Asian Americans on the Big Screen: Responding to Stereotypes | Asian Americans

Asian Americans have historically been stereotyped in the United States as “foreigners, promoted and maintained by the film industry. Across many of these Hollywood films, Asian males were played as scheming, weak, ignorant, and undesirable; on the other hand, Asian females were framed as exotic, cunning, and subservient. Even with the success of Crazy Rich Asians (2018), the highest-grossing American romantic comedy in over a decade, Asian Americans continue to face obstacles on- and off-screen.

Today, filmmakers and actors—like Ang Lee, George Takei, Sandra Oh, Constance Wu, Margaret Cho, John Cho, Daniel Dae Kim, Grace Park, and the Media Action Network for Asian Americans—have campaigned against such stereotyping, whitewashing, and unequal treatment in the film and television industries. These protests have stirred larger, and still ongoing, conversations about diversity and representation in the media.