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Why I'm Sometimes
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I actually looked forward to The Fast and the Furious despite my aversion to action flicks. I wanted to see an attractive Asian American guy in a big role even if he was the bad guy again. I left the theater disappointed that he was an incompetent bad guy with a minor role. In a way it was even more insulting than the overtly racist stereotypes. Hollywood seemed to be saying that a small crappy role like that was enough of a bone to toss the Asian American population. [CONTINUED BELOW]
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Why should I care what the media does? I asked myself, taking a deep breath. I know that there are attractive intelligent non-FOB Asian Americans out there. But I couldn't help the anger that was building. It became a personal vendetta to prove the white folks wrong. I became more self-conscious. I paid closer attention to the image I projected and the way I acted. I would defy stereotypes and become a crusader against all the unfair images the white media had imposed on the Asian race. God knows how many other ticked-off Asian Americans feel the same.
I became aloof toward white men who showed interest in me — ascribing to them dirty-old-men assumptions based on my race — and gave encouraging smiles to other Asian Americans. Unfortunately, my cultivated aloofness sometimes spilled over into my relationships. When a friend would ask a perfectly innocent question regarding Asian culture, I sometimes gave them a cold look and answered in an impatient tone. My poor friends. My poor classmates. There was this one kid in middle school. We had nothing in common. He was fat, wore glasses and had a shaky command of the language. Very stereotypical. Though I rarely ever talked to him, I was told that we would make a cute couple. Just to make them squirm, I asked why. The only answer I got was a shrug and maybe a knowing, “You know..." Yes, I did. But I kept pestering them for the reason anyway. Another annoyance was the way people would look for connections, however small, between me and any Asian actor. What really annoyed me was their assumption that they were paying me a compliment. In high school I was running on the track with a pal, nearly blinded by the sweat dripping from my forehead. “You know,” she said, “we really are like Charlie's Angels, except, I think they're all a little prettier than we are, don't you?” I'll admit to being flattered at being compared to a cool sleek fighting machine. But my looks being likened to that of an actress I don't find attractive wasn't flattering. My wide face and wide set eyes were nothing like Lucy Liu's thin face and exaggeratedly slanted eyes. There were other things that bothered me about the comparison. In Charlie's Angels Alex's father is a rich old white man and her boyfriend is an incompetant white guy who doesn't help her move the heavy stuff into her new house. To me it suggests that Asian women belonged to white men. Even my friends fidgeted and giggled nervously when Alex's father turned out to be white. They didn't remark on his ethnicity. College was liberating. At last, a place where good-looking young Asian men and women were everywhere! Kate Hudson wasn't the ideal. Kwan Boa and Kelly Hu were. I was no longer judged by white beauty standards and got my fair share of the good kind of attention from Asian American men. Many fellow students were native-born Americans but were also proudly Asian. They didn't go to embarrassing lengths to be accepted by Whites like some of the bananas in my home town, and they didn't play into Asian stereotypes. They were some of the top hotties on campus. Finally. I was in my element. But had I really escaped the media? It was some time before I could look back and see what the media had done to me, a sweet young defenseless girl. It had made me judge all Asians by a harsh, unfair standard, especially myself. It had made me suspicious and cynical toward Whites, sometimes even snotty and cold. I know now that I paid a high price for choosing to reject the role Hollywood had assigned me. But it sure beats the price of accepting it. |
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