FRANKIE #23
(May/Jun 2008)

AM I A STEREOTYPE?
Edited version published:
Frankie #23 (May/Jun 2008)

Growing up, my family did what was expected of Asians: we went to theme parks. Every school holidays, we’d head off to coo at the majesty of the dolphin stunt show at Seaworld, injure ourselves on the scoliosis-inducing rides at Dreamworld, or embark on the thrillingly lame, faux-Hollywood tours of Movieworld. Hell, what can I say? We just weren’t camping people.

Once through the gates, my siblings and I would do our best to distinguish ourselves from actual Asian tourists. We’d make our Australian accents more pronounced, and ended our sentences with “eh”. Our trousers were pulled further downwards, away from our navels. We refused to wear bumbags, and spoke English very loudly, with proper grammar and syntax.

This was to distinguish ourselves from the hoards of Japanese and Chinese tourists around us. My god, these people. They’d point to the most innocuous objects and proceed to take photographs like idiots. We could only imagine what they were hollering to each another as they ripped through their film. “Look, a fire hydrant!” “Over here, a drinking fountain!” “Wow, there is a toilet: a public, shared facility and receptacle for my waste. Gather around and take a photo of it!”

It’s a terrible thing, trying so desperately hard not to become a stereotype. Exhausting, too. But now that I’m older, I’ve found my attitudes on these things have shifted, and can now be summed up in one word: meh. Yes, my family owned Chinese restaurants. Yes, my father has eaten dog. Yes, my sister played the violin. No, none of us can swim very well. But at the same time, explain why everyone in my family sucks at maths. Perhaps it’s our quiet way of raging against the machine.

Asians rage surprisingly well, you should know. In America, a group called MANAA (the Media Action Network for Asian Americans) exclusively devotes their time and resources to “monitoring the media and advocating balanced, sensitive, and positive coverage and portrayals of Asian-Americans”. Which is sort of awesome, don’t you think? These guys picket studio networks and write angry, incensed letters to various faceless organisations.

But what bugs me about MANAA is the list of “stereotype busters” on their website, offered to movie and television executives. According to the list, stereotypical occupations for Asian characters include: restaurant workers; Korean grocers; Japanese businessmen; Indian cab drivers; TV anchorwomen; martial artists; gangsters; faith healers; laundry workers; and prostitutes.

Stereotypical characteristics in Asian characters include Asians who can’t be assimilated; Asians as inherently predatory; portraying Asian racial features, names, accents, or mannerisms as inherently comic or sinister; relegating Asians to supporting roles in projects with Asian content; Asian male sexuality as negative or non-existent; unmotivated white-Asian romance; Asian women as "China dolls"; Asian women as "dragon ladies" …

You get the idea. Obviously, it’s all important—albeit slightly earnest—work, but like I said: exhausting. And in some cases, irksome. As someone who did grow up amongst Chinese restaurants, who did go to karate classes, whose Chinese middle name is inherently comic (it’s “Yuk”), and who is inherently predatory (when it comes to hot nerds in spectacles) it bothers me that I’m automatically rendered a walking, talking stereotype.

But then, like before, my brain switches. And again it comes to this: meh. Everyone’s a stereotype when we’re reduced to our constituent parts. I’m a gay, Asian, university-educated guy who likes yum cha and crossword puzzles. My grandmother is a shrieking pterodactyl-like woman who grew up in the villages of China, and thinks urine makes for good fertiliser. It’s likely you’re a 16-35 year-old female magazine reader, university-educated, interested in the arts, like Feist and enjoyed the feature film Juno.

(It’s chilling when the tables are turned, isn’t it?)

No one can be a stereotype in and of themselves. That’s actually someone else’s judgement call to make, and usually those people are clichés themselves. Like a picket-line of angry Asians, for instance. They’re my favourite.

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Last Updated :: 01 May 2008
All Content © Benjamin Law 2008