You are currently browsing the tag archive for the 'stereotype' tag.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/76183/yo-teach-miki-moves-up
So…Yo Teach! apparently is a show that exists in the fictional world of the summer film, Funny People. I personally can’t wait to watch this; it’s a bit like Queen Latifah’s Last Holiday, where she discovers she has a terminal illness and wants to do all the things in life she’s missed out on. Only this film is a Judd Apatow movie, so it’ll probably be pretty hilarious and not horrible. And in both films, the protagonists discover that they are, in fact, not dying. Stupid cop-out ending. Nevertheless, wouldn’t it be nice?
Anyways, back to Yo Teach!
Granted, this show is a parody of a high school serial, akin to Saved by the Bell, etc.
Under that genre, I assume also that the characters are archetypal: the jock, nerd, Molly Ringwald, and so forth.
And while this astute Asian student is no Long Duk Dong, she is painfully archetypal and stereotypical of the modern Asian American: Miki is afraid of her parents’ expectations, complains that they want her to become a doctor, lawyer, rocket scientist, and so forth, and that she fears failure. She doesn’t want to be dumb, because she’s ASIAN.
Of course, Mr. Bradford is no Shylock; he brings up a racial stereotype and says, it just ain’t so! Although, in his case, he doesn’t BEGIN as a racial stereotype.
(Speaking of Shakespearean references, here’s another Yo Teach! short that I do like, a lot. William Shu-Shu-Shu-Shu-Shakespeare!!)
On one hand, this parody show-within-a-show is perfectly excusable. It’s supposed to represent a really corny TV show, heavy on the laugh track and cliché dialogue.
But on the other hand, perpetuating a racial stereotype is very different from perpetuating the nerd, jock, rebel archetypes. While social labels might be an oversimplified, juvenille method of identification, they usually remain in the halls of high school. Well, usually.
Racial stereotypes, however, generally outlast that juvinile propensity to identify with a social group. Racial stereotypes exist in every social environment, at any age.
I’m not terribly offended by this representation of an Asian American. Maybe I’m desensitized and I’m used to that caricature. Maybe I just don’t want to make a big deal over it.
But what bothers me the most is that this really isn’t that funny.
And it would probably be even less funny if say, the student was black. Latin American. Gay.
We can rag all we want on social stereotypes. The avid members of the chess club, un-academic athletes, airheaded cheerleaders, and the hippies playing guitar on the grass (and on grass) probably won’t be up in arms. If they even exist outside of teen dramas. Representing these “groups” of people is largely inoffensive because when they do appear in the media, they are written off as archetypes, as characters.
But when a stereotypical racial character shows up, they only function to deepen those stereotypes.
It just saddens me that after so many years of attempts to break down stereotypical Asian American portrayals in the media, that something shows up to reinforce them.
And come on, when will the Asian finally be the jocks? The preps? We’re tired of being the nerds. Down with calculus club and parental demands! We’re ready for some STUDENT GOVERNMENT!
Few do.
This guy does not:
So I’m guessing “all those Asians” he talks about comprise maybe…..5-10% of the Colorado University’s 13% “students of color”? (http://www.colorado.edu/pba/qfacts/demog.html)
Karson makes a sore attempt at being clever/witty/original/cava
lier by mocking a stereotype after feeling victimized by reversed racism. It could have worked, but it definitely does not. This guy sounds like a complete muscle head, and of course, while he’s working his well-toned abs, the scrawny Asians with small eyes and thick glasses are playing–no duh–racquetball. And probably ping-pong at the other end of the gym.
Something like this would be much more clever, if the race card must be pulled: http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/
There is a way to be cleanly cavalier about racelessness and race, yet still remain throughly humorous. Funny enough so that regardless of ethnicity or the ethnicity of the author, we can all sit back and chortle a bit at our stereotypical, often cultural/ethnic antics. There is no need for war, which is in itself an extremely overloaded term.
Nor do we have to be serious about racial tensions all the time. It is a dangerous field to play on, and most, like Karson, fail to mock the stereotype in a useful way, and instead perpetuates it. “When I blow my whistle, we will scatter in every direction and catch as many Asians as possible. Make sure to pay special attention to the Rec Center, the UMC, the math and engineering buildings and Lollicup. If you’re not sure if someone is an Asian, give them a calculus problem to do in their head. If they get it right, net ‘em.” Yeah, I might be in the Rec Center–I’ll be one of the few girls in the weight room, so what. But trust me, you will not find me anywhere near the math and engineering buildings, and likely not in Lollicup either, I’m not a big fan of boba. Though I am pleasantly surprised that there is one in Colorado. It must be for that >13% of “colored” students.
I recently wrote an article for the Daily Bruin Arts and Entertainment section about students who make successful videos on YouTube. (http://www.dailybruin.com/news/2008/jan/24/youtube-makes-hot-venue-amateur-artists/)
A week later, I got a message via our website from a reader who chose to remain anonymous (and therefore I could not contact him/her back). Essentially, they complained about the fact that I had only represented Asians in my story (we hadn’t), and accused me and my co-writer of being biased because we are both Asian. (We happen to be possibly the only two Asian writers in our beat, and two of the (guesstimation)four writing for a 25+ person Arts and Entertainment section) They concluded their rather curt email by saying “All the rice sticks together”. Needless to say, I was outrageously offended. It was like saying that if I wrote about women, I am potentially biased because I am a woman. While I could understand that the reader might have liked to see Hispanic or African-American talent represented, the fact of the matter was that the videos that happened to have the most web traffic happened to be created by Asians or a group containing more than a few Asians. I wasn’t actually out on the lookout for Asians to cover, otherwise I might have changed the angle to be solely about Asians–which would have made for a rather flat article. And I had no intention or thought of writing such a piece. But in three short, bitter sentences, I had been the one labeled racist, biased, and a bad journalist. Just because I’m Asian. Which is funny, because even though I attend UCLA, and am constantly surrounded by Asians, I choose to work for the Daily Bruin as a photographer and writer, where suddenly things are a lot more diverse, and I almost had forgotten that I’m Chinese-American. (Oh I’m sorry, maybe my eyes were too small to notice, and I forgot to wear my heavy prescription, black-rimmed glasses Made in China) Most of the time, race really doesn’t matter to me–until of course I’m labeled racist by a racist.
Asian Reporter, signing out for the night.
