Okay, so, today I’m gonna talk about my little project on Asian female characters in the US. I got this idea a while back, and I finally got around to doing some digging.
First off, I started by just, like, googling around to see what’s already out there. I found some interesting studies, like this one from the University of Southern California. They were saying that representation of Asian Americans in Hollywood movies has actually gotten a lot better in the last 15 years or so. But, you know, there’s always a “but.”
- Reading through studies: I spent a good chunk of time reading through these academic papers. Some of it was pretty dry, but I found some good nuggets.
- Jotting down notes: I made sure to write down anything that stood out, like stats or specific examples. For instance, one study said that only 5.9 percent of speaking characters in top-grossing films from 2007 to 2019 were of Asian or Pacific Islander descent. That’s a pretty small number, right?
Then I moved on to looking at some specific movies. I wanted to see if what these studies were saying matched up with what I was seeing on screen.
- Watching movies: This was the fun part. I watched a bunch of movies, both old and new, that had Asian female characters.
- Taking notes on characters: I paid attention to how these characters were portrayed. Were they just stereotypes, or did they have actual depth? I noticed that we’ve moved away from super racist stuff like that Long Duk Dong character, but there’s still a lot of typecasting going on.
Diving into Demographics
After that, I wanted to get a better sense of the bigger picture, so I dug into some demographic data. I wanted to know where Asian Americans actually live in the US.
- Checking out census data: I found out that a huge chunk of Asian Americans live in California and New York. Like, 5.6 million in California and 1.6 million in New York, as of 2010.
- Cross-referencing: I tried to see if there was any connection between where Asian Americans live and the kinds of roles they get in movies. This part was a bit tricky, and I didn’t find any clear patterns, to be honest.
So, after all this, what did I actually find out? Well, it’s kind of a mixed bag. Things are getting better in terms of representation, but there’s still a long way to go. Asian female characters are often still stuck in stereotypical roles, and there’s not enough diversity in the kinds of stories being told.
I’m not saying I’ve cracked the code or anything, but it was a really interesting project. It definitely made me think more about the movies I watch and the kinds of roles I see for Asian women on screen. I hope sharing this will do that for you too! I’m gonna keep looking into this stuff, and I’ll definitely share more as I find it.
Alright, that’s it for now. I will keep this up and keep you posted.
