Hope everyone had a relaxing spring break. Here are a few questions to consider for this week's reading.
In "Confronting Gender Stereotypes of AA Women" it seems that many of the thoughts revolve around the question, “do Hollywood movies perpetuate racial stereotypes by reinscribing them in the popular imagination or are such movies merely ‘harmless entertainment’ that has no lasting impact or effect?” What do you think? Have you seen any movies recently that you found used stereotypes in a non-detrimental way? What about in a very detrimental way?
What is your opinion about what happened between the members of Unbound Feet and the disbandment of the group?
Wong believed that…
· You cannot force politics on another person.
· As activists and feminists it is important to speak out against issues that you don’t agree with, even if it means dividing/creating scars in the (Asian American) community.
· “Criticism is a positive moving force” (240).
· The opposing members in Unbound Feet relied on personal squabbles and did not act on “democracy and feminism” (240).
Do you agree with all of Wong’s insights in the situation? Is there anything that we can learn from this incident? What does it say about (feminist) organizations, organizations that at its core try to bring people from all cultures, all walks of life, and all communities?
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The media topic is always sort of difficult to talk about. In my personal opinion as an Asian American, I'm always going to watch a movie and notice, hey look, that lead is an Asian. When I was younger, if there was an Asian on tv, my mother would call everyone, and we would all sit around the tv together to watch. Though not all of these are movies, we rooted for Michelle Kwan, my siblings all know John Cho, we will remember Lucy Liu, etc etc... I think this topic is first of all, a bit easier to discuss when we first split movies into mainstream (Charlie's Angels) versus non mainstream (mainly documentaries), and the in-betweens (Harold and Kumar, or Joy Luck Club).
ReplyDeleteIn terms of mainstream media--a large goal of the entertainment industry is obviously, to entertain. I liked Charlie's Angels when I was younger for example, because Lucy Liu was pretty, smart, heroic,... and Asian. But watching the movie as an Asian American female now, I can't help but remember the amazingly obvious "Asian female" stereotypes evident in the film. The dragonlady effect. The exoticness. The foreignness.
With movies with this type of stereotyping, I really think that the impact of the film is specific to the viewer. For someone who isn't too familiar with race/racism issues, or without some sort of ethnic studies background for example, this movie really may just be entertainment. Though there would be some detrimental impact, the "harm", or the impact, wouldn't result from one movie alone. The "harm" would be an accumulation of media/pop-culture that constructed a not-necessarily accurate image of an Asian American in that person's mind. But typically, you would think that you couldn't get that whole effect from one movie alone.
Then when you look at non-mainstream media, you have the documentaries that more or less attempt to tell some type of story. Although I don't think we really need to go into the whole biased unbiased issue again, we did conclude that documentaries usually have some sort of message. And I think that the detrimental versus non-detrimental is going to be very film-specific.
Looking briefly at Wong's beliefs, I think the first thing I want to mention is that how one displays or acts on their activism, is specific to the individual. I definitely agree that you cannot force politics on another person, although you can share. But I don't necessarily agree on dividing or creating scars in the Asian American community. I think that in general although it is important to speak out against issues you don't agree with, if you feel like you should, you should try to do it in such a way that you are not dividing the community. But I think my opinion would change looking at the community in question. If for example, it was an issue that would divide the US into separate groups for example, I would be all for speaking against it. The US has such a huge population, and MANY people have MANY different views on MANY different issues. Or if you were talking about the LA community. But the Asian American community is different in that it really still is a growing movement, that often relies on coalitions within the community, and even a pan-Asian movement. There may be a time when the Asian American community will be strong enough to be able to absorb smaller groups with differing opinions, yet still be able to maintain the overall movement. And perhaps for some communities, that time is already here. So I think in terms of speaking out even if it means dividing the community, my thought is that if the community already has differing opinions within, and has shown to still be able to hold together, then it's totally fine to divide the community based on the issue you are interested in. But if the community is not yet at that point, then one may want to not risk further dividing that community just yet.
Clint Eastwood's film "Gran Torino" deals with a lot of racial stereotypes and the film actually has positive representations of Hmong women - they are portrayed as strong, independent, educated, and outspoken.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the racial stereotypes in Hollywood movies, I believe that it depends on the context. I was at the AA art symposium at the Hammer Museum last week. Professor of American History from Stanford University, Gordon Chang, points out that a photograph of pioneer AA artist Lai Yong has been regarded as a racial stereotypical portrayal of Chinese. In the photograph, Yong is wearing traditional Chinese clothing and has a queue. However, only later did people understand that Lai Yong purposely portrayed himself this way not because he wanted to play into a stereotype, but because he was proud of his heritage and tradition. At a conference, a colleague asked whether Hollywood perpetuates racial stereotypes of AA women or Asian filmmakers actually play a role in the perpetuation as well. The bottom line is that economy drives the film industry. I guess what I am trying to say is that "things don't always appear as what they are" and we ought to read the underlying meanings. I also think that as the audience we should voice our opinions (write a letter to LA Times Op-Ed section, for example) when we see unfair portrayals of AA women in the media.
I do agree that you cannot force your politics on to another person no matter how hard you try. Each person must make their own decisions and choices in that area. I believe you can influence others thoughts but, not force it on them.
ReplyDeleteI think it is important to stand up for issues that you don’t believe in because that is the only way change will happen. If you just sit back and let things happen that you don’t agree with, you have no chance at all to speak your mind and have your thoughts and ideas heard. Protesting and rallying against an issue that you feel is unjust is a very effective way to evoke change. This was effective when blacks fought for their human rights and for integration, when women fought for their right to vote, and today as we fight for the rights of gays and lesbians to be equal and fair.
I agree that criticism is important because it helps to make a person better and improve upon themselves. If no one told you want you did wrong, you would never know what to work on and you would never make progress. Criticism is especially significant in a person’s educational and mental development.
I don't understand why the Asian America Studies at Berkeley said the agreement with Unbound Feet to pay for the publicity and technical costs was not going to go through. What happened to change the AAS's mind to not help Unbound Feet with their performance "Yellow Daughters"? I think that the AAS did the six members of Unbound Feet was unacceptable because they went back on their word and they were being relied upon.
Gran Torino is really good film. Any one else see it?
ReplyDeleteIt's important not to allow ourselves to demonize "Hollywood," "the media," and "the entertainment industry" for creating and reenforcing harmful constructions of race. Those constructions stem from a long history of racism and orientalism. Alquizola and Hirabayashi note this in Confronting Gender Stereotypes - media portrayals of Japanese and Chinese immigrants shifted in response to international politics. These constructions are reenforced in everyday life as well as in popular (and academic) culture.
ReplyDeleteTo speak to Wong's piece, I stand in complete agreement with her desire to speak out regardless of the personal consequences. Dissent is always healthy, and silently going along with an action you disagree with to "maintain unity" is both personally and
politically irresponsible.
At the same time, I take issue with her portrayal of the internal struggle within Unbound Feet. Wong's assertion that "the opposition had ample opportunity to voice their dissension" is problematic precisely because the opposition was unable to bring up their issues. It is the responsibility of every member of a democratic group to ensure that every member is given not only time to voice their concerns, but also a safe environment to do so. Given that their concerns were passed off as "personal squabbles" or worse, as upholding institutionalized racism and sexism, Unbound Feet was clearly not a space where every member felt comfortable expressing themselves.
As I share much of Wong's ideology, this is of pressing concern. Key to both feminism and participatory democracy is respect for individual subjectivity. That Wong denies this to the three dissenting members of Unbound Feet indicates that her understanding of these concepts is not as full she claims.
Stereotypes can be used ironically and satirically, sometimes with positive impact, though that is very dependent on the audience. The situations that come to mind when we talk about stereotypes being used detrimentally are the times when they 'don't factor in' or are 'funny', which is usually just reinforcing detrimental effects by making it common place. Stereotypes are too rarely used for positive impact; usually, they come up because someone (for example an artist, or the more clear example of an advertiser) is playing into the stereotype (agreeing/condoning) or capitalizing on it (exploiting it for their own end). Unless the stereotype is a main focus, I think it is usually difficult to counteract against it or have a positive impact.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was reading Unbound Feet, there were parts where I had a gut reaction of frustration and disagreement, but was unable to pinpoint exactly what it was. I think it has a lot to do with the strong and very limited perspective that the author presents, particularly regarding the artists who disagreed with the statement. There is a balance between the power of solidarity and the importance of speaking out even when doing so is divisive, and I think Wong was too much on the side of speaking out regardless of consequences. I think it is destructive to so sharply/abruptly cut off part of a group and completely dissociate from people, especially in response to a disagreement (which is what I got from the tone, more than what I take to be the intended message).