Sunday, August 6, 2017

Asian American Male Angst

“I am an Oriental. And being an Oriental, I could never be completely a man.”

This line comes from David Henry Hwang's M Butterfly and that line rings true for many asian american males today. I penned lyrics for a blues song entitled: Asian American Actor

First I played a grocer
Cast as a lab tech
I hope to be a ninja
It's the only role that's left for

the Asian American actor.
I'm an 
Asian American actor.I'm an Asian American actor.and I'm singing the Asian American actor blues.
as an outlet for the observation that when it comes to American mainstream media those seem to be the only roles where you see asian-american males.

Then there's the huge imbalance in which hot asian women are cast as the love interest of white males while asian men often don't even get asian women, much less non-asian women. There's a network show that started this summer called Salvation. The ratings make it seem likely that the series won't survive, but I find it noteworthy that the show's plot includes an asian male (half, actually, but the son cast in the show is clearly full-blooded asian) in a sexual relationship with a major cast member (Jennifer Finnigan). It turns out that this male character has had a liason with at least one other female cast member (this one happens to be black). Personally, I kinda like the show, but I suspect that I'd still support the show just because of the fact that asian males are depicted as being capable of having relationships with (hot) non-asian women.

I've lived in southern California for almost 30 years, and the diversity makes this less of an issue on a day to day basis; the majority of the women I've dated have been non-asian, but I'm very aware that certain stereotypes remain embedded in the minds of mainstream America, and that awareness has made me hesitant when I could have been much more assertive.



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