Article: Media Betrays Society’s Ambivalence Toward Interracial Relationships
JC
Check out this article written by Carmen Van Kerckhove (my MMW partner-in-crime ;)) written just in time for the 38th Anniversary of Loving V. Virginia. She takes a look at some of the patterns in how the media portrays interracial couples. Read the full version at New Demographic. Here are some exerpts:
This tragic-mulatto-raised-by-single-white-mother story pops up again and again (Halle Berry and Alicia Keys are two more examples), and most of the time it’s a complete distortion of the truth. And it’s not just the black/white celebrities who get the tragic makeover. Many articles dwell on how Keanu Reeves’ white mother raised him alone after divorcing his Hawaiian-Chinese dad, who later went to jail for drug dealing. The media also played up the fact that Norah Jones’s white mother raised her alone after breaking up with Norah’s father, famed sitar player Ravi Shankar. Are you starting to see the pattern here? These contemporary tragic mulatto stories are subtle cautionary tales against interracial relationships. The message is clear: if you’re a white woman who gets involved with a man of color, there are three things you can count on. 1) He will abandon you. 2) You will be left to raise this yellow or brown child on your own. 3) Your child will have major identity issues…
Let’s also have the courage to show interracial pairings other than the black man + white woman, and Asian woman + white man combos. It’s true that census statistics reveal a distinct gender imbalance when it comes to interracial relationships. Black men are 2.5 times more likely to have white wives than black women are to have white husbands. Similarly, Asian women have white husbands 3 times more often than Asian men have white wives. But just because this is the case, doesn’t mean that there aren’t other stories worth telling. There are plenty of black women who are choosing to date or marry white men (recent celebrity examples include Venus Williams with Brett Ratner, Naomi Campbell with Tommy Lee). And let’s give our Asian brothers a break huh? Actors like Jet Li and Jackie Chan kick ass on the screen, but never get so much as a peck on the cheek from their leading ladies. And don’t forget about “double minority” couples. Not every interracial couple is made up of one white and one non-white person. “Mississippi Masala” was made fourteen years ago, people! It’s about time we had some more films that explore Black/Asian, or Latino/Black, or Asian/Latino relationships…
Anonymous wrote:
What sort of mediocre reporting is this? Venus Williams is NOT dating Ratner. Stop misrepresenting statistics… less than 5% of blacks marry interracially, talkless of whites. On the contrary, about 50% of East Asian women marry out of their race (mostly white men). Please do some research.
Posted 07 Jun 2005 at 12:05 am ¶
Anonymous wrote:
you are retarded
Posted 03 Jul 2005 at 3:39 pm ¶
just john wrote:
i just posted my response to jackie chan’s “marry our shanghai women” comment, and thought a part of it might be relevant to this topic in a tangential way.
i agree: there is a bias in media in how asian maless are portrayed: if they’re not chop-chop-fooie mavens, who are otherwise helpless in the whiteman’s world, then they’re old school, old world, nasty, backward, crochety, misogynistic bastards. whichever portrayal the scriptwriters use, it’s a no-brainer that the asian male will NEVER speak english as “pretty” as his female asian counter part. has anyone ever heard lucy liu, or kelly hu’s, or ming na’s characters speak broken “engrish”? on nbc’s e.r., the only asian male is some bespectacled emasculated male nurse from the series’ earlier days. in recent seasons, the only asian male i’ve seen is ming na’s character’s father: portrayed as a old world, domineering, bigotted, male who can’t speak english anymore than he can see his daughter’s search and growth toward love and womanhood. in joy luck club, every asian male is an all out bastard/asshole or a wimpy man; but the sole white male played by andrew mccarthy is portrayed as flawed, but self aware and sensitive enought to be in “communion” w/ his asian wife — bittersweet, but desirable, nevertheless. see the pattern? asian woman, admirable, accomplished, enlightened, maybe struggling but has some redeeming character, or is at least the whiteman’s sex kitten/dominatrix. the asian man? well: bad, backwards, UNenlightened, unmanly, abuses women, emasculated, doesn’t assimilate into western society, and who’s chop-chop-fooie quotient is inversely proportional to his ability to speak english free of “flied-lice”, aka: accent.
so here’s my jacky chan reponse:
jackie chan, as a fellow asian male, i wanna like you but i can’t.
why?
while i recognize you’ve put in a incredible amount of work to gain your well deserved fame in asia, i haven’t seen you do the homework to figure out how your viewing audience here in the u.s. is different. please stop playing the hopeless helpless foreigner in the u.s., who’s only value to the plot is martial arts. i refuse to see another rush hour or shanghai noon where your character DOESN”T get the girl in the end. please GET THE GIRL in the end. did john wayne ever let his sidekck get the girl in the end? NO! and neither should your owen wilson’s character! what a kick in the teeth! show some self-respect please!
and your comment about marrying off shangainese women to foreigners, aka occidentals: naive. look around you, most western-loving asian women prefer caucasian males to the point that they REFUSE to date their own kind; equating such activities to be the same as dating their own brother “ewww!” — incest. [but when was the last time black or white women, wholesale, refuse to date their own?] the asian woman explains that caucasian males are more progressive than asian males, and are more willing to respect their autonomy, independence and development as individuals. your comment, only perpetuates asian women’s and western media’s proselytizing that asian males are undesireable as sex partners, life partners and alpha males at best, and misogynistic and tyranically patriarchal to the point of objectifying women at worst– which is what you’ve done w/ your comment/suggestion/public announcement.
one final suggestion: the next time you do a flick for the u.s. market, please get a modern haircut (i’ll give you my guy’s number), a director of photography who’ll shoot you the same way they shoot tom cruise, and make sure you insist on getting the girl in the end. that asian shyness thing, while cute in HK, is seen as wimpiness in the west, effectively emasculating you. don’t forget you represent the asian male to your western audiences.
thank you. [am i frustrated? yes. the only girls i date these days are white. but i wish i were a white male, so asian girls would fall all over themselves to date me]
Posted 15 Jul 2005 at 3:26 am ¶