great dancers as well. When you look at other shows such as America’s Best Dance Crew, a lot of the champions have been all Asian or have Asians on the crew.

This got us thinking about what other “positive” stereotypes there are. Here is a partial list:
- Smart
- Great dancers
- Successful
- Great with cars (?…the fast and furious types are considered cool by many)
- Good at playing pool
- Good at poker

Maybe others? Sorry if this last list annoys people, but I’ll take some positive stereotyping to get off the negative first. It is of course best to have accurate presentation. One step at a time.

Glee continues to break down so many traditional media barriers. The amount of time devoted to Kurt who is a gay character is quite a bit for a network show, but in media, there have been a lot of shows with gay characters. One area that is SLOWLY coming down is the Asian American male.

With the recent Glee show titled Asian F, the spotlight is shifting onto other characters. In this case, Harry Shum Jr who is getting his story line developed after being picked up as a regular. Congrats! For those who don’t know, Asian F is an A-. Haha. I laughed out loud when I was watching the show. It’s a stereotype not true of all Asian Americans so please don’t misunderstand if you are naive to such things, but it does definitely exist as well. We can’t wait to watch the story unfold even further and having positive presentation of Asian males too. Dare we even say as a sex symbol?

GQ magazine seems to be agreeing with it. Harry is now featured modeling some clothes and with an interview in GQ. See Harry here: GQ Magazine.

On another note, dance crews have really helped the Asian image too showing that Asians can be CRAZY skilled dancers and some of the best. I have been listening way too much to LMFAO’s dance track Party Rock Anthem in which Quest Crew, most well known for winning America’s Best Dance Crew season 3, choreographed.

Harry Shum Jr: thank you for being another Asian American role model. I touched upon him briefly in another Glee post, but let’s get a bit deeper into his profile. Let’s start with his most visible role to date which is his character in Glee.

In the hit Fox show Glee, Harry Shum Jr plays the role of Michael Chang who doesn’t have as much time singing, but he is definitely the go-to guy when it comes to dancing. These days, the Asian American male being strictly a nerdy dork is probably waning due to shows such as America’s Best Dance Crew which have many Asian males in the best if not the winning crews. When it comes to sitcoms and movies portraying this, it’s starting to come around though having a major character representation isn’t exactly there.

Even within Glee, he is not a major character though he is starting to get some more screen time, and things may be changing for Harry soon! E!Online has reported that Harry Shum Jr will get a promotion to be a regular character next season! You can read the article via the link at the bottom of the article though the funny thing is that the picture in the article includes the character played by Chord Overstreet when he isn’t mentioned at all. I don’t want to read into it too much though I do wonder if some foolish editor thought it would be too hard to feature an Asian male alone?

So how did Harry get to this spot? He was born to Chinese parents in Costa Rica and lived there for about 5-6 years before heading off to San Francisco. It wasn’t until high school that Harry started dancing when he tried out for the dance team on a dare! This grew into choreography and soon the jocks and football players started joining the dance team. Sound a bit like Glee?

This parlayed into other opportunities including being the silhouette dancer in iPod commercials…for about a dozen of them! He was also fortunate enough to dance with Beyonce and J. Lo. Add onto that a few dance movies, and his recent venture into an online dancing show called LXD (The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers) on Hulu, and you can see the talent and success he has had. Let’s hope for more to come and others to follow his lead.

One interesting thing to note from his Yellow Magazine article is that even though his parents weren’t thrilled, they supported him in his decision. Good thing for us!

E!Online Article
Vanity Fair interview with Harry
Article and for the ladies, it includes a shirtless picture of Harry in Yellow Magazine

Glee is one of the hottest tv shows out today blending catchy songs with all the fun high school drama that many of us can relate to. With a cast of multiple characters, there are many that we can relate to or even ones that we wish we were. We are quite pleased with how Glee is portraying Asian Americans along with breaking many other barriers.

Most noticeably, they are providing a strong character who is homosexual in a way that I can’t remember from other TV shows though I’m sure there are many I haven’t seen. Since this is a blog about Asians in the media though, I will switch attention to that. I’m really pleased that they haven’t gone the typical Hollywood way and made the Asian American male the homosexual (see Entourage).

Harry Shum, Jr., who we will delve into more later, is one of the characters who is starting to get a few more lines and TV time on Glee, but he is portrayed in a more balanced way than most Asian characters. In fact, I would say that it is in a much stronger way than typically done. He is a member of the football team. He has been shown as a sex symbol with his abs. He is an amazing dancer. Chalk one up for an Asian American role model.

Last week’s episode “Never Been Kissed” (Season 2, episode 6) depicted a rival school Glee group which included a homosexual who again is not Asian. That rival school though did have other Asian American males within the group, and in one scene it was mentioned that he had a girlfriend (as did the African American in the scene).

Congrats Glee on the success so far and for bringing out positive role models. I did wonder about the character of Tina who has a last name Cohen-Chang. I wonder if they’re going to explain that one at some point. Will Glee dare to have an Asian American male dating a non-Asian or even marrying a non-Asian? Maybe her parents were divorced and her father married a non-Asian? Or is she half-Asian in the series though she is not in real-life? Let the stories continue.

Visit the Glee web site

Fans, as a follow up to the latest post, please tune in to watch Far East Movement on a new show on Fuse called A Different Spin with Mark Hoppus! Details are below:

A Different Spin with Mark Hoppus with a musical performance from Far East Movement

Thursday, Oct. 28, 7/6C

On a new episode of A Different Spin with Mark Hoppus, L.A. electro-dance-rap group, Far East Movement, is this week’s musical guest! And, rock band Atomic Bomb sits down with Mark.

Tune in this Thursday, 10/28 at 7/6C on Fuse!

I must admit that I’m not the biggest fan of reality TV. I find the characters often irk me, and I know that it’s all really a show and not much of it is reality. I know people just need to suspend disbelief and just laugh at the characters. Reality has been having a good run actually. Remember the paranormal hype back when X-Files was big?

Anyhow, getting back on track here. Apparently reality shows are doing a great job with representing minorities much more than regular TV programming. An example of this includes CBS’ Amazing Race that has an Asian brother and sister team. If you recall a few seasons back, an Asian American actually won survivor too! This is the only area where Hollywood has done a good job but regular sitcoms need to learn from their example. This will likely draw more viewers if there is more diversification in a cast.

Of course, the reason for such mixes is potentially the explosiveness that can erupt from misunderstandings and differences with each other. This may not be a purposeful attempt to provide more diversity. I’m glad that there is more exposure though as it forces it more into the consciousness of people. Hopefully this can lead to major roles on sitcoms for minorities as well.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-et-realitytv17-2009feb17,0,3817230.story

You would think that people would learn lessons from others. Hollywood in the past wouldn’t hire African American actors but are now making a fortune off of many of them. So…don’t exclude other races, especially when some roles are actually meant for them such as Asian Americans!

So the latest blunder has to do with the animated cartoon “Avatar: the last airbender” which aired on Nickelodean. This hit show in itself did actually provide a platform for Asians to see an Asian-inspired show with Asian-inspired themes and characters. The success inspired a live-action movie.

Dig in a little deeper and that’s where it starts to go bad. The cartoon itself was created by two Caucasians which is ok, but I wonder if two Asian Americans pitched the same idea that it would have launched. Maybe that’s too much speculation, but the outrage is that the new cast of unknowns are all Caucasians too! This is ridiculous given the themes and content of the cartoon.

We’re making some inroads, but obviously not quick enough.

Story here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/01/28/apop012809.DTL

A recent episode of Desperate Housewives had a racial slur by remarking about fake Philippine medical diplomas. In order to make restitution for their actions which drew outcry from the Asian population, they will hire Filipino on-camera as well as behind-camera personnel. They will even include stories and dialog highlighting contributions that Filipino Americans have made in the US.

Although you never want to see racial slurs being made on a TV, especially a popular one, this is quite an amazing reaction. Steve McPherson, president of ABC primetime entertainment, even met with Filipino community leaders and even suggested a plotline for “Boston Legal” incorporating a Filipino American lawyer. A diversity policy will also be implemented.

I definitely applaud ABC for the actions that they state they will be making. Whether they follow through is yet to be seen especially with the writers’ strike that could delay things. Yet, this is better than weak apologies or ignoring the protests.

But, I don’t watch the show so hopefully someone else can fill me in.

Here’s a TV news bit about the issue:

An article here: http://www.philippinenews.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=c3aeee02b4e4ee4291fe69b4da872211