Asian American Women in the Media

 The media portrays Asian American women as pretty much only having one story, actually a few different stories, but not the whole story. Asian American women are portrayed as logical, straight faced women or extremely sensitive and submissive woman. When the media portrays women like this it is usually referred to being a dragon lady or lotus blossom. Both portrayals often come with an over sexualization of the character. If they are not portrayed by the media as one of these stories they will probably be portrayed by another stereotype. 

In the film and TV media these two stories are pretty much it. There are not that many Asian American roles in reality, but nearly all of them play to these two different stories, the dragon lady or the lotus blossom. An example of the dragon lady is the character Dr. Christina Yang on Grey’s Anatomy, she is often portrayed as highly logical, highly competitive, and will often times put her emotions to the side. Another example is Kimmy Jin in Pitch Perfect. She is extremely unsympathetic and has no care for pretty much anyone. On the lotus blossom side of characters, Lilly in Pitch Perfect is an example of the extremely quite, submissive Asian American.An example of a dragon lady that is still overly sexualized is the character Alex Munday of Charlie’s Angels. She is a pretty cool spy but the character is still extremely sexualized.  

I have found that after actually  Asian American women they have so much more to their stories than what the media offers. They are just as normal as any other woman I have met and are not really what the media portrays, or what memes are on the internet. It is extremely important to not let these stories stop us from getting to know different people. I have met some amazing Asian American women that really do not fit the mold media puts them in and do not fit the stereotypes found online. The things found online and in the media do not represent Asian American women fairly and most of the time what is represented is really offensive. Knowing that there is more than a single portrayal or a single story to someone is something we should all keep in mind as we go throughout our lives.