The Desiring of Asian Female Bodies: Interracial Romance and Cinematic Subjection

A Lotus or a Dragon? - The orientalization and fetishization of Asian women’s bodies

“…Making the Asian woman a "natural" or suitable partner for the white man, Laura Hyun-Yi Kang, in The Desiring of Asian Female Bodies (1993), argues that this imagery allows "the reconstruction of racial conflict and sexual domination as a complementary difference" 14 . This "complementarity" is then used to alleviate tensions over racial differences and patriarchy's challenges, making everything fit the established white male worldview.…”

“…The projection that the actress gains through the dissemination and popularization of these films contrasts with the erasure and ethnic interchangeability that often accompanies Asian characters in these films. Kang 14 underscores the ease with which Asian groups are replaced by each other in popular culture. "These cinematic distortions of [ethnicity-age]", he continues, "have been naturalized by representations of Asians as being largely inter-changeable -a cinematic articulation of the ancient 'All Orientals Look Alike'" 14 (p.8-9).…”

“…Today, with an international career, Jani seeks to show that there is more than the ordinary: "And mainly doing something that doesn ' Kang 17 analyzes how Asian women are represented in these films and how the attempt to reduce difference complements supporting power variations. Using the movie, The Year of the Dragon (1985) as a model, the author examines how women represent a threat to the male unconscious due to their sexual differences.…”

“…Using the movie, The Year of the Dragon (1985) as a model, the author examines how women represent a threat to the male unconscious due to their sexual differences. Tracy Tzu (the Asian co-protagonist) causes heightened anxiety in Stanley White (the white protagonist) due to her display of "a hostile, foreign country, a lost war, a manipulative social mechanism, and class antagonism" 17 .…”

Media, Ideology, and Myths of East–West Difference: ConstructingAmerican Ideals through Images of a “Red‐Hot”Russian Spy

“…Visually, she equally corresponded to the seductive Cold War spy and to current American media portrayals which almost exclusively depict Russian women as “mail order brides” or the victims of sex trafficking rings, a motif repeated in the criminal dramas Law and Order and every version of the CSI franchise, as well as lighter crime shows such as Monk and Bones (Holmgren ; Goscilo ; Johnson ; Katchanovski ; Osipovich ; Rimashevskaia ; Voronina ; Zabyelina ). Much like the products of Orientalist knowledge, these media images of Russian women establish a clear message of semiotic difference between East and West (Barthes ; Bulgakowa ; Celeste ; Gal 2005; Ginsburg ; Hyun‐Yi Kang ; Stein ; Stoler ), and place the Western (male) consumer in a “flexible positional superiority” (Said :7). Willing to sacrifice her body and emotional self for the good of the State, willing to risk physical degradation for monetary gain, her calculating heart acts as a vivid reminder of the continued threat to our borders, our value system, and our bodies, and it masks the very calculations involved in the framing and promotion of her image (Bird ; Curtis ).…”