Asian Representation in Television

In 1972, Kung Fu was a popular television series that went on to last for three seasons. The main character in the show was Caine played by American movie star, David Carradine. However, he wasn't originally cast to be the lead in this hit series. Bruce Lee, legendary martial artist, was the fist choice to portray the character of Caine. In fact, Lee was extensively involved in the development of Kung Fu but the network didn't approve of the idea due to the fact that the American audience wouldn't be ready for an Asian actor to play the lead role in a hit television series.

In 2004, a writer for The Independent Student Newspaper Of The University of Chicago, Joel Lanceta, in an article called "Do not attempt to adjust your television set: There are no Asians here," also stated how ER, apparently set in a Chicago Hospital, has just one Asian doctor as opposed to reality where most of the doctors and nurses in any Chicago hospital are Asian. He attacks the film The Last Samurai starring Tom Cruise, which is ultimately about a white man becoming the last of the samurai, a dying breed of Japanese warriors. More of Lanceta's ideas and opinions can be read about here:

http://maroon.uchicago.edu/voices/articles/2004/06/08/do_not_attempt_to_ad.php

A recent UCLA study declared that Asians are nearly scarce especially on prime time television. Asians make up 5 % of the American population, but only 2.7 % of them play regular characters on television. If an Asian does appear in a show, there's usually no more than one and it's a supporting role; they're usually cast to play a character in a drama series and they work in such places as a law office or a school to name a couple. Also, Asians aren't normally part of any romantic engagements and their personal lives are never touched upon. More of this information can be found here:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/05/02/entertainment/e020023D42.DTL

Usually when an Asian lands a role on television, they play characters that fit the Asian stereotype such as a Kung Fu expert or an extremely brainy person, which are the two labels that Asians mostly receive. Mad TV has many videos called The Average Asian posted on youtube.com about an Asian man who was born in America and acts the same way as anyone else would, but every other character stereotypes him to the extreme. It's meant to spoof on the actual stereotypes that Asians have to deal with when landing roles in television or film. Here's a clip of the video:




The picture is a clip of Jet Li from his latest martial arts epic Fearless. Other famous Asian Hollywood stars are Jackie Chan, Michelle Yeoh, Ken Watanabe, and Chow Yun Fat. However, more than half of these actors are solely in martial arts films. Most of these actors had big careers whether it was in China or Japan, but when these stars came to America, they were still cast in martial arts films.


Quentin Tarantino's recent Kill Bill films contained a great amount of Asian actors and the movie mostly focused on the art of Kung Fu. Pei Mei was a key character in the second segment of the film as the martial arts master who taught Uma Thurman's character the ways of Kung Fu and how to be an efficient fighting weapon. As a result of this stereotype, Asians are represented in this category of characters in film. Apparently the main reason for Asians being portrayed as martial arts experts in films is because the idea of it appeals to the studios and the distributors.

For the most part, the media portrays Asians in film and television as either extremely intelligent or as a kung fu expert for the most part. No television show consists of Asian actors as main characters and if they do, they're not involved in a great deal of the plot, but instead, they play supporting roles usually with little significance.

No Asian television study can go without mentioning the very hilarious show called Most Extreme Elimination Challenge aired on Spike TV. The show originated in 1986 in Japan and it was called Takeshi's Castle. It was about a count who owns a castle and he sets up these crazy obstacles for the players to go through. It became a popular cult television show around the world and it currently remains a big hit. The American version, known as MXC, has all of the contestants dubbed in English making them say obscene and bizzare things as a spoof on the original show. Even though MXC makes Asians look completely ridiculous, it doesn't necessarily include Asian Stereotypes that would normally exist on most television shows and films but all in all, it is a great show to watch for a good laugh. Here's a clip of some of the events from Most Extreme Elimination Challenge: