![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/wrt118st-fa23\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/991\/2023\/12\/Screenshot-2023-12-14-at-4.30.08\u202fPM-201x300.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Link to my work: https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/1OnKyWBNMifueXcq7WzVXdLvhltqlcuS9\/view?usp=sharing<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
My final project aims to show the misrepresentation and lack of representation of Asians
\nin Hollywood movies and raises many of its toxic effects on Asians\u2019 lives.
\n\u201cAsianvengers\u201d is a remix of multiple Western movies and series that I consider to have
\nlimited and somehow fallacious portrayals of Asians.<\/p>\n
Being born and raised in a Southeast Asian country, I fell in love with my people’s
\nintelligence, dignity, and all other endless beautiful traits. I admire my people, who
\nconstantly inspire and amaze me every day since I was a little kid. However, while I have
\nwatched hundreds of Hollywood movies growing up, I find it baffling how few the
\nnumber of Asian characters there are that I can look up to on the silver screen. As I
\nreflect on some of the Asian characters that I have seen in movies, I realize they are all
\ndepicted in certain ways that are extremely narrow and exaggerated. While there exist
\nsome impressive Asian roles played by the legendary Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan who
\nmake use of their exceptional martial arts skills and acting skills, the rest are easily
\nunadorned and unmemorable: either the characters are built in a weird and cringy way or
\nthey are associated with unvirtuous work and personalities. Therefore, to sarcastically
\ndisplay how Hollywood fails people of my race, I gather some of the Asian persona in
\nsome movies that I know to make a compilation proving how all of them are built to
\nshare some fixed characteristics and how that affects how viewers perceive those roles.<\/p>\n
On the one hand, Asians are portrayed to be mischievous, treacherous, and sneaky. I
\npresent these traits through the classic examples of Dr. Fu Manchu and the cat twins Si
\nand Am from the movie \u201cLady and the Tramp\u201d. Dr. Fu Manchu is a notorious Chinese
\nsupervillain in the series of English novels by Sax Rohmera, whose ultimate goal is to
\ndestroy Western democracy, while Si and Am are the Siamese cat twins, who are
\nanimated to have \u201cslanted\u2013eyes, buck teeth, and thick accent\u201d that resemble the physical
\nfeatures of Asians, often wreak havoc and cause problems for the dogs and the owners in
\nthe movie. These characters are only a couple of examples amongst hundreds of other
\nAsian characters in Western media that possess sly and conniving personalities. Those
\ndecades\u2013long portrayals create an impression for viewers that Asians are always the bad
\nguys who are willy and deceitful.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, Asians are oftentimes associated with being super smart and
\nsometimes too smart that they become nerdy, shy, and lack social skills. These qualities
\ncan be found in characters Bruce from \u201cGet Smart”, Lilly from \u201cPitch Perfect” series,
\nRajesh from \u201cThe Big Bang Theory”, and Peik Lin Goh from \u201cCrazy Rich Asian”. These
\ncharacters are smart, and studious but are portrayed to behave in a cringy way, who are
\neither sheepish, timid, or talk and act without common sense because they are nerdy and
\nhave no social skills. These characters, again, cast stereotypes on Asians as being
\nintelligent and gifted; therefore, people subconsciously expect all Asians to be
\naccomplished and brilliant, leading to toxic cultural norms and standards for Asians and
\naccidentally putting more social pressure on them to be excellent.<\/p>\n
Additionally, Asian women are frequently hypersexualized through Hollywood movies. I
\ntake the twins Fook Mi and Fook Yu from \u201cAustin Powers in Goldmember” and the
\nremarkable Anna\u2013May Wong the examples of this situation. The names of the twins
\nspeak for it all, being a typical example of how Asian figures are used to make cheap
\ncomedy in movies. Moreover, they are indicated to give Austin \u201ca good massage”, and
\nthis is only one case among hundreds of movies where Asian women are linked with
\nsexual work, ranging from the Asian sex worker appearing in \u201cFull Metal Jacket” to the
\n\u201cfeminine, shy, fragile, subservient, and sexually submissive\u201d Asian woman in \u201cMadame
\nButterfly”. For Anna\u2013May Wong, she was the first Chinese-American actress to appear in
\na Hollywood movie, who soon realized she was typecasted into roles of a concubine, or a
\nweak lover of a white man, and started to fight back for what she deserved more. The list
\nof movies where Asian women are attached to sexual aspects goes on and on, which
\nundoubtedly instills a long\u2013lasting misperception of Asian women in viewers.<\/p>\n
Asianvenger is a remix poster from the movie \u201cAvengers: Endgame\u201d and many other
\nmovies from Hollywood. I chose \u201cAvengers: Endgame\u201d to be the layout of my poster for
\na couple of reasons. First, the poster of the movie features a lot of characters which
\nmakes it convenient for me to edit other Asian characters\u2019 faces into the poster. Second
\nand most important, \u201cAvengers: Endgame\u201d is a superhero movie, whose protagonists
\npossess power and all the good qualities such as being heroic, sacrificial, courageous,
\ncompassionate, and determined. They are hailed and admired by viewers for their
\nexaggerated strength and superior impact on the world. They fight bad guys and they are
\ncool. I find the number of Asian characters that are built with characters like these
\naforementioned are very few, namely Shang\u2013Chi and Mulan, roles played by Jackie Chan
\nand Bruce Lee. As I want to show the Asian misrepresentation ironically, so I decided to
\nput all the badly represented Asian characters to replace the highly regarded heroes from
\n\u201cAvengers: Endgame\u201d, creating a whole new movie of \u201cAsianvenger” where all the
\nheroes are Asians. I intentionally left Thanos\u2013the villain in the original movie to stay the
\nsame on the poster because at first, I wanted to find a white Western protagonist who is
\nportrayed badly to make my work more ironic as it can juxtapose with the Asian figures
\nthat are always poorly presented. However, it became even more ironic because I could
\nnot find a white protagonist who was depicted in a silly and inadequate way. It highlights
\nthe racism that Asians suffer in the Hollywood industry and the favor for other roles
\nagainst Asian ones.<\/p>\n
My project employs critique in a way that it does not evaluate whether the representation
\nof Asians in Hollywood movies is bad or good, but rather simply analyzing and proving
\nthe long history of Hollywood that lacks representation of Asian roles, acting as food for
\nthought for viewers about the impacts the situation poses on cultural beliefs, stereotypes,
\nand Asians’ lives. Though I borrow a lot of material and characters from other movies, I
\nbelieve my work is still original because I alter and remix a lot of details from the
\noriginal works, and my project has a clear purpose of academically showcasing the
\nmisrepresentation of Asians in Hollywood movies, not for commercial purpose and
\ncompete with the original work. The act of remixing all the characters from various
\nmovies to put into my fictional poster helps my work become more critical because they
\nall become evidence to support my argument that Hollywood misrepresents Asian
\ncharacters. Also, the way I use my personal identity as an Asian to add to the essence of
\nmy work makes it more critically assessed because the work is inspired by real events
\nand individual experiences. I hope all of the analysis mentioned before can act as a way
\nfor readers to think about how they have been fed the wrongful media coverage of Asians
\nand from then, think about the cultural impact of the situation if everyone around them
\nhas the same inaccurate idea for Asians because of those movies.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"