Yellow Peril: Multimedia Portrayals of Research Paper

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S. Consequent to such episodes, many Americans came to think that Asians are directly destabilizing the American way of life by getting involved and by practically introducing their customs into the country rather than to accept assimilation (Crothers 71).

Although much has changed in recent years concerning how Asians Americans are perceived by the masses, one is still likely to observe numerous Americans having problems refraining from using stereotypes when coming across a person with Asian heritage. The media world is an essential device influencing the masses to adopt discriminatory attitudes toward Asian-Americans. The situation is more delicate in this discussion however, as "when protesting media, Asian-Americans must also challenge the model minority stereotype, both to educate the audience about the problematic nature of such events and simultaneously to break down the model minority stereotype, the submissive and quiet Asian, to mobilize other Asian-Americans" (Ono & Pham 110). Dissecting media stereotypes is a difficult and challenging role.

Many individuals fail to understand that they are actually damaging the image of Asian-Americans when they make what they perceive as being innocent jokes. Asian jokes involving persons posing in Asian characters who are unable to speak English fluently emphasize the idea of otherness associated with Asian people. This supports the belief that all Asians have trouble putting across an idea as a result of their incomprehensible accent. Although jokes appear to be inoffensive in character, the reality is that they can actually influence both the masses and the Asian community feel like Asian-Americans are never going to be able to integrate and that they will always be seen as outsiders (Ono & Pham 110). This is where social media comes into play. As the global network of individuals with "friends" from many different backgrounds comes to expand due to social media, it becomes more apparent that stereotyping is damaging. At the same time, social media has the power to transform stereotypes, by showing Asian-Americans in ways they portray themselves, their families, and their "likes" that are detached from the ways the mainstream media/filmmaking industry has chosen to manufacture such images.

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For instance, throughout cinema and television history, Chinatown neighborhoods are often portrayed as places where drugs, gambling, and killings thrive. One needs only think of the film called Chinatown to realize this fact. This stereotyping about the whole community influences the masses to associate such behavior with Asian-Americans and to those think about the gangster stereotype when coming across a person from this community. Films are especially harmful to the Asian-American community when considering the way that most display Asians. "Asian men are seen as violent, inhuman, property destroyers, and kill mercilessly" (the Typical Asian-American Male). It practically appears that Asians portrayed in motion pictures are rarely honest individuals and that film producers have a tendency to respect generally accepted principles promoting the belief that it would only be natural for an Asian individual to be particularly different from other persons in their movies.

In many films protagonists are shown as white men being heroes while their counterparts are Asian women who are weak and who fall for them. The 1997 James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies is actually focused on a central character played by Pierce Brosnan, and Michelle Yeoh, an Asian female reporter who eventually falls in love with Brosnan after the two start to collaborate on a case. "This scene has been termed the "unmotivated white Asian romance" because the woman easily falls in love with a man because he is white" (the Female Asian-American Stereotype). The image of the female Asian as a reporter is widely promoted throughout the real world, not just in motion pictures. News companies apparently consider that it is profitable for them to provide audiences with a team involving a white male presenter and an Asian female presenter. It is actually very rare to see a news company showing an Asian male anchor and a white female anchor (the Female Asian-American Stereotype).

Even when Asians are portrayed as positive characters, they are mostly shown as nerds or as being proficient in….....

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