Books

Re: How can this have happened?

The Real Slim K — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:41:12 GMT

Well stated, Shania: Hollywood still has a long ways to go to portray Asians and Asian-romance more realistically.

BTW: I have a special dislike for the Travolta "Get Shorty" sequel, the name escapes me. It had Steven Tyler showing what a terrible actor he was in it. But most offensive, was the way they treated the Asian female singers---as entirely, obliviously souless and stupid joke/ho's to be smugly laughed at by our black and white protagonists. You know what the reality is? Well, some stereotypes are not all wrong. If you have one parent who is Asian and the other one is white, I would suggest if you are now applying to get into say Stanford for U.C. Berkeley, write "caucasian" to the race question. Give you a better chance of getting in, you see.

Re: How can this have happened?

Shana — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:23:18 GMT

kgswiger, in all the movies you mentioned do you recall any type of actual sexuality being seen between those characters. I have seen The One and some of the The Medallion and The Tuxedo and can say there is not even a bit of sexual tension between the characters. As for Romeo Must Die, the two leads never even kissed. It was like some brother/sister relationship. And I do not remember much of The Replacement Killers, but I do not recall anything even slightly sexual with those characters.

Then there is the art house film, Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift, in which the white lead rescues the half Asian girl (who was obviously not Asian) from her evil Asian boyfriend. And the boyfriend was over the top bad. Any sensible guy would not want to go out with a girl that would stay with a guy like that in the first place, because it would sure say a lot about her.

Re: How can this have happened?

Ian Blokesworth — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:59:28 GMT

I've read a couple popular romance novels out of curiosity. Most of the words are spent describing the thread count of the sheets. Occasionally, there is a paragraph describing the insertion of the "man root." These novels cater to the female obsession with overidealized love.

My point still stands. Women spend very little money on images or videos of the male body and much money on publications with images of the female body. I noticed the rack of magazines at the checkout counter at RiteAid today. Woman's World. Woman's Day. Glamour. Cosmopolitan. Every one of these magazines featured a nearly full body picture of a woman on the cover. Evidently, the male body is generally uninteresting not only to men, but also to women.

Re: How can this have happened?

viretarmis — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:19:25 GMT

If only a channel for the world's most extravagent weddings existed ...

It does (at least a show) "Platinum Wedding",

Re: How can this have happened?

kati — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 05:20:33 GMT

Ian, you're a puritan. You don't know beans about female libido. Why don't you ask someone, or if you can't, try reading a romance novel? You might get the shock of your life!

Re: How can this have happened?

Ian Blokesworth — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:16:51 GMT

"it's not that Asian women are different, it's that white guys can have some WEIRD fetishes."

Unless you believe in cultural uniformity, Asians and Estonians are indeed different.

The female equivalent of porn can be found broadcast on national television: the cooking channel, the home improvement/househunting channel, the travel channel to name a few. If women had a comparable libidinous response to naked pictures of the opposite sex, images would be sold. Instead, women spend money on magazines featuring pictures of other women. If only a channel for the world's most extravagent weddings existed ...

Re: How can this have happened?

Junggai — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:16:30 GMT

Toria:

Right on, alwaysquestioning. You said it -- it's not that Asian women are different, it's that white guys can have some WEIRD fetishes. I mean, Madame Butterfly is basically about how a white guy gets "fascinated" by an Asian girl, marries her, leaves her, and then marries another woman behind her back. She then obediently kills herself so he doesn't have to face what he did, and he takes "his" baby. It's gross that there are still guys out there who see that as how Asian women are, and porn definitely reflects this "ultra submissive to men" fantasy.

Sorry to keep picking on you, Toria, but you've got the idea of Butterfly all wrong. Cio-Cio San was the tragic heroine of the opera, who trusted a duplicitous American male who never took her seriously. The opera successfully demonizes Pinkerton, while it pokes fun at his jingoism by parodying the Star-Spangled Banner while he sings.

Please give Puccini some credit. He said, late in life, that Cio-Cio San was the character he identified with most out of all of his operas.

Re: How can this have happened?

Toria — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:57:21 GMT

Right on, alwaysquestioning. You said it -- it's not that Asian women are different, it's that white guys can have some WEIRD fetishes. I mean, Madame Butterfly is basically about how a white guy gets "fascinated" by an Asian girl, marries her, leaves her, and then marries another woman behind her back. She then obediently kills herself so he doesn't have to face what he did, and he takes "his" baby. It's gross that there are still guys out there who see that as how Asian women are, and porn definitely reflects this "ultra submissive to men" fantasy.

It's so refreshing, on the other hand, to hear it straight from women like you. I hope you're careful about the white guys you date. Most are probably great people, but if they don't like it when you "educate" them, toss that fish back into the ocean. There are plenty of good ones to replace him with!

Re: How can this have happened?

Ian Blokesworth — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:57:27 GMT

"If you consider India, Pakistan, and Bangledish you are dealing with nearly 1.3 billion more Asians. I doubt these billions of Asian men see tallness as a necessity to manliness."

Categorically, the inhabitants of the countries you list are in the Caucasian group if you indeed believe in the three group system as opposed to the earlier seven group system.

The issue of tallness is relative. Do you really think that Asian women have no preference for height in their mates?

Re: How can this have happened?

EarlyBird — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:35:05 GMT

Lee, I thought the subject was why do people outside of Asia not generally find Asian men sex symbols. I expect, and hope, that Asians find each other sexually alluring.

Re: How can this have happened?

Lee Ratner — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:55:17 GMT

"I really do not understand why Asian-American men are seen as emasculated and not as sex symbols but it is very persistent. Part of it is because in reality more white men end up in relationships with Asian women than vice versa but it goes beyond on that."

It is a matter of the way people around the world, not just the West, attribute large, tall muscular bodies to manliness. Asian people, in contrast to much if not most of the world's population, are smaller. The petite Asian female may be seen as cute and sexy to non-Asians, whereas the same body type for Asian men may not be seen that way. (Yes, of course there are tall and large Asian people, but I'm referring to the rule, not the exception.)

Early Bird, most of the world's population consists of Asian men and women. China has 1.3 billion people alone, Indonesia 220 million, Japan 130 million, the Koreas together 75 million. Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines also have very large populations. If you consider India, Pakistan, and Bangledish you are dealing with nearly 1.3 billion more Asians. I doubt these billions of Asian men see tallness as a necessity to manliness.

Re: How can this have happened?

kgswiger — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:52:27 GMT

The bias could well be with my choice of movies, as opposed to bias in Hollywood. I prefer action movies, and don't much care what race, or gender, the star is, provided there's lots of action. In other words, I don't tend to watch movies with sensitive guys of any race trying to woo the girl, so I'm not going to remember them, to list here.

Re: How can this have happened?

disigny — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:47:55 GMT

I'm inferring that the writer is an Asian woman. She's making a big mistake in ignoring the fact that culture matters. Sure,as she says ,women are all the same, but the conclusion from that is certainly not that one can pair off with just anyone. Any more than pairing off within your "own group" with just anyone is OK. disigny

Re: How can this have happened?

EarlyBird — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:30:57 GMT

Interesting how those Asian male leads are in hyper-violent warrior roles. I wonder if Hollywood can cast a nice sensitive Asian guy getting the girls. I wish they could.

Re: How can this have happened?

EarlyBird — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:29:09 GMT