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Asian Americans in Cinema, \, IMG_0513 - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Home to 15,000 Filipinos
      - Community centers: healthcare, social security, and food programs for the elderly
      - I-Hotel: Shelter for community, particularly the elderly
      - Slow process, with the Four Seasons corporation buying the hotel and countersuits as people were removed from their apartments and eventually evicted from the Hotel
      - Manilatown was destroyed, and the culture was erased. Many of the decisionmakers of the day continued to hold power into the modern day, such as Diane Feinstein.
    - - Class Struggle: Manilatown was not a priority to the city. It was seen as a struggle between the "Wall Street of the West" and a "rat infested street market."
      - Solidarity: Protests came from a broad coalition of groups, including labor organizations, other minorities of color, churches, and the LGBT community.
      - Protests were squashed and ignored, as the police fulfilled their role of upholding capital and suppressing dissent. Clear parallels to protests today and throughout history.
- - - - “The paintings in this gallery indulge in stereotypical fantasies of cultures largely unfamilair to— and often imagined by— the Parisian artists who created them. Made in the wake of France's early nineteenth-century colonialist expansion in the Middle East and North Africa, these works belong to an art movement called orientalism. Though filled with vibrant and alluring colors, such paintings frequently presented an inaccurate and harmful image of people and lands that was characterized by sensuality or violence.
        The vivid color palette and expressive brushwork of orientalist painters such as Eugène Delacroix profoundly influenced young modernist artists, including Auguste Renoir and Henri Matisse.”
      - Orientalism exhibit
        
        Woman of the “Orient” (1837)
        
        Arabs Skirmishing in the Mountains (1863)
        
        The Favorite of the Emir (1879)
        
        Two Studies of a Standing Indian From Calcutta (1823/1824)
  - - - Social Contradiction: The taboos of interracial relationships (Toll of the Sea), the threat of the East (Daughter of the Dragon), threat to whiteness (The Cheat), threat to American workers (Who Killed Vincent Chin), class (The Fall of the I Hotel)…
      - Methods of Resolution: Western domination, mob justice, assimilation, reinforcement of the social order, protection of the white woman/family (yumbol of whiteness)
      - Masking: Messaging through metaphors (rape of the white Woman), stereotypical representations, methods of resolution. While Hollywood films are masked by analysis of style, AA Cinema is almost the opposite, judged on content, not style.
  - - - Li Jun Li in Babylon: Sexualized character, based on Anna May Wong, but she breaks the heteronormative standard through her interactions with Margot Robbie’s Nellie LaRoy. The movie explores the “roaring 20s” of silent film, critiquing the industry and portrating a lively and crazy view of the era that was not shown on its screens and films due to conservative attitudes
      - “bondage of hypersexuality,” “bind of representation” AA women are racialized by “perverse” interiority and vulnerability to oppressive sexual representation
      - Critiques: Asian American woman do not have to accept hypersexuality, other representations exist today
      - “Because the Asian woman cannot be imagined outside of sex, her resistance is also found in sex” (97)
- - - - Ben Manibag: Concerned with college, making the basketball team, and winning Stephanie.
      - Virgil: Smartest kid in school growing up with Ben. The others look down on him, and he appears as a pervert and a hothead.
      - Han Lue: Virgil’s macho cousin, involves the others in petty crime schemes which continue to escalate.
      - Daric: Letters in tennis, runs the school paper, hosts academic decathlon ‘study sessions’ where they drink and smoke.
      - Stephanie: Chinese girl with adopted White parents, gets her Chinese name tattooed —> Struggle with identity
      - Steve: Ben’s rival, drives a BMW, goes to private school, has the girl
      - Despite coming from different countries and ethnicities, their experience is all the same as Asians, recalling Feng
      - Not accepted by white classmates, seen as model minority students, the guys who everyone cheats off of.
    - - Rejection of hypermasculinity: Steve's murder comes at a cost, with Virgil attempting suicide, and the boys are traumatized in their yearbook photos as they graduate
      - Rejection of hypermasculinity: The murder of Steve leaves a dark cloud over their lives
      - Straightjacket Sexualities (Shimizu): AA historically desexualized, negatives stereotypes. Characters attempt to reclaim hypermasculinity through their criminal schemes and sexual competition over Stephanie.
      - Ben and his friends engage in petty crime, fight white students, hire prostitutes
      - Despite his negative actions, Ben gets a chance with Stephanie in the end
        
        Some criticized the negative portrayals of young AAs in the film, while others defended the film and praised its thought provoking nature.
        
        Robert Ebert: “What I find very condescending and offensive about your statement, is nobody would say to a bunch of white filmmakers, 'how could you do this to your people“ https://youtu.be/LSzP9YV3jbc?si=9ggT8NghPsOjes1T
      - Film inspired by real events, criticism of hypermasculinity
    - - Justin Lin: Mainstream director of several Fast and Furious films, along with Sung Kang as Han Lue.
      - John Cho: Star in Harold and Kumar, breaking stereotypes, and starring role in mainstream films and shows many years later. #StarringJohnCho movement criticizing lack of AA representation
  - - - Effeminate Asian American male, introduced doing dishes. Ridiculed by own family, Walt teaches him "how to be a man:
      - Asian Americans embroiled in local gangs: the antagonists ecen sexually assault their own family members
      - AA are in need of saving, AA men as weak
    - - Little direct direction, 50% improv. Hmong tried to tell their own story, lost in incomplete subtitling
      - Negative representations: cultural practices made abnormal, embroiled in gang violence, racist language
      - Grandma: disruptive subtext, histories between Hmong and the Americans, rejection of the films narrative.
  - - - Patriarchy: Grandfather holds power in the family, Women are blamed for divorce while men remarry,
      - Heteronormative standards: Despite knowing the truth, Ma remains in denial and continues trying to set Wil up. Wil tries to conform to expectations, “Saving Face” in the community.
        
        Invisibility of queer Asian Americans: Seen as just friends
        
        Exclusion of queer Asian Americans
      - Generational Cycle: Despute struggling with her father, Ma continues to impose similar restrictions on WIl
      - Need to maintain family’s honor: “my own rotten flesh has gotten pregnant with a husband.” Ma is ostracized for her pregnancy.
      - Ma almost goes through with the wedding, trying to gain her father’s acceptance.
    - - Flushing: Center of Chinese American community. Parties are held in it, and Ma is banished while Wil already lives outside it.
      - Wil responds in English to Chinese, struggle to manage personal identity with traditional expectations
      - Model Minority: Wil and Vivian are high-achieving doctors and dancers, along with prospective husbands introduced by Ma.
      - Anti-Blackness: racist attitudes from Ma, not confronted
      - Not a monolith: Vivian’s family seems more accepting
    - - Ma only finds peace by accepting her own feelings for Yu and Wil’s relationship with Vivan
      - Even Grandfather is present at her home outside of Flushing
      - Questions about conditional acceptance: “At least she’s marrying a doctor,” a nice woman, Wil remains masculine. —> Would the relationship be accepted if Wil was in love with a Black woman?
  - - - Darker-skinned Asians excluded, reduces racism to something that can be overcome by upwards mobility. Asians can enjoy benefits from same power structures while maintaining the capitalist system
      - Assimilation to whiteness and capitalist ascendancy presented as overcoming power structures
      - Bootstrap narrative: Immigrant grit, Rachel overcomes barriers through mimicry, just like Eleanor before her
  - - - Assimilation: Difficulty to assimilate with regrets about their lives and the failure of their American Dream
      - Language Barrier: Difficult to communicate with Americans, and even between Evelyn and Joy, as they speak in a mixture of Chinese and English and fail to communicate their feelings.
      - Economic Struggles: Constant conflict with the IRS, inability to achieve the American Dream as they imagined it
      - Dierdre is a villainous arm of Jobu, representing the antagonistic role of the IRS and White America in their lives
    - - Evelyn is unaware in the beginning, but her memories and other universes reveal how her fraught relationship with her father affects her relationship with Joy.
      - Upon recognition of the cycle of trauma, Evelyn commits to saving Joy and confrpnting Jobu, going against the Alphaverse
      - Evelyn's struggles with her father impair her relationship with Waymond, who she blames for their failure
      - By choosing to use empathy like Waymond, Evelyn saves Jobu and even Alpha Gong Gong, while taking steps to repair her own relationship with her daughter.
    - - Invisibility: Evelyn does not want Joy to tell Gong Gong about her girlfriend, telling her it could kill him after a long flight.
      - Joy is unable to be herself in front of Evelyn without her commenting, calling Becky a he and commenting on their dress
      - Joy feels hopeless in her relationship with her mother
  - - - Even before the attacks, Changez is jokingly compared to Saddam Hussein and seen as an outsider
      - Erica does not pick up on Changez' discomfort, turning their relationship into a spectacle. She does not commit to him, rejecting moving further and telling him to pretend to be her ex.
      - Post 9.11: Humiliating strip search at the airport, tires punctured in parking lot, wrongful arrest and detainment, Islamophobic comments from colleagues. Widespread discrimination.
      - Despite Changez telling Bobby his entire story, Bobby does not trust him and shoots, killing one of his students.
- - - - Dominant Idea of the era, held by the directors and intended audience
      - Orientalism: otherization of the East, condemnation of miscegenation
    - - Forced to play many stereotypical roles
      - Dissastisfied, started own production company and later left Hollywood for Japanese film
      - One of Hollywood’s first sex symbols, often highlight of his films
      - 1957: Nominated for Best Supporting Actor
      - Somewhat forgotten today: Nobody in class knew him
  - - - Technicolor allowed filmmakers to create an exotic and colorful portrayal of an Orientalist China. Reflected in the details of the film: character named Lotus Flower, sun setting ocer the East
      - While blackface existed to mock and subjugate African Americans, yellowface did the same to Asians on the basis of exclusion and otherization, but continued to persist.
    - - Breakout role at just 17 years old
      - First international Chinese-American star
      - Biopic about her life in production, Gemma Chan set to star
      - Career spanned silent films, radio, moving pictures, color film
    - - She is incapable of being an “honorable” American wife
      - Lotus Flower exhibits sexuality and is an object of desire
      - Lotus Flower is disposable, she is lusted not loved
      - Her son is seen as white, taken away, and raised by an American woman
      - An interracial relationship is seen as impossible, a Chinese woman cannot truly become an American
  - - - Masculinity as Power: Ling Moy swears to become a son in order to honor her family. She fails, and white women in the film act as props of white femininity to be possessed.
    - - Asian Men: Ah Kee is emotionally vulnerable and less masculine. He sacrifices himself to protect the white family.
      - Asian Women: Ling Moy is fetishized as exotic and intriguing. She is still only a passing fancy for Ronald. She also schemes against the white family.
      - Dragon Lady: Ling Moy swears to uphold honor as Fu Manchus man-daughter, she attempts to deceive, uses poison, and tries to kill in her dying moments.
- - - - Research: Hong Kong in the film is an inaccurate portrayal; comparisons between image of Hong Kong in Hollywood and the reality of the city and Hong Kong’s own cinema
      - Scene following Robert through the streets serves as exposition
        
        Fixity and Orientalism: Contrast in depiction of East vs West
      - Normalization of sex work, specifically catered to Westerners, decadance of the East and Western superiority
      - Clean and White: A History of Environmental Racism in the United States (Carl Zimring)
        Assumption that “white people” are clean, and “non-white people are less than clean”
        
        “Cleanliness connotes beauty, modernity, progress, efficiency…
        Conversely, it has a marked aversion to dirt, which is associated with ugliness, poverty, crime and disorder.“ (Isaac Nolasco, The politics of cleanliness in Duterte’s Philippines)
        
        Criminalization of Littering vs ‘Cleanup Culture’: How to keep cities clean? How to prevent disproportionate punishments?
        
        Hierarchy of Needs for a country: difficult to focus on, inadequate governance, status quo
        
        Pursuit of constant progress and efficiency: Western agenda, capitalism, pollution, rigid architecture
        
        Personal Experience: Visiting Dhaka, megacity that grew rapidly without proper planning, lack of access to water, sewer system.
        
        Car culture in the U.S., urban planning marginalizing communities globally —> The Fall of the I Hotel, concrete jungles
    - - British attitudes portrayed as less accepting and racist
    - - Fetishization of Asian Women: Life centered around appeasing Western men. Suzie even holds being beaten by a white man as a symbol of her worth and importance.
      - Invisibility of Asian Man: the Asian father is absent, no Asian male characters in the film, all White love interests
  - - - More normalized and less offensive than blackface
      - Emerged in the Exclusion Era: While blackface existed to mock an existing culture and people, yellowface existed to exclude Asian American immigrants
      - Seen as a tradition, bolstered by technology
  - - - Multiculturalism and breaking through stereotypes of American depictions
      - Anti-Imperialist narratives and sentiments
      - Solidarity with Black Americans and influence on minority cinema
    - - Asian Men: Strong male hero defeating white enemies, morally sound and opposite figure to yellow peril
      - Women: Independence and agency in some situations, martial arts competence of Su Lin, cultural respect and morality
      - African Americans: Williams is depicted as a strong and capable character, and he works alongside Lee, challenging stereotypes about race relations
    - - Asian Men: Desexualized and othered as martial artists with little emotional depth or relationships
      - Women: Limited representation, objectified, and reduced to damsel in distrss stereotype
      - African Americans: Tokenized as sole Black character, limited character depth, shown sexualizing women
  - - - British invested in Indian education over indigenous, Indians favored under colonial trade policies —> Rise of Indophobia
      - Colorism in the South Asian community
      - Indian immigrants brought to Uganda to serve as a ‘buffer’ between the British and Ugandans
      - Expulsion from Uganda: Financial burden on family, inaccessibility of college. Despite facing discrimination, Jay perpetuates it against Demetrius later in the film. Suffering doesn’t make people better, it simply makes them suffer.
        
        Cycle of oppression and colonialism
        
        Continuing conflicts today
      - Unspoken trauma in Mina's life, similar to History and Memory
    - - Demetrius' father provide services to white clients
      - Black people in Mississippi have struggled for generations, remain impoverished
    - - Tight-knit community, practicing SA traditions and culture. Seen as outsiders, Ex: comments when grocery shopping
      - Small business owners: have made a life for themselves, but still difficult to access college and gain more wealth
      - Representation: Denzel Washington is a major star, while Sarita Choudhury does not have many starring mainstream roles.
      - Use of Indian languages, music, and clothing in the film
      - Colorism: Aunties comment that Mina is too dark and her family is too poor in order for her to be desired as under SA standards
    - - Otherness: Mina is first assumed as hispanic.
      - Demetrius cleans Indian owned motels for work
      - Demetrius' family accepts Mina. They see similarities in their experiences, with Mina as an Indian who has never been to India, and Black Americans who have never been to Africa.
      - One of Mina's uncles tells Demetrius that to white people, they are all colored, hiding anti-blackness in their community
      - Mina's community rejects the relationship, calling the police and boycotting Demetrius' business, while Mina has nowhere else to go. In order to be together, she has to leave Missisippi behind. The ending of the film is optimistic, as it seems her family's rejection may change, as Jay finally goes back to Uganda