Since the beginning of the silk trade, the idea of an exotic East has left an impression on the West that is still active in Western society. The West’s romanticism of the East has created a stereotype that is based on racist ignorance that ignores the realities of the culture. Eastern Asian women, in particular, are victims to not only racial prejudice, but to constant sexualization as their role is perceived only by their stereotypes in the eyes of non-Asian men. This stereotype is based off the idea of a docile and timid, yet erotic, Asian women; which further dehumanizes them. However, due to the increased activity in social reforms, Asian women are speaking out against their fetishization. By revealing the realities of Eastern society through visual culture, they are rebelling against their sexualized roles. In my essay, I will be discussing the ways in which Asian women are challenging their stereotypes as well as discussing their success, or lack thereof, in changing the views of Western visual culture.

Asians are often regarded as the ‘other’ by many non-Asians as their status is constantly seen as “forever foreign”. Identified by Mia Tuan (1998), this term applies to Asian-Americans as they will always be identified as a foreigner in America despite their generational status and cultural practices. Moreover, the discrimination faced by Asians often lead others to fetishizing them due to this misconception. Beginning with Chinoiserie— the European imitation of Chinese aesthetic— to yellow fever, these discriminations have forced Asians to solely be represented by their stereotypes as their identity (Tuan, 1998). Despite being conceived in a Western environment, stereotypes like cheap, smart, and un-athletic— as well as other negative assumptions— have hurt Asians through their prejudice. However, Asian women are the main victims of these stereotypes as they face sexism and racialization in their everyday lives. From porn to Hollywood movies, stereotypes of Asian women through these visual representations have created a fetishization that affects their own representation. The fetishization of Asian women, also called yellow fever, has created a hypersexualized and exoticized image of them.

This practice began after the first Opium War in 1842. Eastern countries— like China, Japan, and Korea— were used by the Western countries as port cities for trade. Due to the sexualized portrayal of Geishas in Japan, this image began to be directed to all Asian women. Furthermore, when American soldiers in World War one began to interact with Japanese women, they were only in contact with service girls like geishas and prostitutes (Chang, 2006). This encounter solidified the American impression of an Asian woman; erotic and seductive, yet obedient— which encourages the soldiers to objectify them. These depictions began to come up through popular media in America that reinforce the sexualization of Asian women to the public. Babysan, a comic created by American artist Bill Hume in the 1950’s, was an early example as it shows a Japanese woman who embodies an exotic persona of someone who’s also docile and naive. By seducing men while still being passive and shy, Babysan embodies the perfect Asian women to the American man as she’s not afraid to flirt and let the men go back to their wives. These media representations of a docile yet sexual young Asian women through the idea of “China Doll” has set false expectations to non-Asian men. Also known as “Lotus Flower” or “Geisha Girl”, this stereotype only show the individual as an erotic accessory to the man. Common in most female roles, the feminist film critic Laura Mulvey (1999), coined the term male gaze to show how women are depicted as an object by a heterosexual masculine male. One of the most well known Asian female characters under the male gaze is Cio Cio-san from the famous opera, Madame Butterfly. Cio Cio-san represent an Oriental women waiting for her American lover to return to her, which continues to show a tragic heroine waiting for her White male counterpart (Chang, 2006). This representation is further illustrated in modern mass media despite the increased number of Asian immigrants. In porn, especially, “Asian” is one of the most searched terms as Asian pornstars portray the “China doll” persona to create the ideal Asian fantasy for men.

By doing so, men began to adapt these representations into real life situations, which results in a sexist and racist mentality. Based on evidence that was collected from the popular dating website, okcupid, by sociologist Kevin Lewis— it shows that Asian women were more likely to be messaged by white men than men of other non-Asian and Asian heritage (Chang, 2006). Debbie Lum takes a look at this Asian fetish through her documentary Seeking Asian Female as Lum follows a 60-year old man called Steve who begins a relationship based off of his fantasies with a Chinese women. Even though men like Steve openly seek out these types of relationships, young Asian girls are endangering their own idea of self through being constantly fetishized by men like Steve. Observed by Stacey J.Lee and Sabina Vaught (2003), young Asian women in America reject their Asian culture and Americanize themselves to be part of the majority, which is white and middle class. By looking at case studies focused on two groups of Asian women, Lee and Vaught recognized that the fetishization of men caused the women to become their stereotypes (Lee and Vaught, 2003). It is important to show true Asian representation in visual culture and challenge the Asian female stereotypes due to this. 

Due to the rise of social justice and counter hegemonic movements, there have been many Asian women breaking out of their role by creating more discussions against their fetishization through visual culture. Instead of accepting their role as a China doll, they are escaping that role to show another truth to their identity. By doing so, they challenge the idea that Asian women are not defined by their stereotypes, but by their own individuality. As the internet allows for more discussions, Asian women, or women in general, are able to have a platform to show their discriminations. A good example of this is from a Tumblr blog that criticize the constant sexual comments made by White men to Asian women. By presenting their comments to shame them, the blog called Creepy White Guys, creates a safe place for Asian women to show their day-to-day harassments on the website by acknowledging and slandering the harassers. Even on Youtube, channels like BuzzFeed and Anna Akana use their platforms to entertain their audience through their own characters. Unlike Hollywood movies and other media, these creators attract their viewers through their own video contents and not through their stereotypes. However, there are actresses that don’t conform to the Asian stereotypes like Sandra Oh, who plays Cristina Yang, an independent female doctor on Grey’s Anatomy, is a great example as her character breaking the Asian female stereotype through critiquing the existing status quo. Oh’s character is explored in the TV series as a complex character with depth, which separates her from other Asian characters in popular media. This is incredibly important as it shows that mainstream media is finally becoming more racially conscious in how they portray Asian characters, especially women. Art, also, allows women to freely challenge their representation through their work; whether it’s through photography or illustrations. 23-year-old photographer, Elizabeth Gabrielle Lee, is one of the many artist who creates a different perspective and narrative against the stereotypes associated with Asian women. XING—  a photobook curated to break the idea of an meek Asian women— create a satirized version of the fetish for Asian women (Baritaux, 2017). In a more comedic way, Donna Choi confronts the yellow fever through satirical illustrations by showing how to identify casual racism from Western men (Mirk, 2013). As new discussions about Asian representation is created through constant dialogue, visual culture stimulate this by creating a new perspective of looking to these representation.

The notion of an exotic Eastern Asian women is slowly changing as visual media is challenging the role to create a more humane representation for Asian women. Although yellow fever and Asian porn videos still exist, those ideas are slowly changing. It is important to be represented truthfully in visual culture as it changes the mentality of how other see Asian women and how Asian women see themselves. Seen from Lee and Vaught’s case study, young Asian women rejected their culture due to racialization and began to identify with themselves as American. This rejection of culture signify how important it is to be correctly represented in society. Due to this, the idea of challenging stereotypes allows more discussion to be raised to stop racialized stereotypes. 

Bibliography 

Baritaux, Zio. “These Surreal Portraits Confront the Fetishization of Asian Women.” I-d, 21 Sept. 2017, i-d.vice.com/en_us/article/pakgxv/these-dreamy-portraits-confront-the-fetishization-of-asian-women.

Chang, Maggie. “Made in the USA: Rewriting Images of the Asian Fetish.” University of Pennsylvania , 4 Jan. 2006.

Lee, Stacey J., and Sabina Vaught. “‘You Can Never Be Too Rich or Too Thin’: Popular and Consumer Culture and the Americanization of Asian American Girls and Young Women.” The Journal of Negro Education, vol. 72, no. 4, 2003, p. 457., doi:10.2307/3211196.

Mirk, Sarah. “Artist Takes on the Casual Racism of ‘Yellow Fever’ in Eight Images.” Bitch Media, 25 Nov. 2013, 4:55pm, www.bitchmedia.org/post/artist-takes-on-the-casual-racism-of-“yellow-fever”-in-eight-images.

Tuan, Mia. Forever Foreigners or Honorary Whites?: the Asian Ethnic Experience Today. Rutgers University, 1998.