Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
23 September, 2018
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION
ongoing discussion in the academe ever since the first recorded Western media
was brought to New York City in 1834 at age sixteen as an exhibit (Wang, 2012).
(submissive image such as wife, mother, model citizens, invisible most of the
catered for men’s interest, in this case, white men (Mulvey, 1975 as cited by
Chaudhuri, 2006; Tung, 2006; Wang, 2012). All these negative portrayal and
back to the origin of the cinema (Lu, 2017). Film industry, especially Hollywood
Robert Lee. He analyzed and presented six major stereotypes of Asians and
Asian-Americans: pollutant, coolie, deviant, the yellow peril, the gook, and the
model minority, as the predominant themes in films with Asian and Asian-
became the ‘natural’, the normal image of the said minority group and had a
major effect on the social status of every Asian or Asian-American residing in the
West for it even reached to the point where they were excluded from most facets
women is framed and portrayed through the female characters in the recently
released film Crazy Rich Asians and how it presented the predominant themes of
Rich Asians, a 2018 released movie adaptation of the New York Times best
selling book by Kevin Kwan, that earned $26.5 million in the US box office on its
first week, has gained the spotlight for being the second movie having an all
Asian cast on the big screen, 25 years after the first produced all asian cast
hollywood film, The Joy Luck Club in 1993. The said film has been deemed the
line with that, this study will specifically investigate how the film used both
rhetoric and visual rhetoric in breaking the stereotypes of Asian and Asian-
American females, and how this contributed to the movement of modern Asian-
Western media has been an issue in the academe. Since early cinema, Asian and
Asian-American women were framed based on the stereotypes that are prominent
in the society—pollutant, coolie, deviant, the yellow peril, the gook, and the
model minority (Lee, 1991). Because of how the media frames Asian and Asian-
Asians and Asian-American in all the facets of Western society and accurate
however just like its cultural predecessor which is the mistreatment of black and
native Americans (Tung, 2006), the issue has been dumped on the side and the
progress of all those movements have been minimal. How media portrays Asian
and Asian-American females since their first exposure in the nineteenth century
and continuously using negative stereotypes that has been widely accepted by the
public as the natural or the normal for the characterization in films is an issue that
seems to call for some kind of forced integration of American popular culture in
order to claim visibility. These calls for Asian American representation and
inclusion in the media are certainly important, and they highlight not only the
symbolic importance of the cultural industry but also its economic dimensions;
the paucity of jobs for Asian American actors, directors, writers, and producers
fields that cannot claim the invisible hand of “the box office” as an excuse (Byun,
n.d.). A recently released film entitled Crazy Rich Asians with an all Asian cast
gained attention from the general public and is said to be the Asian-American
especially that it was adapted from a satirical romantic-comedy book. It has been
deemed the beacon of representation in Western media for being the second
Hollywood film having an all Asian cast 25 years after the first film entitled The
Joy Luck Club was released on 1993. This study explores how the film Crazy
Rich Asians framed and portrayed Asian and Asian-American women identity in
the female characters. This study would look closely into the following:
1. How was the rhetoric and visual rhetoric of the film used in framing and
media films with Asian characters reflected in the framing of Asian and
3. How do these six faces of Oriental present in the film fall into the
1. Analyze how the film Crazy Rich Asians framed and portrayed
2. Investigate how the rhetoric and visual rhetoric of the film used in
This research focuses on the framing and portrayal of Asian and Asian-
American women identity in the female characters in the recently released film
entitled Crazy Rich Asians through verbal and nonverbal cues and how the six
faces of Oriental as the predominant themes in the Western films was reflected in
the film. This is to distinguish whether the predominant themes used in early
cinema is still present in today’s cinema especially in the Western media, this
would help future research related to media framing in the modern Asian-
American cinema. This study also investigates how the said framing affected the
identity negotiation between the characters in the film and the audience through
rhetoric and visual rhetoric, also identifying the identity of Asian and Asian-
American women being negotiated. Since this also studies women situation in the
film industry in the aspect of how Asian and Asian-American women are framed
and portrayed in the media, this could also contribute to the body of knowledge in
There are ample studies that explored the media representation and
American had a first media exposure in the Western media. These studies
reviewed all the films that had an Asian or Asian-American representation have
various facets of society not only in the film industry. However, with all these
there are only few researches that focused on the representation of Asian or
most focused on the general stereotypification of the said race on Western media
in early cinema, most in the context of martial arts (Yang, n.d.). There are also
limited studies that used Identity negotiation theory in studying media framing in
films.
This study will only focus on analyzing the framing and portrayal of Asian
and Asian-American women identity in the rhetoric and visual rhetoric aspect of
the film, how the filmmaker frames and negotiates the identity of Asian and
film that doesn’t fall to the following categories are not included in the sampling
design. As this study will also analyze how the six faces of Oriental and which of
the six stereotype identification is presented in the film as the predominant theme
Altermatt, & Thompson (2005) will also be used in the analysis on the
Stereotypes are very culture specific. In many cultures, certain groups are
those groups are treated as if these negative stereotypes are true, which is seldom
the case (Kidd, 2015). The concept of the stereotype was developed by Lippman
(1922) to explain how people are influenced by and make sense of mediated
with the complexity of groups and peoples (Kidd, 2015). In this sense, a
on how we should look at the entirety of that specific group of people, it also
dictates their social status and role in the society. Stereotypes usually fail to
reflect the richness of the subculture and ignore the realities from which the
images come. This action can result in social injustices for individuals who make
that are part of a said specific group do not see themselves, their identity, reflected
in the media. They do not see others like them successfully employed, or having
coupled with stereotyped images can lead to self-stereotyping and trying to fit into
limited roles instead of exploring the options available. The media are central to
the alternative social, cultural and symbolic relations women wish to live within
and define the kind of self they wish to become (Kidd, 2015). This proves that
individual.
within his/her self and with the society. In the same process, various factors
would affect how one negotiate its identity. One factor is the perceiver’s (society)
individual would negotiate his/her identity within his/her self, this would greatly
affect one’s self-perception. This could be the reason why the media
Asian and Asian-American women within their selves and with the society is
women in the Western media gave birth to the concept of Eastern Mysticism. The
fantasy towards Eastern mysticism dated back to Afong Moy, the first recorded
Chinese woman in America, who came to New York City in 1834 at age sixteen
lattice-work chair, wearing a silk gown and four-inch-long slippers on her bound
feet. Audiences watched with fascination as she ate with chopsticks, counted in
Chinese, and did computations on an abacus. A few years later, “P. T. Barnum
brought the second Chinese-woman exhibit, and the circus featuring her attracted
20,000 spectators in only six days” (Prasso, 2005). This extreme difference of the
East from the West finds its way into Hollywood films and exerts a powerful and
these characters often “manifest prejudice and reinforce bigotry” (Bolante, 2006).
Too often, “mainstream film and television misrepresent the world they
claim to reflect. Their stories revise history, and rationalize inequities” (Bolante,
2006). One way films and television presents these stereotypes and
audience that women in the East are different or “Other” from the West, which
characters are always made to wear traditional dresses or any clothing that holds
resemblance to their tradition and culture, and could be easily depicted as far from
the West’s fashion. They present Asian or Asian-American characters as not part
of the norm, as someone who doesn’t originally belong to the group. But the
easiest way to generalize Eastern people, as Wang (2012) stated, was to build
fictional characters of an extreme. Movies and the mass media plays a huge role
and define their roles as extremes – on screen and off. These extreme stereotypes
have lasted even until nowadays, long after the formal or informal contacts
extremes, Robert G. Lee presented major stereotypes of these women as Six faces
of Oriental, in his book Orientals published in 1999. Oriental, along with Eastern
Mysticism, is a concept and term coined to depict East as the Orient, traditionally
comprising anything that belongs to the Eastern world, in relation to Europe. The
West uses the word or concept Oriental to easily depict anything related to the
East, most especially in Asia, may it be food, clothing, even Asian themselves are
for the convenience and benefit of the Euro-American lead players. … Rarely are
the lives of Asian-American characters examined on their own merit, and the
problems they face in daily life are not considered to be intrinsic interest” (Tung,
2006) and that’s where the “Oriental” and even Eastern Mysticism stemmed.
Lee then grouped various stereotypes into six as the most that used in
coolie, deviant, the yellow peril, the gook, and the model minority. According to
Lee, Asian and Asian-American are represented in the Western media as present
in the society but an alien, and is threatening in various aspects, one of those is in
oriental, villains and are threats to the family, race, and nation, and is bound of
silent citizens (model minority) (Campbell, 2001 & Ng, 2000). These grouping of
Asian and Asian-American stereotypes in Western media into six has contributed
a lot not only in the studies about Asian and Asian-American media
women stereotypes through subgroups. They stated that “people process a schema
of the stereotype of women that is organized in terms of three major sub groups:
homemaker, professional, and sex object (Deaux, Winton, Crowley, & Lewis,
1985; Eckes, 1994a, 1994b; Six & Eckes, 1991).” And to distinguish these
subgroups from one another, they used agency (power and competence) and
virtue (sexual and moral virtue) as dimensions to look at. They measured the level
of agency and the level or virtue in each subgroup. In our previous study
high in agency, homemakers neutral, and sex objects low, while homemakers
were perceived to be high in virtue, professional women neutral, and sex objects
low. This then could greatly affect in the negotiation process of every individual
every stereotype indicates a level of agency and virtue, this would greatly affect
the identity negotiated by the media. This study focuses on the framing and
film Crazy Rich Asians. Analysis on the framing of Asian and Asian-American
identity would focus on how their identities were negotiated among the characters
identities such as cultural and racial identity, and negotiate how the individual
wants to be perceived within the group s/he belongs to and by the outside world.
Thus, this study would look at how the Asian and Asian-American female
experiences. The term negotiation in the INT entails affirming the identities we
each other through the exchange of verbal and nonverbal messages between the
in situ (Ting-Toomey, 2015; & Janik, 2017), and in this process perceivers and
social media used the Identity Negotiation Theory in investigating the personal
and social identity of the university students that use social media, and how these
students negotiate their personal identity with the perceivers or their audience in a
certain social media platform. As Benage, 2011 stated, “Identity is formed and
identity and is perpetuated through communication.” Similar with the said study,
characters’ personal, racial, and gender identities and how these identities were
negotiated between the characters and the outside audience of the film (the
perceivers) through the use of the film’s rhetoric and visual rhetoric. Personal
identity is how they view themselves, void of outside relationships to groups or
other people. Racial and gender identity of the characters is how they view their
own race and gender, and how they negotiate both identities with their personal
identities.
This study will analyze the portrayal of Asian and Asian-American female
characters in the film Crazy Rich Asians using a feminist approach, concentrating
on how their portrayal negotiated their personal, racial, and gender identity (as a
woman) and how it countered racist misrepresentation and stereotypes. How the
rhetoric and visual rhetoric of the film was used in breaking the said stereotypes
lines and dialogues of these characters. Along with the analysis on dialogues and
lines of the
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