Asian Male Emasculation
Being that my blog has been turned into a sexual forum, I need to bring it back to the high road and establish some modicum of decency. It is an uphill battle, but hopefully I will succeed. Okay, well at least temporarily.
Living in Cali has afforded me a fresh perspective on my Asian Maleness. Having lived in Minnesota for all my life, I always felt clearly different from the rest of the population. I had the Fargo accent down, but despite my best efforts, I couldn't turn my brown eyes and black hair into blue eyes and blonde hair. Hmmm. That's an interesting picture. In Minnesota, I felt clearly separate from the uniformity about me. Not that they weren't nice about it, but I always was aware of my Asian-ness. You can fit in, but you're always conscious of your efforts to do so.
Moving to Cali was a revelation. All of a sudden, I was less aware of my Asian-ness. I never felt different by any means. Much more integrated I was (Yoda speak). In fact, the opposite occurred. I was more aware of the Asian-ness around me. That was sort of disturbing. But I'll let the Puppetmaster elaborate on that in one of her blogs. She tends to be the one with the more "controversial" views anyways. Some might say inflammatory. A select few might even call her comments incendiary.
Despite this newfound feeling of belonging, I still notice the effects of AME occurring around me. That's Asian Male Emasculation for those of you who are acronym challenged. The examples are all around. Go to your local drinking establishment with your Asian female friends. Notice when they think somebody looks good, it's often the tall alpha white male. Notice when they get drunk, they try to hang out with those same white males, disregarding the rest of the Asian males in your group or in the bar/club. This would be fine if the converse were true. However, it isn't. Non-Asian women don't lust after Asian guys. Don't even get me started on those "Asianphile" white guys.
All of this got me to thinking. How did this come about? Why the discrepancy? What is it about our society that makes Asian men less appealing? I'll offer a couple of my explanations, however biased and inflammatory they may be.
Film and Television
Ever notice how the Asian male never gets the lead role? Let's start off with the Asian male that currently is most well known to us: Jackie Chan. Now, I like Jackie. But I can't say that he exudes a male presence. He's always portrayed as goofy, feminine, and never interested in women. Apart from the imported feature films (those from Hong Kong), almost all of his movies required some sort of white person to make him appealing to that crowd. Oh yeah, and do I have to bring up the Green Hornet? Having said that, there are certainly more and more lead roles handed out to Asian males than previously. Jet Li has done a few. Bruce Lee even had Enter the Dragon (a classic). So this is only partly responsible for the AME.
Ever notice how TV shows or movies clearly about Asian culture end up having white male leads? Let's see. It started with Kung Fu. A show conceived by Bruce Lee. To display the amazing wonders of martial artistry, they chose none other than David Carridy. WTF? Another example is one of the critically acclaimed movies ever, "Fast and Furious." Now, we all know that the ricer car scene was nurtured into being by Asians in LA. So who better to represent ricers around the world than.... Paul Walker. What? Vin Diesel? Huh? In fact, I think the only Asians in that movie was the one playing video games in his car and another rather large fellow doing some weird glowstick dance. Great. Finally, while I haven't seen it, The Last Samurai appears to be another ripoff of Asian culture. Have the white guy come represent the Japanese Shogunate. How dumb can this be? Somebody here at work tried to quell my concerns by saying, "At least Tom Cruise is short and dark haired." I nearly lost it.
Ever notice how the Asian male never gets the woman? At the end of Romeo Must Die, Jet Li hugs Aaliyah. Wow. Hold back your pentup desires! Check your libido at the door Asian man! Where's the passionate kiss? For a movie about Romeo, there sure wasn't much Romeo type action. I can't even begin to talk about Jackie Chan movies. All of his kisses are "accidental." The closest to Asian male romance was the King and I with Chow Yun Fat. But when I first saw the trailer at the local movie house, somebody started laughing next to me and said, "they need a white guy for that movie." Let's just say I spilled some popcorn and sprite on him. "Sorry, I'm a clumsy Asian nerd."
That's a good lead into the next question: ever notice how the Asian male is ALWAYS portrayed as a geek, nerd, dork, whatever. The ultimate method of stripping an Asian male of his manhood is to make them all seem studious. If the movies were to be believed, we're just a bunch of asexual (budding is how we reproduce apparently), romantically challenged, great at math and science, no fashion sense eunuchs. An Asian James Bond? That would never happen, we're too honorable right? We would never take time to have sex (or even kiss) when there are lives to be saved.
Asian Male Self Emasculation
I can't sit there and complain without saying something about the Asian male's role in this. As Asian males, we need to assert ourselves to break out of this mode. We need to be more aggressive in choosing our careers, in establishing our goals, and in partying! You can't sit at home on your ass, living with your 20 other family members, having kinfolk cook and clean after you and complain about AME holding you down. You can't talk about how you're not getting any women because of AME while sitting in the corner of the bar and never having approached another woman in your life! You can't go out there and say how unmale you are made to feel when you never work out, never eat right, and dress like Bruce Lee in the 70s.
So what to do about the AME? I don't know. I guess maybe society will realize that, yes, Asians can be men too. Maybe I should become an Asian action hero. I can just use my amazing mathematical skills, my family honor, my asexual ways with women, and my clearly inherent Kung Fu skills to save the world. Maybe my friend Terry can be the Korean James Bond. That would be a movie I'd pay big bucks to see. I mean, he's got great one liner's: "Once you've had the Chong...." But I digress.
Living in Cali has afforded me a fresh perspective on my Asian Maleness. Having lived in Minnesota for all my life, I always felt clearly different from the rest of the population. I had the Fargo accent down, but despite my best efforts, I couldn't turn my brown eyes and black hair into blue eyes and blonde hair. Hmmm. That's an interesting picture. In Minnesota, I felt clearly separate from the uniformity about me. Not that they weren't nice about it, but I always was aware of my Asian-ness. You can fit in, but you're always conscious of your efforts to do so.
Moving to Cali was a revelation. All of a sudden, I was less aware of my Asian-ness. I never felt different by any means. Much more integrated I was (Yoda speak). In fact, the opposite occurred. I was more aware of the Asian-ness around me. That was sort of disturbing. But I'll let the Puppetmaster elaborate on that in one of her blogs. She tends to be the one with the more "controversial" views anyways. Some might say inflammatory. A select few might even call her comments incendiary.
Despite this newfound feeling of belonging, I still notice the effects of AME occurring around me. That's Asian Male Emasculation for those of you who are acronym challenged. The examples are all around. Go to your local drinking establishment with your Asian female friends. Notice when they think somebody looks good, it's often the tall alpha white male. Notice when they get drunk, they try to hang out with those same white males, disregarding the rest of the Asian males in your group or in the bar/club. This would be fine if the converse were true. However, it isn't. Non-Asian women don't lust after Asian guys. Don't even get me started on those "Asianphile" white guys.
All of this got me to thinking. How did this come about? Why the discrepancy? What is it about our society that makes Asian men less appealing? I'll offer a couple of my explanations, however biased and inflammatory they may be.
Film and Television
Ever notice how the Asian male never gets the lead role? Let's start off with the Asian male that currently is most well known to us: Jackie Chan. Now, I like Jackie. But I can't say that he exudes a male presence. He's always portrayed as goofy, feminine, and never interested in women. Apart from the imported feature films (those from Hong Kong), almost all of his movies required some sort of white person to make him appealing to that crowd. Oh yeah, and do I have to bring up the Green Hornet? Having said that, there are certainly more and more lead roles handed out to Asian males than previously. Jet Li has done a few. Bruce Lee even had Enter the Dragon (a classic). So this is only partly responsible for the AME.
Ever notice how TV shows or movies clearly about Asian culture end up having white male leads? Let's see. It started with Kung Fu. A show conceived by Bruce Lee. To display the amazing wonders of martial artistry, they chose none other than David Carridy. WTF? Another example is one of the critically acclaimed movies ever, "Fast and Furious." Now, we all know that the ricer car scene was nurtured into being by Asians in LA. So who better to represent ricers around the world than.... Paul Walker. What? Vin Diesel? Huh? In fact, I think the only Asians in that movie was the one playing video games in his car and another rather large fellow doing some weird glowstick dance. Great. Finally, while I haven't seen it, The Last Samurai appears to be another ripoff of Asian culture. Have the white guy come represent the Japanese Shogunate. How dumb can this be? Somebody here at work tried to quell my concerns by saying, "At least Tom Cruise is short and dark haired." I nearly lost it.
Ever notice how the Asian male never gets the woman? At the end of Romeo Must Die, Jet Li hugs Aaliyah. Wow. Hold back your pentup desires! Check your libido at the door Asian man! Where's the passionate kiss? For a movie about Romeo, there sure wasn't much Romeo type action. I can't even begin to talk about Jackie Chan movies. All of his kisses are "accidental." The closest to Asian male romance was the King and I with Chow Yun Fat. But when I first saw the trailer at the local movie house, somebody started laughing next to me and said, "they need a white guy for that movie." Let's just say I spilled some popcorn and sprite on him. "Sorry, I'm a clumsy Asian nerd."
That's a good lead into the next question: ever notice how the Asian male is ALWAYS portrayed as a geek, nerd, dork, whatever. The ultimate method of stripping an Asian male of his manhood is to make them all seem studious. If the movies were to be believed, we're just a bunch of asexual (budding is how we reproduce apparently), romantically challenged, great at math and science, no fashion sense eunuchs. An Asian James Bond? That would never happen, we're too honorable right? We would never take time to have sex (or even kiss) when there are lives to be saved.
Asian Male Self Emasculation
I can't sit there and complain without saying something about the Asian male's role in this. As Asian males, we need to assert ourselves to break out of this mode. We need to be more aggressive in choosing our careers, in establishing our goals, and in partying! You can't sit at home on your ass, living with your 20 other family members, having kinfolk cook and clean after you and complain about AME holding you down. You can't talk about how you're not getting any women because of AME while sitting in the corner of the bar and never having approached another woman in your life! You can't go out there and say how unmale you are made to feel when you never work out, never eat right, and dress like Bruce Lee in the 70s.
So what to do about the AME? I don't know. I guess maybe society will realize that, yes, Asians can be men too. Maybe I should become an Asian action hero. I can just use my amazing mathematical skills, my family honor, my asexual ways with women, and my clearly inherent Kung Fu skills to save the world. Maybe my friend Terry can be the Korean James Bond. That would be a movie I'd pay big bucks to see. I mean, he's got great one liner's: "Once you've had the Chong...." But I digress.
posted by Richard at 11:42 AM
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