Asian Masculinity in the Western Eye

Introduction

When talking about feminism, the ideas of patriarchy, paternalism and preferential treatment for males, preferences for masculinity, and the male privilege are widespread. It is undeniable that being male in today’s world confers some advantages. This is not the case just in the western world. In many countries a preference for males and an understanding that males are naturally superior has led to many disadvantages for females, the development of different forms of patriarchy, fewer opportunity for schooling for girls, lower literacy for women, and even bad living conditions, some akin to slavery, for female citizens. While being a male, in itself, confers some advantages, race is a very influential factor which affects the experience of masculinity for males. When looking at the intersectionality between gender and race, we can see that race sometimes actually undermines the privileges conferred by masculinity itself. Asian males, in particular, are a very interesting case when analyzed from an intersectional lens, because their race has often rendered them invisible, stereotyped, racialized and de-masculinized in western culture.

The Male Body & Biopolitics

Society dictates the rules of behavior of people who live within them, and they also influence what we find desirable and undesirable. Much like the female bodies, the male bodies are subjected to biopolitics, meaning that the male bodies are also “socially constructed and imagined,” and this construction comes mainly from images promoted through the media (Boni, 2002, p. 466). In spite of our globalized world, there is no agreement on a “global body” which is equally desirable all over the world (Boni, 2002, p. 466). Instead, each culture defines its own characteristics and therefore the body is the result of the interaction between “different relations of power/knowledge,” so “different societies and different eras construct different masculinities” (Boni, 2002, p. 467). To define something as desirable means to set a hegemonic model, and therefore to deem others as undesirable.

Asian Men in the Western Eye

Since the 1950s, women have started earning money and thus consuming more, including more images of the male body. Shaw & Tan (2014) note that in the last 50 years there has been a huge increase in the “commercial representations of masculinity,” and as a result the male models have imposed certain ideas about male beauty and desirability (p. 118-119). For example, in Asia, the Confucian man who represented something to be desired was one with “literary and cultural achievement,” someone who passed government exams, had a good career and could provide for his family (Shaw & Tan, 2014, p. 120). However in the western culture, the hegemonic ideas of masculinity revolve around looks, body strength and muscles; in other words, appearance dictates desirability. In western colonial discourse the Asian men appear as “mute, passive, charming, decadent, hypersensitive, and androgynous” (Shaw & Tan, 2014, p. 122). Another image of the Asian male was established by artists who brought the appeal of martial arts to the west. From Bruce Lee to Jackie Chan and Jet Li, the Asian male who can fight has established some very powerful stereotypes. Shari (2013) notes that the typical Asian performer is “a man of few words, [with] a proud demeanor, implicit wisdom, and with a quiet mastery of every situation” (p. 289). Thus, even when they are shown in positive light, Asian protagonists are also implicitly defined as “non-white, non-Western, non-American maleness,” so they are more defined by what they are not than by what they are (Shari, 2013, p. 289).

Western Films as Sites of Culture

Western movies and TV series have historically ignored Asian males by excluding them from productions (with the exception of Karate films) or by placing them in stereotypical roles only. Even with the growing number of Asian immigrants flooding the United States in the past fifty years, the movies have remained an example of how a race can either be rendered invisible, or heavily stereotyped. Luke (1997) discusses the conundrum of what it means to be Asian and male and living in a western culture and argues that for a long time, Asian males have been virtually excluded from the “sexual economies,” have had little or no access to suitable partners and have had to deal with “both Asian and white patriarchy and sexism” (p. 32). While in Asian cultures there are plenty of masculine idols created by the movies, in western films Asian males are de-masculinized and rendered invisible or less masculine than the white protagonists. This reality is caused by the fact that Asian males don’t have the “defining characteristic of dominant masculinity,” such as “white skin, hairy chests, beards and facial hair, big arms and big muscles,” and thus they have become the “Other,” which is feminine (Luke, 1997, p. 32). The de-masculinization of Asian males has gone hand in hand with the over-sexualization of Asian women, who have been seen as exotic and desirable to the white males. They often appear as purely sexual objects, eroticized, mainly in roles of “concubines, prostitutes, house-servants and mail-order brides” (Luke, 1997, p. 33).

Recently there has been a new wave of “Hot Asians” cast in popular TV Series, but it is hard not to notice that these modern heartthrobs fit certain body expectations which are essentially white. They are generally very tall even for the white average, don’t have accents, and have extremely muscular bodies. They are not changing stereotypes about Asians; they are exceptions which show Asian men can be more like white men and if they become like white men, they become desirable and visible.

Korean actor Daniel Henney is 6’1”

S.W.A.T & Quantico Star Daniel Lim is American-born and 6’1”

References

Boni, F. (2002). Framing media masculinities: Men's lifestyle magazines and the biopolitics of the male body. European Journal of Communication, 17(4), 465-478.

Luke, A. (1997). Representing and reconstructing Asian masculinities: This is not a movie review. Social Alternatives, 16(3), 32-34.

Shary, T., & Project Muse University Press eBooks. (2013). Millennial masculinity: Men in contemporary American cinema. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.

Shaw, P., & Tan, Y. (2014). Race and masculinity: A comparison of Asian and western models in Men’s lifestyle magazine advertisements. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 91(1), 118-138.

Wienke, C. (1998). Negotiating the male body: Men, masculinity, and cultural ideals. The Journal of Men's Studies, 6(3), 255-282