Stereotypes

Steven Yeun and John Cho's filmographies are so unique because they are so versatile. You could make a claim that some of their earliest roles may have been stereotypical, or at least were based on stereotyped humor. But the sheer range of the rest of their careers make these blips in otherwise very fascinating character choices that often battle stereotypes, explicitly or implicitly. 

Through this project, I have often cited the effects of the Model Minority, Perpetual Foreigner, and other stereotypes that plague Asian American depictions. In this Appendix, I wish to outline their meanings, historical emergences, and importance to this project. These are the media images that construct the popular imagination of Asian American actors, and thus, these are the expectations that Yeun and Cho face while picking any role and performing these roles. Unlike many white actors, Yeun and Cho's character type (cite Richard Dyer) are embedded onto their body, by way of their Korean ethnicity and phenotypic features. Without either an inventive casting agent or determination on the actors' parts, they may have been relegated to Kung Fu Masters, nerds, or immigrants that take on xenophobic imagings for the whole of their career. 

 
The following three stereotypes are three of the most widespread and well-known ways to imagine Asian Americans. All three engage heavily with U.S. politics and white supremacy in explicit ways.

• The Model Minority is perhaps the most banal yet efficiently violent stereotype used to encompass Asian Americans. This stereotype is so vicious due to its subtlety. It assumes that Asian people are inherently more intellgient, skilled in STEM fields, and polite. Among many things, this stereotype harms Asians due to preconceived expectations, an erasure of racism that Asians face in America, and the Model Minority being used to illustrate what a ‘good minority’ can look like in the face of bad minorities. Scholars and historians find that the Model Minority emerged in the 1960s after many immigration reforms for Asian populations were created during the Civil Rights Era. More specific to this project, the Immigration of Act of 1965 ushered in a wave of highly-skilled Korean immigrants. The Model Minority during the Civil Rights Era effectively countered the demands of Black activists, using the logic that if Asian minority people can succeed with hard work and good manners, Black revolutionary tactics were ill-placed and violent.

• Another very long-lasting stereotype, and one that gnashes directly with implicit nationality, is the Perpetual Foreigner. In short terms, this trope identifies all people of Asian-descent, whether or not they live in or were born in America, as foreigners to the States. This stereotype emphasizes accented language/dialect, different nuances of home culture (home being home country and the house one lives in), and physical appearance. Most often, this stereotype manifests itself in the single question: “No, but where are you really from?” The political efficacy of this stereotype lies in its ability to affirm America as a white-state. 

• Now most often used as a neutral term to describe an American citizen/habitant of America from Asian-descent, the term Asian American has specific and radical political meanings. In 1968 at UC-Berkeley, two student activists - Emma Gee and Yuji Ichioka - named their activist group the Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA). Yen Le Espiritu claims this is the first public use of the term Asian American. In an interview between Espiritu and Ichioka, the political implications of this term was clear from the beginning: “There were so many Asians out there in the political demonstrations but we had no effectiveness. Everyone was lost in the larger rally. We figured that if we rallied behind our own banner, behind an Asian American banner, we would have an effect on the larger public. We could extend the influence beyond ourselves, to other Asian Americans.” (Espiritu 34). Now, Asian American has been neutralized to define one's objective relation to Asia. But, it must be emphasized that Asian American is constructed as a label, not natural nor necessarily intuitive without its own creation, and a rallying cry to act as a political bloc and recognize 'our' communities ability to advocate for change.

Media Stereotypes
 
The following stereotypes emerge in film/literature and are largely on Orientalist assumptions. These stereotypes conquer the American imagination and continue to affect representations in media and real-life expectations of Asian Americans. Most of these stereotypes originate to target specifically Chinese Americans, but are still understood as representative of East Asian Americans in general. I list them here mostly to expand on a history of media images of Asian Americans and to show how pervasive these images still are in modern society. 
 
Fu Manchu

• A warlord, or conqueror who embodies dirtiness, sleaziness, crime, and mysticism. Often played by white actors in yellowface, this stereotype typifies Yellow Peril. Yellow Peril describes the late 19th/early 20th century 'threat of the Orient', or Asian immigrants who work and live amongst white people.
• Major appearances: The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu (dir. Rowland V. Lee, 1929), The Face of Fu Manchu (dir. Don Sharp, 1965). 
• Other versions: In many ways, Fu Manchu remains the default template for the Oriental villain. Other takes on Fu Manchu include Dr. No from the James Bond series, David Lo Pan (played by James Hong) in Big Trouble in Little China (dir. John Carpenter, 1986), and the Mandarin character from Marvel Comics. The Mandarin was subject to a race-change - from Chinese to South Asian - for his theatrical appearance in Iron Man 3 (dir. Shane Black, 2013) where he was played by Ben Kingsley. The traditional version of the Mandarin will appear in the upcoming Marvel film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (dir. Destin Daniel Cretton, 2021) where he will be played by Chinese actor Tony Leung.

Charlie Chan

• A detective who is polite, intelligent, and non-threatening. He is plump and stout and lives according to conservative values. Another role often played in yellowface, Chan emerges as an antidote to the Fu Manchu character. However, he still contributes to the emasculation of Asian men and characterizes Asian people as subservient and docile, despite their ‘superior’ and ‘inherent’ intelligence. 
• Major appearances: Charlie Chan Carries On (dir. Hamilton MacFadden, 1931), Dangerous Money (dir. Terry O. Morse, 1942). 
• Other versions: The Charlie Chan character has been retired for decades in mainstream media, yet the name still lives on. Professor Yunte Huang says that Chan “prepared television audiences of the 1970s for Kung Fu... There is even a good deal of Charlie Chan's wit in the torqued physicality of Jackie Chan's slapstick.” . I would also argue that Wong (played by Benedict Wong) in the Marvel franchise Doctor Strange is a peer of Charlie Chan’s. He retains a similar stature, witticisms and morsels of wisdom, and is ultimately non-threatening and polite despite showing mastery in the Mystical Arts. 

Mr. Miyagi

• First played by Pat Morita in The Karate Kid (dir. Robert Mark Kamen, 1984), this character epitomizes the contemporary Asian-in-America’s  assumed connection to wisdom, Orientalist teachings, and martial arts. Mr. Miyagi was created in 1984 and continues to charm audiences in various ways - notably Jackie Chan’s take on the character in 2010 - but is indebted to the work of Fu Manchu, Charlie Chan, the Perpetual Foreigner, and the Model Minority. Mr. Miyagi is an explicit father-figure. While Charlie Chan did have sons in his films, Miyagi combines a sternness and a warmth that makes him unique as an Asian patriarch.
• Other versions: Mr. Miyagi is perhaps the least offensive stereotype on this list but is a stereotype nonetheless. I see Miyagi in master figures, regardless of ethnicity, but especially in Splinter in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series, Master Oogway in the Kung Fu Panda series, and the Ancient One in Doctor Strange. 

Contemporary Stereotypes
 
The following stereotypes may be more accurately described as tropes as they are not perhaps as pervasive as any of the more long-standing stereotypes. Nonetheless, these images and associated traits resonate across the Asian American community as both in-community jokes and ways to be categorized by normative society. 

• A natural extension of the Perpetual Foreigner, the FOB (fresh off the boat) describes a first-generation immigrant that has come from their Asian country to America. They are characterized with non-normative cultural customs, conservatism, a heavy accent, and a simultaneous desire to keep their culture alive in America and a desire to assimilate. 

• A natural extension of the Model Minority, the yappie describes a Young Asian Professional. An appropriation of the word ‘yuppie’ - describing the young white man who desires a Wall Street career - a yappie is business and career-focused, with little-to-no interest in much else. The yappie is self-centered and shallow. 

• Taken as a noun from the term 'boba liberalism' - a shallow understanding of politics and a focus on short-term, representation-based goals in policy and media -the boba liberal does not have much going on under the surface; just like boba tea, they’re sugary, sweet, and easily digestible. In film and television discussions, the boba liberal is not concerned with the quality of the representation, rather its monetary success and the mere existence of it. Melissa Phruksachart speaks on these issues regarding the films Searching (dir. Aneesh Chaganty, 2018) and Crazy Rich Asians (dir. Jon M. Chu, 2018), which heavily emphasized Asian faces in its marketing but failed to deliver on quality storytelling nor critical commentaries on the lives that Asian / Asian Americans experience.