Racial Stereotypes In Film

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The recent emphasized importance of political correctness has brought a wave of awareness of racial discrimination and prejudice. However, treatment of racism is not the same for every race. The use of the “n-word” to describe an African American person is seen as universally offensive. Yet when the word “chink” is used to describe an Asian American, this act goes unpunished. The classification of being a “model minority” in America erases Asian identity and the significance of Asian American achievements. Moreover, they receive little representation in media, specifically in film and television shows. Furthermore, stereotypes about Asians are not seen as offensive as other racial stereotypes. Despite being unnoticed and unacknowledged in this …show more content…
Contemporary film is now trying to appease audiences with more racially diverse casts. Yet these pushes for diversity do not include the Asian American population, as even “diverse” casts often lack an Asian representative. Comprehensive Anneburg Report on Diversity in Entertainment states, “at least half or more of all cinematic, television, or streaming stories fail to portray one speaking or named Asian or Asian American on screen.” In film an average of 50% of films feature no Asian speaking characters, while only 18% have no speaking black characters (Smith, Choueiti, & Pieper, 2016, p. 7-8). Asians are the most underrepresented race in American film. Even with the lack of roles and characters, yet another practice limits the appearance of Asians in film: whitewashing. Marc Bernardino noted that two recent films that have notable cases of this include Doctor Strange and Ghost in the Shell (Marc Bernardin, 2016,). Ghost in the Shell is an adaption of an anime with a Japanese female lead and Doctor Strange is an adaption of a comic with a main character who was Tibetan man. However, both of these roles were portrayed by white actresses. By not casting Asian actors for these roles, the movie industry devalues people of Asian descent by refusing to respect role of Asians in stories involving their own culture. Asian …show more content…
“Yellow fever”, which refers to the fetishization of East Asian women especially by white men, has arose as a result. Yon Shin writes that yellow fever perpetuates the stereotype that Asian women are exotic and submissive (Shin, 2016). Men who only date Asian women due to "yellow fever" do not look farther then race as a prerequisite for a dating partner. This embodiment of harmful stereotypes objectifies an entire population of people. Exoticizing a entire race alienates Asian Americans from others. Another stereotype is the belief that Asians do not drive very well. Most Asian stereotypes are not true, given that they are based on racist assumptions made years ago. In the NHTSA’s report on motor vehicle traffic fatalities stats for 2002-2006, the most fatalities are caused by white people, followed by Hispanic, African American, then Asian people (NHTSA, 2006, p. 2). These stereotypes continue to work to distance the entire Asian population from other races and allow discrimination against Asians to
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