Reflection 1

The classes that we've had so far have been really informative in making me more aware of the stereotypes present and are continually being perpetuated in the media.

One of the girls in class, Megan, posted a link here to the video about Korean women who are going under the knife to look more "western" and I immediately thought of my last visit to Philippines and Japan. I visited the two countries within the last two years and the influence there of "western" looks and beauty standards is shocking. People are so obsessed with getting fair skin, having double eyelids, thinner facial structure and etc. I remember visiting stores that sell numerous whitening products and eyelid tape to create an illusion of having double eyelid. I also know of several Asians who live here in the US that specifically visited Asia to get plastic surgery done.

 I also recall from one of our readings from week 8 by Renee Tajima, she talks about how white actresses were often used to play Asian roles in movies. I think the term they used now is "whitewashing". I remember seeing the movie The Last Airbender which was based on a show from Nickelodeon and the main characters there were supposed to be Asian but yet in the movie they cast white actors to play the roles. I also recently saw the trailer for Iron Man 3 and there was a character named The Mandarin and the actor playing him is Ben Kingsley. I had to do a double take because I was shocked that they would pick another white actor to play an Asian character. I am certain that there are more than enough Asian actors/ actresses out there to play those roles and yet Hollywood still keeps picking white actors/ actresses. Even if they do pick Asians, it is always the usual ones like Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu, Zhang Ziyi, Ken Watanabe, etc. I think Hollywood and the media need to open their eyes and stop stereotyping because there more than enough creative people to create narratives that are not like the usual.