The Lotus Blossom Stereotype - Dangers of the Asian Fetish

constantly confused and scared.” Ambitious, intimidating women like Cristina Yang on Grey's Anatomy and Agent Melinda May on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. may at first seem like stereotypical dragon ladies—"Bambi, don't say another word until the hunter shoots your mother"—but their emotions The depth, complexity and evolution make them much more than that. “Sometimes that's the price of doing the right thing. Nobody will understand it and it hurts a lot.” Films like Crazy Rich Asians and Always Be My Maybe explore the complexity of a relatable Asian protagonist, as well as moving away from the practice of pairing Asian women with white men, letting fully formed Asian male protagonists take the spotlight. "Hello, my name is Marcus, with lyrics for your corpse." These newer representations also explore Asian identity in a way that leaves behind the homogenized representations of

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flowers in previous media.

In Crazy Rich Asians, Rachel struggles with her identity as an Asian American in contrast to her boyfriend Nick's Singaporean family. "How are they different? They are Chinese, I am Chinese." “Yes, but you grew up here. You are different.” Awkwafina's character, Billi, in The Farewell, grapples with the difference between her expectations and values ​​as someone raised in America and those of her Chinese family when she faces her grandmother's cancer diagnosis. she. “That is the difference between East and West. In the East, a person's life is part of a whole.” Recent depictions of Asian women in the media have helped break down the hypersexualization of the

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flower and dragon lady tropes and show their humanity. "Because the more people you let into your life, the more people can, um, just leave." But despite this progress, even in the last decade multiple films based on Asian material have cast white women as protagonists, denying these roles to Asian women and preventing them from having the opportunity to dismantle these

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s. “Oh, Captain Ring…” “It's Ng” “It's the first movie with an Asian lead since Ghost in the Shell and Aloha.” "I'm sorry!"   And on social media, it's clear that the Lotus Blossom trope is still alive and well.

In some cases, it has even become a joke for half-white, half-Asian kids to exploit. "My dad. My dad is a conservative with an Asian

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." But it's also clear that many people still accept it with dehumanizing and harmful results. And this objectification is especially evident on dating apps. There is nothing inherently wrong with Asian female characters who are sexy and badass or "perfect" wives; the problem arises when Asian or Asian-American women are often not allowed to be anything else. "I also think Austin Powers is very sexy." demonstrate the negative experiences that Asian women still face today, the dehumanizing representations that reduce these characters to

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ized sexual objects: “Why do Chinese girls taste different from all other girls?” shape how our society views and treats Asian women. “Come on, let's go to Asian Hooters.” To truly overcome the lotus trap, Asian women need the opportunity to play characters that challenge those narratives. last year 91 percent of executives at major and mid-level studios were white, that's not always so easy Asian women are much more than lotus flowers and deserve to be seen like that on screen. people who have been

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d to tell them their own story because the danger of a stereotype is that they are one-dimensional.