"Where Is He?!: Asian/American Representation in Netflix Original Programming"

Literature Review

Theoretical Framework

Critical to the theoretical foundation of my study is Avery Gordon’s (1997) concept of haunting, a sociological and psychological phenomenon that occurs when systems of oppression are not properly addressed by society. Each time the haunting is not addressed, the ideas it perpetuates are further “encoded” and “cultivated” into the cultural psyche. I discovered Gordon’s work through Chiwen Bao’s 2009 article “Haunted,” which analyzes the factors behind Dave Chappelle’s sudden hiatus from comedy in the mid-2000s. Bao found that despite Dave Chappelle’s efforts to use satire to critique racist dialogues and ideas, the unresolved history of slavery and minstrelsy overshadowed his attempts. Though chattel slavery may be officially over, the lack of discussion around the impacts of slavery and the images produced from slavery and minstrelsy still subconsciously perpetuate those ideas. In fact, Bao claims, the reason why Chappelle might have gained prominence in the first place is because of the awful, subconscious pleasure that hegemonic American audiences felt from these images.

This study is also influenced by Seo-Young Chu’s work on uncanny valley. Uncanny valley is the theory that people will respond well to humanlike beings up until around 85 percent similarity. Upon reaching this point, sympathy mutates into revulsion, only ascending again upon reaching 100 percent humanlike status. For that brief period between 85 and 100 percent similarity, people hold “uncertainty over whether a ‘type’ of person is genuinely human or alive” (Chu, 2015, p. 78). Consequently, many tend to reject and even attack that which, to them, is not quite human and therefore not sympathetic. The shape of the curve on the graph looks like a valley (p. 76). Chu argues that this theory, originally applied to robots, also applies to Asian American stereotypes, as stereotypes “enable . . . psychological shortcuts that relieve [someone] of the inconvenience of devoting full attention to the irreducibly complex reality of other humans’ quirks,” ambitions, and dreams (p. 77). This is a view also shared by Pham and Ono (2008). As such, under this theory, it is easier for Hollywood creatives to rely on the stereotypes of Asian Americans cultivated over long histories of war and racism than undergo that inconvenience of creating full-fledged characters and storylines.

Asian American Representation

There are four key terms to keep in mind before reading my analysis: orientalism, model minority, yellow peril, and perpetual foreigner syndrome. There are also three specific pieces of legislation that have defined the boundaries and perceptions of Asian America throughout our country’s history, and consequently their presence in public life and media: The Page Act of 1875, the Chinese Exclusion Act, and the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. While these are not the only pieces of legislation and history that have shaped Asian America, they are the ones most pertinent to my study. It is important to know what they entail, because as Gordon (2008) writes in Ghostly Matters, unacknowledged and consequently unresolved racist histories find ways to persist and haunt us even now in the present.

Historical Background

The Page Act of 1875 occurs first chronologically and serves as a precursor to the Chinese Exclusion Act, which is signed into law in 1882. Reacting to white Americans’ fear that Chinese and East Asian immigrants would steal their jobs, The Page Act banned “undesirable” workers, one of which was specifically prostitutes. As a result, the act most effectively banned women, with immigration officers deeming all East Asian women immigrating as prostitutes and sending them back. Thus, combined with a rise in anti-miscegenation laws, we see a culture of bachelorhood and arguably the de-sexualization of Chinese and Asian men, who were still able to immigrate but could not settle down with a family and therefore join American society (African American Policy Forum, n.d.). Simultaneously, we also arguably see the hypersexualization of Asian women, which leads to stereotypes in media persistent until today, such as the geisha (sexual, subservient, submissive), the dragon lady (sexual, fierce, to be conquered), and others (Shimizu, 2007).

The Chinese Exclusion Act was the first piece of legislation that banned all members of a nation or ethnic group from immigrating to America. Like the Page Act, it was also inspired by white Americans’ fears of job sparsity (AAPF, n.d.). This legislation would remain in place until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which completely overturned the quota system and replaced it with our current system, allowing large waves of immigrants to finally come to this country (“U.S. Immigration since 1965,” 2019). My own mother and her family were some of those immigrants.

Critical Asian American Studies Terms

I outline these pieces of legislation because they not only determined who could come into this country, but also perpetuated, animated, and affirmed stereotypes Americans may have already had about Asians and Asian Americans, as well as inspired new stereotypes and depictions. Hence, my four key terms: orientalism, yellow peril, model minority, and perpetual foreigner syndrome. Orientalism is a term derived from the history of West’s racist conceptualization of “the Orient,” a figure

not only adjacent to Europe; [but] also the place of Europe’s greatest and richest and oldest colonies, the source of its civilizations and languages, its cultural contestant, and one of its deepest and most recurring images of the other. . . . the Orient has helped to define Europe (or the West) as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience. (Said, 1978, p. 9)

The Orient was not simply a tragic casualty of Western racism, but rather an intentional victim of exploitation by (white) Westerners. It is important to recognize this because Asians and Asian Americans are whole people who deserve to be more than a plot device in someone else’s character arc.

From orientalism stems two of my other key terms: yellow peril and perpetual foreigner syndrome. In an American context, the yellow peril trope is of depraved Asian American heathens coming to undermine America and everything it stands for (Marchetti, 1993, p. 2). This image is most blatantly obvious in past anti-immigration propaganda and the present-day administration’s reaction to Covid-19, but the trope appears in Hollywood media again and again, depending on which Asian nation America is warring against at the time. The most critical component of the yellow peril trope is the duplicity that comes with it: the yellow peril lulls the Western characters into a state of trust, before betraying them and taking over everything the West holds dear. Perpetual foreigner syndrome refers to the trope of Asian Americans never being represented as full American citizens, even if they have been born and raised on American soil (Huynh et al., 2011). The last of my key terms, model minority, also stems from orientalism.

This trope portrays Asian Americans as a “model minority” for their educational success, work ethic, and lack of involvement in crime. The model minority stereotype goes as far as to say that Asians are honorary white people but never accepts them as full members of American society (Rim, 2007). After all, they may be the model minority, but the yellow peril runs through their veins, waiting to be activated. “In exchange for [this] conditional status, Asian American ‘model minorities’ perform cheer, dedication, and team spirit to maintain the affective economy” they will never be allowed to truly take space and participate in (Yoon, 2008, p. 296). By employing this stereotype, the diversity of the Asian American community and its struggles surrounding housing and workplace discrimination, immigration, and many other issues are erased. The model minority stereotype is also used to pit Asian Americans against other minorities, thereby preventing them from forming coalitions and acting in solidarity against the racist systems they all are harmed by. Now that these key terms and pieces of history have been defined, our focus turns to what specific research has been produced on Asian American media representations.

Review of Existing Research Literature

As Asian American representations in media are often presented in gendered and sexualized ways, much work has been done already on representations of Asian/Asian Americans. Numerous authors (Shimizu, 2007; Marchetti, 1993; Yoon, 2008) have utilized qualitative methodologies such as autoethnography and textual analysis to examine the dragon lady, the lotus blossom, and the other different ways Asian and Asian American women (stylized as Asian/American by Palumbo-Liu [1999] and Shimizu [2007]¹) are treated and often hypersexualized within different media, how these images can empower as well as disempower Asian and Asian/American women. Rather than simplistically condemning these images, the authors take a more nuanced approach through the theory of the bind of representation for Asian/American women, keeping in mind how, “love her or leave her, the hypersexual Asian woman in representation haunts the experiences and perceptions of Asian Women” (Shimizu, 2007, p. 16). By acknowledging this, we can have a more effective response to Asian/American representation going forward.

Along with Asian/American femininity and womanhood, there have also been many studies on Asian/American masculinity and manhood. We see the hegemonic impressions of Asian/American masculinity manifest into two figures: Fu Manchu and Charlie Chan. Fu Manchu serves as the literal personification of yellow peril, and “if you take the Chineseness away, there is nothing left of him” (p. 2). He is not only defined by his physical characteristics, but also by his technological and scientific prowess, deceitful nature, and cruelty. Fu Manchu runs many criminal enterprises and desires to conquer the (Western) world; though why he wishes to is never explained (Mayer, 2014). Charlie Chan is Fu Manchu’s opposite—goofy, chubby, always with a helpful Confucian proverb up his sleeve. Chan has been seen by many Asian/American activists as a mortifying Uncle Tom, the model minority to Fu Manchu’s yellow peril (Richards, 2017).

In addition to how gender roles affect individual Asian/Americans, scholarship has been conducted on how these roles appear in interpersonal relationships, particularly interracial ones (and for the most part, scholarship has prioritized representations of cisgender-heterosexual depictions of sexuality). The characters entangled within these depicted relationships serve as proxies for both the more abstract Eastern/Western international relationships and the tangible anxieties from this fear of yellow peril that bleed into everyday relationships (Marchetti, 1993).

Beyond gender roles, we read into different genres that Asian/Americans have appeared in or influenced. While not direct depictions of Asian/Americans characters themselves, this branch of research only underscores the pressing need for better Asian/American representation. Asian countries and cultures have already contributed to Hollywood by providing “sheer eye candy” as filmmaker William Gibson once put it (as cited in Roh et al., 2015, p. 9); Asian/Americans deserve the social and financial capital that comes with proper representation. In addition to studies with a broader focus, there are many qualitative articles on specific iconic Asian/American figures and media such as Mulan (Dong, 2006) and Glenn Rhee of The Walking Dead (Ho, 2016). All provide important insights, but where this study differs is the broadness of its ultimate focus on Netflix’s (and thus theoretically, Hollywood’s) library as a whole.

Hollywood and Seriality