Asian Roles

Mass media sources such as television and movies have always been one of the many influential tools in our society today. This paper will seek to understand why most Asians are given a typical specific role in movies (Eg: Kung Fu masters, Chinese physicians or governmental figures) and whether it is a matter of stereotype or coincidence. This could contribute to discovering if media portrays Asians due to their perceived Asian inherent culture through tinted glass or if it was a genuine role suited for an Asian actor to bring forth the essence of the film. In this paper, I will be looking into several movies with Asian typecast and viewing it objectively to derive a more concrete viewpoint with regards to the bipolar ends of stereotyping or coincidence. Besides evaluating movies, I will be sourcing for scholarly journals on Factiva and Google. This topic was chosen because having seen many movies over the past few years, there has been instances where certain roles has been and are being played by Asians which lead me endeavor upon the issue of why Asians in this particular role; would it be truly based on acting skills or the filmmaker’s stereotyped lenses? Being Asian, one wonders if being a person of color or race has caused emphasis on the mono-racial standard of casting and whether the effect of such films will continue to allow such perceptions to sink deeper. As perception gradually starts becoming a fixated ideology to people outside of the Asian culture, the effects of media come into play because of the almost constant repetition of certain race certain roles in films that are being shown. Asian culture has been a fodder for films produced in Hollywood leading to many perceptions that are not entirely true and the effects of such films are what cause perceptions to form as media has been touted as one of the crucial source of information as to how people are defined and measured. In this case, how Asians are defined and measured because of the

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