GRSJ224/asianmasculinity

Asian Masculinity

What is Masculinity?

Masculinity is defined by "not a psychological entity, nor a built-in feature of male bodies. It is, rather, a self imputed to an individual based on information given and given off in interaction, but it is an imputation that matters greatly" . Masculinity is something that is learned when referring to young males and how they choose to identify . Because masculinity is something that is learned , it opens a discussion as to how masculinity affects individuals in their every day life, in particular when analyzing Asian masculinity in media and in music.

History of Masculinity

Masculinity has always been a huge topic of discussion for both men and women. It is not uncommon for jokes to be made in popular culture towards men about their potential "weak masculinity." Masculinity has affected men for hundreds of years. "The history of masculinity for the period 1650 to 1800 currently traces a move from a rough-and-ready seventeenth-century manhood, perhaps resting on control over women's sexuality, but anxious to defend patriarchal authority in public, to a polite and civil eighteenth-century masculinity". Harvey implies here that masculinity changes over time and has changed historically from the years 1650-1800, and so things are bound to change even still with modern masculinity, along with Asian masculinity as well. Specifically, "Asian men have been portrayed in the United states as foreign, strange, cheap, weak, and feminine since the 19th century when they first arrived as labourers". This stereotype is problematic for Asian men in any walk of life.

Asian Masculinity

In TV and Movies

Asian masculinity has been portrayed poorly in the West, and one of the culprits is media representation and what it does to Asian masculinity. In a survey in which "participants ranked the masculinity of men from five ethnic/racial groups...respondents clearly saw Asian men as the least masculine". The results from this survey imply that a change in opinions is in progress as "media forums such as K-dramas portray Asian males in ways that potentially overturn images of wishy-washy unattractive nerds that have long been common within American and other Western societies".

In a similar type of media, a TV show called Better Late than Never casted what's known as "the Asian other" where "the Asian other was marked as unusual through the ingestion of strange foods and medicine and through lodging in strange places" and "B. L. T. N. feminizes and queers Asian men". Also, Oh (2018) notes that "Asian cultures are marginalized as abnormal" in the media. This is in parallel with Park's (2015) statement that "Asian males are often portrayed as emasculated comic fodder".

As well, in the movie trilogy The Hangover, Asian emasculation is seen through one of the main characters. "Chow" "whose physicality throughout the trilogy reifies the emasculated image of the Asian male" and showcases the fact that "jokes that exploit Asian masculinity as comic relief requires Chow to conform to the role of sexless comedic". Portraying Asian characters in this way further reinforces these stereotypes which are detrimental to Asian males' masculinity.

In the Music Industry

When focusing on the music industry, Psy's Gangnam Style song and music video is an example of how Asian masculinity is portrayed, since "the visual imagery in the video...evokes American constructions of Asian masculinity as neo-minstrelsy; an identity model that generates laughs at the expense of reinforcing racial categorization". Park further explains that "Psy's image and performativity [of the music video] do not disrupt hegemonic ideals of masculinity; he embodies the emasculated Asian male clown variant that the mainstream can easily consume".

While Psy embraces and ultimately gained popularity in large part because of his conformity to stereotypes, other "K-pop male bands are often not committed to one version of masculine expression. Rather, they traverse multiple masculinity versions according to their music style". In Song and Velding's study, the conclusion follows that stereotypes come into play when judging masculinity: "respondents pointed out traits such as "being very skinny, not very muscular"; "their body size is small... These frequently mentioned traits are very similar to the physical or phenotypical attributes which are commonly associated with the image of Asian men in the United States, including short, unathletic, physically weak, and small. These features are categorized as feminine - the opposite of masculine - in the U.S. gender schema". When these traits are associated with Asian males, it allows for stereotypes to be made that can lead to changes in behaviour based on these stereotypes.

Intersectional Analysis

It is clear from the examples taken from TV, movies, and music that stereotypes about Asian masculinity are problematic in more than one way. First of all, intersectionality occurs when there is discrimination of a group for more than one factor, in the case of Asian masculinity, it would be racism and sexism. Asian males in Western media and music are discriminated against, among other things, for their masculinity, as the examples suggest. This is problematic for several reasons, one being that this portrayal of Asian masculinity in Western popular culture reinforces these stereotypes which in turn causes changes in behaviour and discrimination.

Changes Moving Forward

As mentioned already, since masculinity and what it means to be masculine has changed over time, it is bound to change in the future as well. With the recent uprise of K-pop and other huge Asian influencers, there is sure to be a change in what society thinks is masculine and what is not. While mistakes have been made regarding casting Asian males for merely "comedic relief," there are also many positive changes in the recent past such as Asian males being cast as the lead role in many action movies. Breaking these stereotypes will help society relearn what their ideas of masculinity are and how to change their behaviour so this intersectionality towards Asian males does not occur.