Asian American Male Sexuality by editor William Lee, owner of website Better Asian Man, was one of the workshops that I attended during the ECAASU 2010 conference held at UPenn from March 4-6. I was very excited to attend this workshop as Asian American male sexuality is something that isn’t talked about much. Many people either don’t care to talk about it or it’s something to talk about behind closed doors as if it’s a shameful thing. I enjoyed the workshop because William is an effective speaker who can engage his audience during his lecturing.
We started off the workshop by making lists out of keywords that we were given to us for men of different races. For example, for the Black male: big, outgoing, Will Smith, President. The Latin male: sensual. The Asian male: Bruce Lee, stylish, hair gel, video games, pretty, emotional, and dominating. We were then shown pictures of archetypes for Asian, Black, and Latin men. The one for Asian men was Jackie Chan and the fictional character “Long Duk Dong”. The audience said that Chan was silly and always a martial artist. Dong was annoying, asexual, and he was never going to get “any.” The Black male archetype was Wesley Snipes from the movie Blade. He was strong and conquering. For the Latin male, a picture of Enrique Iglesias was shown who many of the girls in the room said was sexy.
People were also upset how Asian males are often portrayed in extreme roles to prove how non-stereotypical they can be. They are uncaring characters or drug addicts like in the movies The Perfect Score and Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. Sometimes Asian men are in roles only as nerds, criminals, and they don’t take the initiative. What was also discussed is the long gap in between movies with a lead Asian man with a love interest. Jason Scott Lee had one in the movie Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, then Rick Yune in the movie The Fifth Commandment. Look at the years in between those two. How many are there that we can even count on the big screen that are shown to the American masses? Why isn’t the Asian male scene as a sexy, complex human being?
The Asian men in the room became very upset when a picture of Nicolas Cage was put up along with his wife, Alice Kim. They said it’s an image that they see almost on a daily basis. Cage is seen as very dominant over Alice, who is seen as the typical submissive Asian woman. People are accustomed to seeing a White male paired with an Asian female and not an Asian male with a White female or with any non-Asian female. Mainstream society is more likely not to accept images of Asian males cast in strong roles on the big screen where they are no put in a stereotypical or asexual role.
We as a people must demand a change in images of the Asian male. In response to the lack of Asian male roles that portray complex characters on the screen, many Asian Americans have decided to produce and direct their own movies through various Asian film festivals, for example, the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival (SFIAAFF), New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF), Asian American Film (AAF), and so forth.
For more information about Asian male sexuality and how they are portrayed in the media, please visit BetterAsianMan.com
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