A(sian)venger

Link to my work: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OnKyWBNMifueXcq7WzVXdLvhltqlcuS9/view?usp=sharing

 

My final project aims to show the misrepresentation and lack of representation of Asians
in Hollywood movies and raises many of its toxic effects on Asians’ lives.
“Asianvengers” is a remix of multiple Western movies and series that I consider to have
limited and somehow fallacious portrayals of Asians.

Being born and raised in a Southeast Asian country, I fell in love with my people’s
intelligence, dignity, and all other endless beautiful traits. I admire my people, who
constantly inspire and amaze me every day since I was a little kid. However, while I have
watched hundreds of Hollywood movies growing up, I find it baffling how few the
number of Asian characters there are that I can look up to on the silver screen. As I
reflect on some of the Asian characters that I have seen in movies, I realize they are all
depicted in certain ways that are extremely narrow and exaggerated. While there exist
some impressive Asian roles played by the legendary Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan who
make use of their exceptional martial arts skills and acting skills, the rest are easily
unadorned and unmemorable: either the characters are built in a weird and cringy way or
they are associated with unvirtuous work and personalities. Therefore, to sarcastically
display how Hollywood fails people of my race, I gather some of the Asian persona in
some movies that I know to make a compilation proving how all of them are built to
share some fixed characteristics and how that affects how viewers perceive those roles.

On the one hand, Asians are portrayed to be mischievous, treacherous, and sneaky. I
present these traits through the classic examples of Dr. Fu Manchu and the cat twins Si
and Am from the movie “Lady and the Tramp”. Dr. Fu Manchu is a notorious Chinese
supervillain in the series of English novels by Sax Rohmera, whose ultimate goal is to
destroy Western democracy, while Si and Am are the Siamese cat twins, who are
animated to have “slanted–eyes, buck teeth, and thick accent” that resemble the physical
features of Asians, often wreak havoc and cause problems for the dogs and the owners in
the movie. These characters are only a couple of examples amongst hundreds of other
Asian characters in Western media that possess sly and conniving personalities. Those
decades–long portrayals create an impression for viewers that Asians are always the bad
guys who are willy and deceitful.

On the other hand, Asians are oftentimes associated with being super smart and
sometimes too smart that they become nerdy, shy, and lack social skills. These qualities
can be found in characters Bruce from “Get Smart”, Lilly from “Pitch Perfect” series,
Rajesh from “The Big Bang Theory”, and Peik Lin Goh from “Crazy Rich Asian”. These
characters are smart, and studious but are portrayed to behave in a cringy way, who are
either sheepish, timid, or talk and act without common sense because they are nerdy and
have no social skills. These characters, again, cast stereotypes on Asians as being
intelligent and gifted; therefore, people subconsciously expect all Asians to be
accomplished and brilliant, leading to toxic cultural norms and standards for Asians and
accidentally putting more social pressure on them to be excellent.

Additionally, Asian women are frequently hypersexualized through Hollywood movies. I
take the twins Fook Mi and Fook Yu from “Austin Powers in Goldmember” and the
remarkable Anna–May Wong the examples of this situation. The names of the twins
speak for it all, being a typical example of how Asian figures are used to make cheap
comedy in movies. Moreover, they are indicated to give Austin “a good massage”, and
this is only one case among hundreds of movies where Asian women are linked with
sexual work, ranging from the Asian sex worker appearing in “Full Metal Jacket” to the
“feminine, shy, fragile, subservient, and sexually submissive” Asian woman in “Madame
Butterfly”. For Anna–May Wong, she was the first Chinese-American actress to appear in
a Hollywood movie, who soon realized she was typecasted into roles of a concubine, or a
weak lover of a white man, and started to fight back for what she deserved more. The list
of movies where Asian women are attached to sexual aspects goes on and on, which
undoubtedly instills a long–lasting misperception of Asian women in viewers.

Asianvenger is a remix poster from the movie “Avengers: Endgame” and many other
movies from Hollywood. I chose “Avengers: Endgame” to be the layout of my poster for
a couple of reasons. First, the poster of the movie features a lot of characters which
makes it convenient for me to edit other Asian characters’ faces into the poster. Second
and most important, “Avengers: Endgame” is a superhero movie, whose protagonists
possess power and all the good qualities such as being heroic, sacrificial, courageous,
compassionate, and determined. They are hailed and admired by viewers for their
exaggerated strength and superior impact on the world. They fight bad guys and they are
cool. I find the number of Asian characters that are built with characters like these
aforementioned are very few, namely Shang–Chi and Mulan, roles played by Jackie Chan
and Bruce Lee. As I want to show the Asian misrepresentation ironically, so I decided to
put all the badly represented Asian characters to replace the highly regarded heroes from
“Avengers: Endgame”, creating a whole new movie of “Asianvenger” where all the
heroes are Asians. I intentionally left Thanos–the villain in the original movie to stay the
same on the poster because at first, I wanted to find a white Western protagonist who is
portrayed badly to make my work more ironic as it can juxtapose with the Asian figures
that are always poorly presented. However, it became even more ironic because I could
not find a white protagonist who was depicted in a silly and inadequate way. It highlights
the racism that Asians suffer in the Hollywood industry and the favor for other roles
against Asian ones.

My project employs critique in a way that it does not evaluate whether the representation
of Asians in Hollywood movies is bad or good, but rather simply analyzing and proving
the long history of Hollywood that lacks representation of Asian roles, acting as food for
thought for viewers about the impacts the situation poses on cultural beliefs, stereotypes,
and Asians’ lives. Though I borrow a lot of material and characters from other movies, I
believe my work is still original because I alter and remix a lot of details from the
original works, and my project has a clear purpose of academically showcasing the
misrepresentation of Asians in Hollywood movies, not for commercial purpose and
compete with the original work. The act of remixing all the characters from various
movies to put into my fictional poster helps my work become more critical because they
all become evidence to support my argument that Hollywood misrepresents Asian
characters. Also, the way I use my personal identity as an Asian to add to the essence of
my work makes it more critically assessed because the work is inspired by real events
and individual experiences. I hope all of the analysis mentioned before can act as a way
for readers to think about how they have been fed the wrongful media coverage of Asians
and from then, think about the cultural impact of the situation if everyone around them
has the same inaccurate idea for Asians because of those movies.