Queering Asian American Media

Howard Diep | 10209864

In last week’s class we focused on Queer Asian America and Media. We screened a lot of video’s and clips that helped supplement our readings for the week. One piece that we focused on in detail was the reading and screening of PIRATED! by queer Vietnamese American filmmaker Nguyen Tan Hoang. When I first read the text, I found it okay to follow, but some parts didn’t really make sense, probably because I hadn’t seen the film beforehand. After screening it in class, the readings became a lot clearer and I could understand the context that Mimi Nguyen was focusing on in the different forms and styles of media. I think the biggest thing that I enjoyed from PIRATED! Was how Nguyen Tan Hoang highlights the escape experience of refugees and juxtaposing these images with images of gay nautical sex.  I found that in my own creative final project trying to juxtapose two different concepts to be harder than it seemed. I found that the different technical transitions and overlaps that Nguyen Tan Hoang uses, is interesting in the sense of the different ways you can interpret the images and messages.

After screening PIRATED! We then looked at different clips. Some clips that caught my attention was “Our Cosmos, Our Chaos”, “Who is Jiro”, and a Mail Order bride Frankenstien clip. Our Cosmos, Our Chaos interested me because I found the clip to have a sense of darkness and eeriness. It was a bit unexpected and ghastly when the class was watching it. It is a 20-minute stop-motion animation that explores the connection between mystical practice and social resistance. As with this clip, the same as PIRATED! Without knowing the context ahead of time, watching the clip could’ve been confusing and scary like I found it because there is so many interpretations that could be made throughout the clip. Overall I found it to be one of the more creative works that touches on a topic I am somewhat familiar with.

Who is Jiro? Was a fun clip that we also got to watch in class. Made by Queer Camp Productions, it focused on Queering one hystorical moment of Japanese Internment. I had learned the Jiro was a Japanese American who was placed in the internment camps and lived his life there, but was gay. Mr. Jiro had also possessed a handful of bodybuilding magazines and the clip to me explored a deeper message of what was it like to be a gay man living in the interment camps at that time? It was a different perspective to pick up and learn about and I found that to be very insightful and valuable. One aspect of the clip that I enjoyed was when Denise Uyehara placed bread loafs through her arms to make herself seem more masculine. I thought that part was pretty funny because I wasn’t expecting that.

The clip that gained much of my attention was a Mail Order Bride clip that focused on a man ordering mail order brides and putting them together or giving them live, referencing Frankenstein. When I first watched this clip, I found myself to react very angrily at the beginning scenes of the man picking out certain features and body parts that he wanted his mail order bride to have. And to think that issue still exists today, I find it to be very disheartening. However as the video went on, it began to add in some comic relief and humor and with that I thought it overall produced very well and memorable.

Also watching Professor O’Brien’s clip at Tuesday Night Project was awesome as well! The notion of performing masculinity and gender are still things I contemplate about a lot in my mind and by watching the disruption of what is normal only opens my eyes to the different structures that we’re living in.

Week 7 Blog: Women and Gender Expression

By: M. Saechao

The roles of women in movies have a wide range in what they do. In specifics, Asian Americans lead different roles in the movies we watch today. For most other racial/ethnic groups, most women have a leading role and are depicted either as the strong female character  or subordinate, but they have a wide range of roles they an pick from. For Asian Americans, there are not many roles in which the female can play. Most movies have depicted the Asian female to play as a quiet female whom is very respectful and is similar to a servant, or a sexual character that is very provocative and endearing, or the role as the mysterious assassin. These characters are mostly selected towards female actresses that are Asian. They play these role, because Asians are seen as a sheltered or very exotic.

Movies are a way to look at specific ethnic groups in a larger pictures. People use movies and shows to reference how to spot on certaing groups and then this is followed by racial stereotypes that are brought along. From Chapter 3 of Straightjacket Sexualities one of the things that brought to my attention was, “You know, because Suzie Wong was a prostitute a lot of Americans got the wrong idea and they thought all Asian women were prostitutes”, this type of medium through movies can have a negative impact on how people perceive people. Females that play the roles as the submissive and dragon lady give the impression that all Asians, female or not are like this. It makes me enraged to have people think that Asians would have this type of image, because of the media.

The different clips we watched in class tied in with the idea of the different roles of Asian women in the media. It gave us a better glance on how limited the Asian roles are in movies. In almost all movies, there are no female or male characters that lead whom are Asian and it’s disappointing.

Crossing Boundaries: Familiarizing Queer Asian American Media

By Kaitlin Wright

“When I came out of the closet in college in the late 1980s, I thought I was a unicorn. That is, I believed that I was a mythical creature. Surely I was the only gay Asian-American person in the universe. All the gay spaces that I belonged to were white, and all the Asian-American spaces that I belonged to were straight. There couldn’t possibly be others like me!”

Rev. Patrick S. Cheng “A Unicorn at the White House” Huffingtonpost.com

Asian American history is littered with hundreds of stereotypes. These stereotypes have a way of dwarfing the existing realities of individual Asian Americans. In light of showcasing the factual realities of Asian Americans, stereotypes and labels are a way of compartmentalizing people into categories. The problem is that obviously not everyone fits into these categories, nor are these categories stable. In “In the Arms of Pirates, Under the Bodies of Sailors” by Mimi Thi Nguyen the theme of precarious boundaries is discussed in relation to Nguyen Tan Hoang’s PIRATED! film. The film exposes and crosses boundaries between child and adult, male/female sexuality, and fantasy and reality. The ambiguous relationship between these themes asserts that specific “truths” are not completely stable. Nguyen writes, “a fixed sense of self becomes impossible” (68).  People’s lives and memories are fragmented and in trying to piece the story together people fashion what is before them around generic conventions. 

In the movie PIRATED!  there are a lot of repeated images that might allude to this regurgitated reality that people have fixed around certain stereotypes. The video repeats images over and over again in an attempt to construct a narrative. The key here is the constructedness of the narrative. For instance, there are images of a boy sleeping in a hammock immediately followed by half-naked homosexual pirates. The way these two different scenes are ordered implies that the boy is dreaming of these sexual pirates. The film thus disrupts the naivety of children’s dreams and at the same time comments on the persistent myth of the “gay pirate”. By coupling images of children with adult themes such as sexuality is one example of how the filmmaker tries to disavow or at least acknowledge, the judgement the audience makes in terms of the fabricated “right” and “wrong”, “good” and “bad” of our culture. 

This idea of a constructed image is applicable not only in terms of being gay or straight, but this identity image compares to the boundary of race. Racism is about prejudice based on race; A superiority is set up that limits one group in relation to another. Like with sexual orientation, there can be a false hierarchy established in society that limits the visibility of homosexuals of color. Using art such as the film PIRATED! helps to show the need for a “disruption of the hope for a static, pure, or essential identity” (74). There isn’t only one way to describe or to “know” someone. Films and other pieces reveal the supposed “unwavering truths” of our culture to be relatively unstable after all. 

QUEER ASIAN AMERICAN’S ICON

79935303 Daisuke Tohyama

QUEER ASIAN AMERICAN’S ICON

            I participated in a workshop about queer Asian American sexuality at Asian Pacific American Awareness Conference on 26^th January. The instructor mainly mentioned that nobody wants to discuss porno films academically and what makes men masculinity. However, since he projected many queer porno clips without any mosaic to participants, my friends only blamed that these films were indecent after the workshop. To be honest, that workshop made me feel somehow bad for queer sexuality.

Since I expected that we have to watch many queer porno clips, I was surprised that the PIRATED! had different expression and meaning from only queer Asian American films. Unlike I expected, by using weird camera angles during porno scene, I felt less nervous and watched the overall film more carefully than previous films. Oishi mentions that “The specific details of the performer or the performance are less important than the icon itself.” (Oishi Par14) In this film, the icon image is pirates which are considered as mostly gay. Since there are only males on the boats, many people assume that every pirate is gay. The film mixes reality and unreality. The icon is unreality. The icon implies obsession with popular cultures. The icon was socially created by mainstream culture.

The other thing I noticed was that these icons are much related to what makes someone queer. There are many icons indicating queer. I saw many icons in the class this week on Fan Christy, or other clips such as long fingers or clothes.

In a film, made by Korean American students, a main character is a gay and a dancer. That image of a gay dancer also implies one of gay icons. While “normal family” is described as adorable in the film, he is described as kind of sad person. I though this situation has two meanings. One is that he is still marginalized by family or society. When his family is taking their picture, he looks somehow sad. The other is that he also has a family with his boy friend and a dog. After he comes back to his apartment, he takes shower with his boy friend and kisses him. That scene implies he was physically and mentally embraced and understood by his boy friend. For these points, the film projects kind of positive image of gay couples as well as the obsession with popular culture .

Work Cited

Oishi Eve “BAD ASIANS, THE SEQUEL: CONTINUING TRENDS IN QUEER API FILM AND FILM AND VIDEO” Millennium Film Journal .　October 1, 2003 Par14

Week 6: Denise Uyehara

Instead of holding regular class during this week’s scheduled time, we had a mandatory field trip to Pitzer College for Denise Uyehara’s artist talk.  Prior to the actual trip, I had no preconceived notions of Denise Uyehara; I had never heard of her or her work, which left me completely in the dark about what to expect.  All I knew was that she was an Asian American artist and that she was giving a talk about her performance art.  But what is performance art?  It was a concept completely foreign to me, and I had never seen or heard of it before; I was in for a nice surprise at Denise Uyehara’s talk.

Due to the distance of the talk’s location and the traffic around the talk’s time, I arrived a bit late to the performance and missed her introduction.  But the rest of her performance talk captured my complete attention.  Everything she did garnered a reaction from me; there was not a single moment when I felt uninterested or bored.  There was one piece that left the biggest impression on my mind and that was the video recording of her Okinawa interactive performance, called The Senkotsu (Mis)translation Project. 

During her talk, Denise Uyehara revealed that she is of half Japanese and half Okinawan descent.  Though Okinawa was a colony of Japan, it has a rich individual history and culture separate from Japan.  During World War II, the Battle of Okinawa was fought on the island, which killed over a quarter of the native population.  The island was devastated by this dramatic decrease in numbers and eventually became a US military base in 1972.  Taking from the rich and diverse history of Okinawa, Denise Uyehara created an interactive performance piece that represented the sorrow and despair of the Okinawan people, titled The Senkotsu (Mis)translation Project. We were only shown the video taping of this piece, but watching the recording was more than enough for us to understand the performance.  The project begins with an ice cube, suspended in air by wire, slowly melting and dripping in complete darkness.  Following the ice cube, the recording cuts to a scene with several ominous figures, dressed in traditional Okinawan clothing and painted completely white from head to toe.  These figures crouch down, picking up and examining bones from the floor.  Against a translucent sheet placed in front of these figures, images of US military occupation are projected.  The audience was then invited to interact and touch the bones displayed; they were encouraged to rearrange and manipulate the bones into various specified shapes.  After the audience was done with the bones, they were guided to the (Mis)translation machine, where they could whisper something in one end and would receive a message through the other. With the expert use of lighting and sound, the entire project was given an eerie feeling, alluding to the dark, violent history of Okinawa.  I was enthralled by the creepiness and uncomfortable feel of her project; this was a piece that challenged the audience to reach out of their comfort zones and into reality. 

Evelyn Pei — #83257157

Week 8: Straightjacket Sexualities Ch 1 & 2

What is does it mean to be masculine?  How do we measure masculinity and how do we judge who is considered masculine?  Masculinity is socially constructed to define what it means to be a man within today’s society.  But like with all other social constructs, not everything or everyone necessarily fits neatly into society’s expectations.  In the first two chapters of Straightjacket Sexualities, the traditional concepts of masculinity are examined and reinvented to fit within the context of Asian Americans, particularly Asian males.  Author Celine Parrenas Shimizu deconstructs the normative view of masculinity, drawing examples from the life and works of Bruce Lee and the concept of shame within specific Asian American films.

An Asian American icon, Bruce Lee is notorious around the globe for his muscular physique and impeccable kung fu skills.  Having starred in several Hollywood films, Bruce Lee counters the typically portrayed view of the weak Asian male.  Though he challenges the stereotype that Asian males are inherently weak, his characters still seemingly lack one aspect of masculinity: sexuality.  But Shimizu claims that Bruce Lee does indeed show not only masculinity, but also sexuality, just in a different way.  She argues, “between ferocity and tenderness, vulnerability and strength, and caring not only for the self but other—especially friends, family, and women—Bruce Lee formulates an ethical manhood not aligned with patriarchy alone but with a larger field of social relations” (34).  Bruce Lee transcends the normative Western views of masculinity and exemplifies masculinity in relation to culture and people.       

Aside from Bruce Lee, Shimizu also counters the Western view of masculinity by examining the use of shame within film.  Drawing examples from films such as Eat a Bowl of Tea, The Wedding Banquet, and Sixteen Candles, Shimizu argues “that shame may provide the opportunity for undoing one’s position and transforming the self away from the standards that demean and degrade it into a more enriched experience of self-respect and even joy in forging one’s own manhood” (83).  Though each film portrays a different aspect of shame, it is through the use of this shame that the static definition of masculinity can be redefined.  By wiping away the preconceived notions of masculinity with shame, these films represent the possibility to form new concepts of masculinity.           

Unlike their white counterparts, Asian men are often viewed as feminine and soft.  Details magazine published a photograph that taught the American public how to distinguish an Asian man and a gay man.  Having examined this in class, I was dismayed to find the multiple discrepancies and incongruities in the photo.  Not only were the descriptions racist in nature, they were also discriminatory against gays.  It detrimentally stereotyped the identities of Asian males and gay men as interchangeable.  Not only were the descriptions inaccurate, they could also be used to describe many other categories of men.  With this one photograph, both Asian males and gay men were wrongly depicted.    

Evelyn Pei — #83257157  

Queering Asian America

Queer identity within the Asian American community is complex one; not only do they have to examine their identities in relation to race, but also within the realm of sexuality.  Although not as widely publicized as their white counterpart, the queer Asian community is one of considerable size and number.  Many queer Asian Americans choose to explore their dual identities through creative outlets, such as film and performance art.  These creative outlets enable queer Asian Americans to explore self-identity and their role within the larger Asian community.  In class, we viewed numerous video clips, many dealing with queer subject matter.  Several stood out more prominently than others, and these were PIRATED! and love bang!.  These two captured my attention the most, and although at first I did not understand some aspects of these videos, they made the most lasting impressions on my mind.

Prior to screening PIRATED!, I had a slight knowledge of what to expect from reading Mimi Thi Nguyen’s article.  From what I had read in the article, I was expecting to see a large amount of male nudity and gay porn.  But to my surprise, the scenes depicting male-on-male fellatio were not the blatant pornography I had envisioned.  Although the scenes were indeed graphic and left nothing to the imagination, the pictures were distorted and the colors were solarized, which gave them a surreal quality and feel.  Through PIRATED!, director Nguyen tries to connect two aspects of himself through the pirate motif: the young Vietnamese boy and the gay Asian American male.  

Besides the PIRATED! clip, the other video that captured my attention was love bang!, a music video created by Viet Le.  In this music video, it depicts two transgendered, star-crossed lovers from different universes.  The song’s lyrics incorporate three languages, English, Vietnamese and Khmer; it not only crosses boundaries of gender and sexuality, but also that of race and ethnicity. Viewing this video and seeing the elaborate outfits and makeup reminded me of the first time I was exposed to LBGT Asian Americans.  This week in class was not the first time I’ve been exposed to LBGT Asian Americans, though it has been the most graphic.  When I was a freshman in college, I had a gay Asian American male as my best friend.   One weekend he was invited to return to San Francisco and perform at a Gay Asian Pacific Alliance (or GAPA) banquet, so the both of us went up to San Francisco for this event.  At this event were some of the most important members of the gay Asian American community, and they were all there to support GAPA’s cause.  Besides my friend, a group of transgendered Asian women, called the Rice Rockettes, were also asked to perform.  All of us were seated at the same table, and although the Rice Rockettes were eccentric in their outfits and makeup (similar to that in the music video love bang!), they were inviting and accepting.  By being exposed to LBGT Asian Americans early in my college experience, I learned to be accepting and open to all types of people and their preferences. 

Evelyn Pei — #83257157

Unbinding Straitjacket Sexualities

Aaron Kim

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As Am 115

Unbinding Straitjacket Sexualities

In chapter 5 of Shimizu’s Straitjacket Sexualities, Shimizu brings forth the historical cinematic figures of two Asian American actors James Shigeta and Jason Scott Lee. James Shigeta’s highlighted works was aimed particularly to be labeled as a heartthrob, while Jason Lee became a sex symbol during the 1990’s. It particularly interested me because growing up in America I did not experience any Asian American male actors to be intertwined through Hollywood as someone with sex appeal or a sexual relationship. Just recently however, the popular show Walking Dead did bring light to Asian American men to be a lover, leader, and also a protagonist. If I look at past films that I saw that incorporated Asian men with a relationship with a woman, I realized this was only evident when the same race (asian with asian) was together. For example: Jackie Chan’s films especially Supercop 2, shows Jackie Chan having a loving relationship with another Asian women and not a white female actress, etc. But if we see let say an African American man in a relationship with an Asian woman, then it is fine. Asian men in the perspective of stereotypes and even Hollywood, are depicted to be only capable of loving Asian females or loving themselves as asexuals as Shimizu depicts in chapter 5. 

In Chapter 5, we learn much about James Shigeta and how he contributed in engaging to define Asian men to be heterosexual, gallant, respectful, charismatic, chivalry and courteous. He also redefined the fact that Asian men cannot be with any other females than their own race: Shigeta became the epitome of interracial marriage and relationship. Shimizu focuses on one particular film from his works: The Crimson Kimono. In this film, the setting takes place in America during the Cold War, where the tension between the U.S. and Japan were strained. In addition to political ties, Shigeta also implements through the plot, the devastating effects of love, being with a white woman. In a way, Shimizu offers the fact that love does not revolve around geopolitical affairs, but rather the indepth characteristic of the individual and one being loved and a lover. This in fact brings to light the redefining momentum of Asian masculinity as not one of just the penis and phallus, but rather through romantic ideals of flirtation, kissing, interracial marriage in pursuit of righteous love, and the mere fact that Asian men can be inclusive with society.

Hopefully within my lifetime there will be a time where Asian peoples in general will have the same face, the same color, the same eye size, and same everything in aspects where society can visualize Asians not as inferior OR superior, but rather just people in general with one love. Whether this can be established through media or popular culture I do not care. As long as the message is sent that Asian people are not ridiculed for being smart, having small phallus, squinty eyes, or any racial generalizations, then everything is good. The popular show Walking Dead is doing good in this aspect where Asian men are portrayed not as weak and feeble, but independent and willing, as well as a character with ethics and morals. One example of this is Glen (Steven Yeun) in the Walking Dead, he is seen as a hunter, lover, independent, and strong individual. Hopefully the upcoming Asian american actor/actresses will stray away from stereotypes and play roles that actually reflect their lives and not one as seen through the perspective of the racist nation.

Shimizu’s Straitjacket Sexualities Chapter 1

Howard Diep | 10209864

Last week we discussed Chapter 1, 2, and 5 in Shimizu’s Straitjacket Sexualities. Chapter 1 had me really invested because it had a lot of context in analyzing Bruce Lee’s masculinity. Personally, Bruce Lee is one of my hero’s and role models and I genuinely look up to him, so it was nice being able to read something about someone you’re interested in and value.

One aspect of Bruce Lee’s masculinity that was discussed in Chapter 1 was Shimizu’s example of his role in the Big Boss as Cheng Chao-an. Shimizu contrasts Bruce Lee’s physical aggressiveness and martial arts with his gentle gestures in reassuring the different women within his films and builds a relationship between them. It was interesting to read that Shimizu stated that Bruce in that film is the authenticity of sexuality and masculinity. It was also interesting to look at the different perspectives that are used to viewing sexuality and masculinity. The western way generally stated that aggressive and dominance was necessary in order to be masculine or a “man”. But compared to Bruce, it was something different. I also referred often to the notion of “gender is a performance” throughout my day today, drawing on the different things I see around campus.

Within class we also discussed Chapter 2, which discusses the idea of the Asian American man as a shameful character and how that can work with or against Asian American men. I remember one discussion we had in class last week was about 16 candles and how Asian American men are undervalued as compared to other men. I think the one of the biggest points that I drew from this chapter was the embracement of the shame and how that could be a transgressive force used as a tool to find other ways to distinguish and express Asian American masculinity. I remember the group that presented drew examples from Jackie Chan and how he represented Asian American masculinity. Similar to Bruce Lee, Jackie focuses on the immediate goal of accomplishing whatever tasks are assigned to him and in moments of encounters that might “test” his sexuality as an Asian American man on media and film, Jackie doesn’t lose focus or stray off course. Moments of humor are interjected within these scenes such as the fight scene in the bedroom with Chris Tucker trying to listen and observe on the outside.

In Chapter 5 Shimizu discusses how Asian American men are portrayed in Hollywood film as asexual, secondary to the main character, or as the main character. She discusses how in many cases however; Asian American men have been assigned lead roles within films. For example Shimizu talks about Jason Lee as the main lead character and how he has been featured in various films such as Crimson Kimono, The Jungle, and Rapa Nui. She states however that the romantic lead offers a different manhood. Within this chapter we had to compare the context to famous Korean-American actor John Cho. We decided to screen a clip of him in the elevator with Maria. We touched points on Asian American masculinity and aggressiveness through Cho’s character and his hesitations and fantasies during the elevator ride.

Shimizu Chapter 3: Hypersexuality of Race

Howard Diep | 10209864

In the third chapter of Shimizu’s The Hypersexuality of Race “The Sexual Bonds of Racial Stardom”, Shimizu addresses the topic of U.S. society and media and it’s relation to Asian American Women, specifically using Lucy Liu, Anna May Wong, and Nancy Kwan as examples. I had missed this weeks class because I had caught the flu that was going around campus, but I had try my best to fully grasp this chapter and its context.

Shimizu discusses how the Asian American female actress in Hollywood is portrayed as an image of a hypersexualized individual. As I’ve learned through watching different clips and how media portrays Asian Americans, I could understand where Shimizu was coming from. She discussed how out of the three actresses, how Anna May Wong did not like how she was represented as a hypersexualized Asian actress and how she was perpetuating the stereotype through her roles. I found it interesting to read after, watch videos, and hear about the discussions outside of class about how Lucy Liu tolerates stereotyping for the sake of future power and control. I also found how Shimizu stated that Asian/American women who appear to utilize negative, hypersexual stereotypes in order to empower themselves and their performances.

I believe that through her text and discussion that we are able to provide an alternative perspective to the gender–race debate. Also, through this this, we can see how western culture adds a hypersexualized demeanor to Asian American actresses.