“Model Minority” – Embarrassing Difference or Proud Identity?

Abstract

For over a century, Asians have been represented as “the other” on the American screen, which is very different from “I”. Nowadays, as the immigration situation and mainstream ideology are changing in the US, Asians have gradually become the socalled “model minority” on the recent American screen. But what are the new images, compared to those old, cliché-ridden ones? This paper examines this question by analyzing Crazy rich Asians from three aspects: the portrait of “Asian body”, the visualization of the “model minority” idea, and the popular narrative techniques of using stereotypes. The author argues that traditional clichés about Asian American people adapt themselves to today’s global capitalization context. As a result, new narrative techniques are employed by directors and scriptwriters, new images are shaped in which old stereotypes are represented in a mild way. But the basic logic of Asianization has never been changed.



Author Information
Yue Pan, University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne, France

Paper Information
Conference: MediAsia2020
Stream: Film Criticism and Theory

This paper is part of the MediAsia2020 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Pan Y. (2021) “Model Minority” – Embarrassing Difference or Proud Identity? ISSN: 2186-5906 – The Asian Conference on Media, Communication & Film 2020: Official Conference Proceedings https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2186-5906.2021.5
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2186-5906.2021.5


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Posted by James Alexander Gordon