a part at the end of every tour where
you have to sort of stick around and
answer questions that families might
have been too uncomfortable to ask you
while out on tour questions like what
are the parties like here or is it true
what the Daily Mail says about marijuana
usage on campus so I’m uncomfortable
they’re uncomfortable it’s a good time
but one day after a tour a dad came up
to me and said where are you from and so
I said well I’m from Lancaster
Pennsylvania and he said but where are
you from originally and so I said well I
was born in Hershey Pennsylvania and
then he says but where are you from are
you from and so I say well my mom’s
Korean if that’s what you’re asking me
Korean I knew it I knew it I knew what I
knew what I knew it do you speak Korean
do you speak the language uh no why not
well maybe it’s because I was born in
Hershey Pennsylvania and grew up in
Lancaster Pennsylvania and has anyone
ever been to Lancaster Pennsylvania our
two highest demographics are Amish
people and cows they’re not going to be
speaking any Korean but my point is
people are always going to identify you
based on how you look and they’re gonna
rely on a schema of Asians to expect or
predict how you behave and so a schema
is a way of categorizing behaviors or
objects and the relationships among them
and this is a natural process of the
human brain it’s going to be a quick way
to categorize behavior to simplify the
environment around you so an example of
a schema could be for a waiter you could
have someone wearing an apron carrying
around a tray of food with a water
pitcher saying ready can I refill your
glass so in other words it’s gonna be
just a quick way to categorize behavior
and it’s also another way to a
explain stereotyping and so one way that
we formed these schemas is through the
media I work on a research team called
Cree TV and that stands for the Center
for research on the effects of
television and we have found that Asians
are the least represented minority in
the media by a large margin
a recent study gives a racial breakdown
of some characters in film as you can
see here and so this is a problem
because the paradigm of television is a
very powerful medium that influences how
we perceive the world around us and form
expectations about social roles and
groups of people and when there aren’t
that many portrayals of Asians in the
media when the only portrayals are the
same stereotypes over and over there’s
less of a range of behaviors to form
those schemas and so the result is a
very narrow set of expectations that the
media produces for Asians this makes it
very difficult to navigate and maintain
a racial identity because the images
that you’re being bombarded with are not
representative of who you are or what
your culture is I think it’s important
to recognize the glass ceiling that
exists for Asians in media so that we
can do something to change it so growing
up there weren’t that many people on TV
who looked like me I remember playing an
icebreaker game during summer camp where
you have to choose an actor to play you
if your life ever became famous enough
for them to make a movie about it and I
remember being so jealous of all the
other kids who had this plethora of
actors to choose from whereas the only
actor who was famous enough at the time
to play me was Jackie Chan not that
there’s anything wrong with Jackie Chan
but it’s nice to have options and so
there are a couple of reasons for the
under-representation of Asians in media
the first is there have been several
instances of characters written
specifically for Asians being given to
Caucasian actors this is a process known
as whitewashing and so some examples of
this include the movie Aloha in 2015
Emma Stone was cast
as a Chinese Hawaiian woman a year later
in 2016
Marvel’s Doctor Strange had Tilda
Swinton cast in the role of a Tibetan
monk but perhaps the most recent
controversy of Hollywood whitewashing
can be seen in 2017 s ghost in the
shell’ a ghost in the shell’ is a
distinctly Japanese narrative that
centers on an Asian woman named motoko
kusanagi
but when casting for the feature film
Hollywood producers chose Scarlett
Johansson to portray the lead another
thing was they said that visual effects
would be used on Johansson to make her
appear more Asian for the film this
isn’t the first time that Hollywood
producers have dug themselves a deeper
hole and it attempted to correct
whitewashing yellow-faced is the process
of using makeup and prosthetics on
Caucasian actors to make them appear
more Asian on screen and so an example
of this can be seen in 1961 s Breakfast
at Tiffany’s the character mr. Yunioshi
is a Japanese landlord who was portrayed
by Caucasian actor Mickey Rooney not
only was this a cringe-worthy stereotype
but makeup and prosthetics were used on
Rooney to make him appear more Asian for
the film this process reduces our race
to mere physical appearance it turns our
culture and community into a costume
Scarlett Johansson goes home at the end
of the day and goes back to being white
I don’t have CGI creating all of this
here and I know it’s difficult to
believe but yellow face and whitewashing
sent a very subtle message that Asians
aren’t wanted in Western culture and
that Asian visibility isn’t important of
to carry out in our own stories on one
hand Hollywood producers do this for
economic reasons at the end of the day
the entertainment industry is a business
and so by attaching a list actors to
movies they’re going to maximize revenue
and unfortunately there aren’t that many
a-list Asian actors but because of the
scarcity of roles in the first place
it’s not as if we can spare those parts
so by casting an Asian
one of those a list Asian rolls you
could possibly ignite a new non-white
star and by refusing to do this
Hollywood just maintains the cyclical
problem right how are we supposed to
have a list a ssin actors if all of the
a-list Asian rolls go to Caucasian
actors it seems as if the only times
Asians are visible in the media is one
us to fulfill a stereotype and don’t get
me wrong stereotypes exist for a good
reason in media it’s a quick way to get
a reference right so you got the skater
dude the head cheerleader the football
jock and it goes back to that word
schema it’s a quick way to categorize
behavior to simplify information coming
in from your environment it’s going to
be a huge time-saver to see a skater
dude and already know that he’s gonna be
0% responsible 100% stoned but these
stereotypes get harmful when they become
about race because they’re dangerous
when all you’re seeing is the same
stereotype over and over and no other
stereotypes of that race to counteract
it we begin to start to see them as
legitimate so let’s talk a little bit
about some of the stereotypes that are
generally available for Asians for women
there is the dragon lady or a very
sexualized eroticized Asian femme fatale
there’s the tiger mom or a very
overbearing strict mother who only cares
about playing classical instruments and
getting good grades and then there’s the
rebellious asian girl with the edgy hair
streak who’s always trying to rebel
against her tiger mom and then for men
there is the kung fu master and the rest
are very emasculating too sexualized
roles like the socially inept foreigner
or the nerdy math geek and I think the
foreigner is an interesting one because
it applies both to Asian men and women
but examples of this can be seen from
mr. Yunioshi from Breakfast at Tiffany’s
the character long Duk dong from sixteen
Candles the amazing yen from Ocean’s
eleven but I like to use the example of
2016 Suicide Squad the character katana
is a Japanese character who in the movie
only speaks in Japanese
and her disdain for criminals just
distances herself from the from the rest
of the team and the rest of the main
cast and don’t get me wrong it was great
to see an Asian visible in a superhero
movie but this character had no depth
she had no real backstory and so this
sort of highlighted the notion that she
was an outsider or another and that’s
exactly what this foreigner trope does
it reinforces the notion that Asians
don’t belong that no matter what our
culture is where we come from what our
stories are we’re not American because
of the way that we look and that’s not
just for Asian Americans but for Pacific
island Americans Latino Americans
Hispanic Americans a wider United States
has promised American citizenship on
whiteness and stereotypes like this
don’t help the problem isn’t just with
these stereotypes the problem is that
these characters are only these
stereotypes there’s no depth these very
narrow representations of characters
maintain the schemas that compose those
scary stereotypes they don’t expand upon
the range of behaviors available for
Asians on TV but reinforce the existing
ones that are already associated with us
and so these misrepresentative images
create misleading one-dimensional
simplified characters that make it
difficult to believe that asians can’t
be any character with any personality by
serving as a venue for reinforcing and
perpetuating these harmful stereotypes
the media plays a role in maintaining
systemic racism whether they intend to
or not Hollywood producers influence our
implicit biases by excluding Asians in
media through processes such as
whitewashing or yellow-faced or by only
casting them in very stereotypical roles
as humans we unconsciously engage in a
series of complex cognitive processes
that allow us to analyze and quickly
react to incoming information from
our environment the way Asians are
portrayed in media shape those schemas
and this categorization of behavior
influences every aspect of our cognition
in our day-to-day interaction we
automatically access the information
embedded in those schemas to draw
inferences and make predictions about
the people from their race you’d be
surprised at how many people say things
to me like you’re really attractive for
an Asian guy or you know I don’t usually
go for Asians but you’re the most
attractive one I’ve ever seen it
obviously sounds like I’m trying to do a
shameless plug here I’m not
but Asian men are very rarely portrayed
in media as romantic leads and that
definitely has an effect on the way that
we’re seeing and it’s important to note
that the way the Asians are portrayed in
media does not cause racist behavior but
by being exposed to these stereotypes
and only these stereotypes it influences
how we perceive the world around us and
thus the media becomes a power in how we
develop racial meanings and attitudes if
this issue is not confronted producers
directors and writers will become
comfortable with the
under-representation of marginalized
groups in media allowing processes like
whitewashing to continue the media
shapes our worldview and by shaping an
individual’s worldview is shaped Society
by refusing to use their position of
influence for social good film industry
insiders are complicit in maintaining a
racist system but there are some things
that we can do to fix the problem as an
audience we can implore for dynamic
empowering versatile roles that are
representative of not just the Asian
community but for the black community
the Latino community the lgbtq+
community in media outlets such as film
television or the news it’s important to
recognize the glass ceiling that exists
not just for Asians but for other
marginalized groups of people and
minorities in
Media so that we can band together
voiced concerns and invoke change and
this works in August 2017 English actor
ed skrein was cast in the role of Ben de
mio a Japanese American character for
the 2019 reboot of Hellboy but following
numerous complaints of whitewashing from
fans on social media accounts screen
voluntarily dropped out of the role in
order for it to be appropriately cast a
month later Korean American actor Daniel
Dae Kim was cast in the role so by
learning about these issues and the
effects that they have were able to
speak out against injustice –is and
inequalities that marginalized groups
face it’s important to recognize the
paradigm of television has a powerful
medium for these groups to have a voice
so we should demand for roles and
stories that China spotlight on what
sets us apart what makes us unique and
celebrate those differences so that we
can have empowering well-rounded
characters that are representative of
everyone thank you [Applause]