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ASIAMS.NET |
ASIAN AMERICAN ISSUES
Kristin Kreuk: Next Asian American Beauty?
t isn't a question of droolworthiness. Her looks are dazzling enough to have locked up a lead role in each of her first three auditions, including the title role in an upcoming TV movie. It's more a question of whether most of us would identify hazel-eyed Smallville heartthrob Lana Lang as a fellow Asian.
Kristin Laura Kreuk was born to a Chinese mother and a Dutch father on December 30, 1982. She grew up in Vancouver, Canada. Kreuk, 5-4, had decided to go to college to study forensic pathology until, in her senior year, her drama teacher suggested she go to an audition for a new Fox Family series called Edgement. She was promptly plucked out of the open audition to play a Chinese Canadian high scool student named Laurel Yeung. Even as she won fans in the role, she landed the Lana Lang role for WB's dramatization of Superboy's life as Clark Kent, then the role of Snow White in the ABC TV movie set for release in 2002. Kreuk's star-quality was obvious to all who tuned in for Smallville's premiere last October. Some even proclaimed her the show's main attraction.
But many Asian American viewers didn't even suspect Kreuk's Asian ancestry. Even those who learned of her mother's nationality questioned whether she can be claimed by Asian Americans. Without an Asian surname or obvious Asian facial features, they argue, Kreuk's success would do nothing for the image of Asians in the American media. Others might argue that most African American stars are, in fact, only fractionally of African descent.
Should we claim Kristin Kreuk and other hapas like her as Asian American celebrities? Or should that designation be reserved for those with a more obviously Asian identity?
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WHAT YOU SAY
[This page is closed to new input. --Ed.]
(Updated
Tuesday, Apr 1, 2008, 06:00:08 PM)
to SC: hapa means mixed (person of asian and other race decent). usually it means asian+whitem though not always.
To GK: really now. u dotn have to insult ppl in order to defend ur point. i agree with ur opinion but NOT with this
"the mold is pretty disgusting... the asians we see on screen are cross eyes, short"
are u suggesting that short ppl r disgusting???? that is so insulting and mean. u also degraded cross-eyes ppl.
lilywater47
Monday, June 03, 2002 at 18:55:39 (PDT)
to disturbed:
u speak eloquently and justly. i completely agree. the asian community is too wrapped up in their notions of race to see pre-existing role models. they disregard kristin and others because of their narrow-mindedness. thanks for ur comment.
to kin lee: i agree. most biracial ppl r arent so caught up in the whole race factor. ur so right! less asian is still asian. u cant just decide for them what they wan to be defined as. thnx for ur comment too! it makes more sense then everyone's combined.
lilywater47
Sunday, June 02, 2002 at 22:22:03 (PDT)
"Due to the fact that she is was born in CANADA, not America, is enough for her to be disqualified from being a so-called "Asian American"."
That is nit-picking and you know it. Does it matter? No. She is North American, in Western society, and that is all that is important.
"Rereading the argument, simply because she does not look blatantly asian or hold an asian sounding last name has legions of a celebrity starved ethnic community in a riot. Yes, there are too few Asians in the media, but there are some emerging, if one would find it."
You would argue that she is already inordinately successful, and that she is not in fact "emerging"? Please. Also your arguments (particularly your first sentence) do not make sense. Look, as what too many people call an "over-represented minority," most Asian-Americans (!) take what they can get. It seems as if you are a member of a "celebrity starved [sic] ethnic community in a riot" (at least, that's coming from my best interpretation of what you wrote). Just because some people make a fuss about her being hapa does not change the fact that overall there is support for her from the Asian community.
"The fact that there should be a seperate category of acceptance of promotional totem-like celebrities within any community ... [blah blah blah] ... That is the tragedy."
This is incoherent garbage. Entertainment might be called "shallow" and "narrow," but that mainly only applies to entertainment for the masses such as television and cinema, precisely the areas where Asian exposure is the least and where the cultural influence on society is the greatest. You don't see the black community shying away from using race and discrimination to their advantage in the media and entertainment. Look at the Oscars, where _everyone_ made a fuss about both Denzel Washington and Halle Berry winning, let alone them plus Will Smith being nominated. Yes, there is more to them than their ethnicity. But so there is to all the Asians trying to break through. The only way anyone will realize that is if we give them the support to succeed.
Racial equality anywhere isn't going to come about from spurning opportunities. Obviously a forum like this one is a discussion that aims to go beyond mere "automatic" support for an Asian actress.
The most disturbing thing to me IMO is your lack of reading comprehension.
comedy
Sunday, June 02, 2002 at 20:46:51 (PDT)
." If the Asian American, Canadian, Brazilian, or whatever, community cannot learn to appreciate all the different types of people who could possibly align themselves as such, as well as continue to fruitlessly mine the rather shallow and narrow field of entertainment for its role models and celebrities rather then find more deserving ones on other areas and professions, the outlook looks bleak for any real power or influence from the asian side, political, cultural or otherwise. That is the tragedy.
disturbed "
I totally agree. that' how peope should see more asians onscreen and tvs. Variety is about asian, white, hispanic, black...not just about white and mixed people. The field of entertainment is already shallow and narrow cos it feature all the time certain archetypes of face. that's why people need to see new things. the mold is pretty disgusting... the asians we see on screen are cross eyes,short,. or the asians are hapas. that's why we need to break this stereotype because there seem to be only 2 types of asians in western media. asian people has a various look to them. not a questin about finding more deserving ones but asian image should be more varied. the same with black. How many nonmixed blacks were rejected cos they are deemed less attractive than mixed blacks? that's pretty disgusting cos the mixed ones were considered more deserving. That's my point here. Asians and blacks should have their places too. and no i don't think hapa are esthetically superior to white or asian.
Kin Lee: no i didn't say hapa are not asian. they're def. asian...
gk
Sunday, June 02, 2002 at 12:27:27 (PDT)
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