Author Archives: Isabelle Pearson

1. On the chapter “Miracle” from her book I’m the One That I Want, Margaret Cho describes how the toxic environment surrounding her character on her show All-American Girl led to dangerous consequences for her health. As Cho says herself, “having so much body shame and all the cultural baggage surrounding it, it’s no wonder that I felt I had no other option” (p.119).
2. Cho begins the chapter by describing how momentous it felt to be chosen as the star of a sitcom featuring the first Asian-American family on television, even though that sitcom became something distorted and fake. The weight of this task became apparent as Cho attended executive meetings about how they would do it, but she “thought they knew what they were doing” (p.106). She then describes the experience of being told by the producers that she would need to lose weight for the role, citing the “roundness of her face” as their primary concern. Even in the book, Cho asserts that it was not anyone’s fault but her own for the self-hatred and detrimental thoughts that resulted from this request saying “but it isn’t their fault, I told myself then. It is mine. I let myself react that way” (p.108). I think it’s very interesting how Cho still struggles to accept that every adult who had a hand in letting her physically self-destruct should take blame for her health problems that resulted. They all absolutely should have known better and should have protected Cho who was clearly “terrified of losing the show and everything I had worked for” (p.112). She does not lay the blame purely on the executives however, and also gives credit to her cultural background for her image issues. Cho describes how her weight was a constant point of conversation, to the point where she had to cut off family members for her own mental health to avoid constantly talking about it.
3. Cho uses some unique terminology to support her claims. For example, while examining how Korean culture played a part in her destructive behavior she asks why they “cannibalize our own as ‘different’, ‘imperfect’, ‘fat’?” (p.118). The use of the word cannibalize really drives home how much this culture of driving for perfection can destroy someone like Cho, whose toxic dieting really did force her body to eat itself alive and shut down.
4. The themes in this chapter are very reminiscent of the “Letter to My Sister” that we read early on in class. The constant expectations to meet a certain beauty ideal, to “fix” herself by avoiding her natural features are parallel to the struggles described in the letter. Whether it be through plastic surgery or extreme diet and exercise, both women went crazy trying to be what they were constantly told was perfect, instead of realizing that it was an incorrect definition.

1. In this article, Shilpa Dave explains how brown voice, as displayed by the character Apu from the Simpsons, has been used to distinguish South Asians from the Asian American experience, sometimes to their benefit and sometimes to keep them from every advancing as a cultural group.
2. To support their thesis, Dave cites the episode Much Apu about Nothing in which he uses stereotypical American iconography to attempt to prove his right to citizenship in the town. Dave points out that this episode is only humorous because the audience watching this character attempting to become what he pictures as American, can never be a true cultural citizen. They also explain how brown voice inherently separates Indian Americans not only as a ‘model minority’ but as a ‘privileged minority’ as Indian English is relatively easy to understand and more socially accepted. However, this privilege has frozen South Asians in their place, and has created an identity so distinctive that it has been difficult for them to advance mass media’s perception beyond the stereotype. They explain, “The constant performance of brown voice therefore establishes one sound and one image for South Asians in the cultural imagination and hence freezes the perception of the group in a static definition” (p.318)
3. The beginning of the article centers around the concept of a “brown voice”, especially as it is portrayed by the white actor who voices the character of Apu. Dave states that this distinctive voice is used to identify “a specific racializing trait among South Asians which simultaneously connotes foreignness and class and cultural privilege” (p.314). They continue to say that this voice is used to group and generalize an entire group of people, and forces their image to remain stagnant, regardless of cultural progress. As stated about, they also use the term “cultural citizenship” to describe the desire for immigrants to be culturally accepted and seen as truly ‘American’. However, this goal is something pushed on them by American society and can affect their rights beyond culture should they choose to not follow.
4. The phenomenon Dave described of Indian Americans not fitting into any one racial category during times of segregation reminded me of The Forbidden City film we watched where the performers challenged racial lines when they travelled through the South. It proves the ridiculous notion of segregation that people from India or China can both be classified as ‘Asian’ however in a court case Indian Americans were determined to be ‘colored’ while the Chinese American performers said they were frequently able to use the white facilities without being questioned too much.

1. In “Of Myths and Men”, Margaret Hillenbrand makes a few major observations about the relationship between Asian American cinema and mainstream entertainment. Using the movie Better Luck Tomorrow as an example, she explains how the desire t produce “socially committed filmmaking” and something marketable creates a “tension between ethnic conscience and the mainstream” (p.51).
2. She supports thus thesis by citing multiple works that failed to meet the expectations of representing Asian Americans while still being palatable to the mainstream. Her biggest example Better Luck Tomorrow contains multiple cases in which the desires to meet the mainstream and possibly even parody it distracts from being able to directly dispute stereotypes. However it does take a step in the right direction by using that parody to draw attention to those who “prefer ethnicity to be served up straight and stereotyped” (p.66). In contrast to this, she cites the movie Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle as one of the few movies that explores the introduction of Asian American masculinity to the mainstream in a healthy way. Although the movie doesn’t exactly portray it’s main characters as ideal members of society, it is a good example of a character whose Asian heritage is an integral part of their persona, however it is not the only thing that defines them. It “no longer needs to fail in its grab on mainstream cinematic genre, nor, for that matter, to tread carefully around the minefield of race relations for fear of looking too ethnic” (p.70). Hillenbrand commends this unlikely step in the right direction that “displays a throw away attitude to prejudice that is ultimately far more disarming” than anything that had tried to fight stereotypes before. (p.71)
3. Hillenbrand introduces quite a few term to explain phenomena. “Socially committed filmmaking” as mentioned previously describes a genre of film that feels a responsibility of “refuting, denying or rejecting stereotypes”(p.60) especially when depicting Asian American men. However this tends to restrict the creativity of the filmmakers and produces a work only marketable to a specific audience. As the author states, “the people whom it most naturally reaches are those those are least in need of the education it provides” (p.54) She also uses the concept of a “hyphenated identity” to explore the mainstream media’s inclination to show Asian American as either entirely Asian (like Mei Li) or fully American (like Linda Low). This allows them to ignore the “uncomfortable reality” of explaining the inbetween that most Asian Americans live in (p.53). Finally, Hillenbrand takes a deep look into “masculinity” and how it relates to the way Asian American men are shown (and sometimes not shown at all) in film and television. She explains how they have been somewhat ignored by media other than perpetuation the “good/bad Asian” myth for movies like Mean Girls and Better Luck Tomorrow. 
4. Although this article was written semi-recently in 2008, it would be interesting to see how Hillenbrand reacts to modern media like Fresh Off the Boat and Crazy Rich Asians. Although both of them have really relied on their all Asian casts as major marketing points, they also attempt to comment on the Asian American experience while molding to the sitcom and romantic formulas. Would hillenbrand also praise these as helpful or would she refute the use of White American modes to be palatable to the mainstream?

Robert G. Lee makes a series of important arguments in his work “Asian Americans in Popular Culture” however the common thread running through them is his assertion that the model minority myth was constructed in direct retaliation to the Civil Rights movement and this image was carefully constructed by white America to keep Asian Americans “politically silent and ethnically assimilable.”

He supports this thesis with evidence from a US News article that read, “At a time when it is being proposed that hundreds of billions be spent on uplifting Negroes and other minorities, the nation’s 300,000 Chinese Americans are moving ahead on their own with no help from anyone else.” (p.151) Not only did this vilify the African American community by painting them as needy, it backed Asian Americans into a corner. They could no longer ask for help from the government now that they had a reputation of self-starting to uphold. Not only that but the government had also made it very clear in the Cold War era that it had the military power to incarcerate entire ethnic groups and would use that power if necessary. The threat of social and political rejection kept the Asian American community quiet, allowing the model minority myth to continue to be played out.

The image of Asian Americans was also carefully controlled in media, where the overtly sexualized Asian woman was repeatedly shown as docile and subservient, something to be protected not feared. This stereotype is shown in Sayonara, which features the War Bride character who is saved by the White American Soldier. Lee explains how these films not only follow the Pocahontas narrative, which classifies women as a commodity to be won rather than individuals, it also creates the dangerous notion that “unlike the men who struggle over the meaning of tradition, the women use it or ignore it as it suits their purpose.” (p.178) Thus suggesting that to truly assimilate, the ethnic minority must abandon tradition for the sake of the “modern”.

This argument is very much still prevalent today, as the model minority myth holds strong in America, especially in schools. The vicious cycle of high expectations for and within the Asian American community remains a political tool in the world of Affirmative Action and admissions expectations that I learned about in Writing 39C. Many of the students in my class had come from Asian countries and described their experience of having to work twice as hard as their non-Asian counterparts while still not being accepted into the same schools based purely on their race and the demographic requirements of the universities. This raises the question of whether stereotypes that have been formulated and perpetuated for decades can ever truly be eradicated, and what steps are needed in order to do so.