I was noticing a theme of an identity crisis this week.

It started out with the first documentary we watched about Asian women being portrayed in the media. They were either one of two women. 1.) the quiet Asian girl that would make the perfect wife. She would never argue with you because she never starts conflict. She’ll pamper you! She’ll wash you back in the tub AND have dinner ready when you get home. Or 2.) She was the evil dragon lady. She’s sneaky, she’s smart, she’s charming even. She’s not afraid to use her body to get what she wants and has no mercy about it.

That got me thinking a lot about the sinner and the saint complex that is ridiculously amplified in media aimed towards women. This constant need to be both, but only show the saint side. Women should appear to be innocent and modest but still sexy. Yet, if you come off as too modest you’re a prude. Too sexy? You’re a slut. You can’t win.

The Joy Luck Club had an identity crisis in the case that the younger generation of girls were fighting their mother’s demons. Yes, all the girls fought with their mothers and the mothers just didn’t understand their daughters. It’s still like battling two personalities, two different paths. Doing what makes you happy and doing what makes your mom happy. I don’t think parents always understand the influence that words unsaid can have on their children. All the girls seemed to be looking for some kind of reassurance from their moms and at the same time trying not to end up like them.

Saving face once again had the identity crisis of who you are and who your parents perceive  you to be. First off we have Wil who is gay. She knows she is gay, she isn’t questioning or bi, she’s a lesbian. Yet her mom still sets her up on dates with men in hopes that it’ll all magically change. THEN there was the mom who got pregnant by a guy that could be her son, and even thought she has feelings for him too she keeps him a secret. In both instances neither the mom or the daughter have done anything wrong by any means, but they still hide this because they know how their parents will react.

All of these kind of boiled down to never feeling 100% yourself. Always trying to be something else for someone else. Never feeling completely complete. Feeling like something is missing. I don’t think anyone fits into these perfect molds, no one is a complete sinner just like no one is a complete saint. There are layers to everyone, opinions. You might be completely black on one issue and totally white on another but it all equals out to a nice gray. We’re all just sades of gray.

On a side note can we just talk about the fact that Andrew McCarthy was in the Joy Luck Club! Don’t know who he is? He was Larry in Weekend at Bernie’s where he basically dragged his dead boss around a beach… He was also in a movie called Mannequin and he falls in love with a mannequin but who can really blame him when the mannequin in Kim Cattrall?

He was also in St. Elmo’s Fire and he totally stole Judd Nelson’s girlfriend in the movie.

And if you still don’t know him then he was also in PRETTY IN PINK!! He was Blane and he had a crush on Molly Ringwald’s character. He’s sweet but he’s kind of an asshole for choosing his friends over her…but that’s besides the point because this all leads back to…

LONG DUK DONG. Who was in Sixteen Candles that also starred Molly Ringwald and was also a John Hughes’ films like Pretty in Pink.

Yeah…connections

pg. 206 Dave talks about Japanese American Women having to compete with white standards…UGH I just don’t even like that whole topic of “white or caucasian” beauty. Who even said what was what and did people go with that?  Dave also talks about assimilation and beauty [207]…They are either too Japanese or not enough. So they create pageants to build confidence and self esteem, however it’s seen as the Japanese distancing themselves further from “American or white culture” so they are not assimilating..and if they were, white society still saw them as an other.On pg. 211 There was an “outcry” from the Japanese community even though the pageants were considered “outdated and sexist”..I ask myself what are the 2 arguments? I’m sure that the pageant queens had a lot of guts putting themselves out there like that because, it could go or bad. On one hand they are representing their ethnicity and culture, but on the other hand they could be looked at as not being American enough. Just like Dave says it “Ironically, community concerns have come full circle from the 1930′s. At that time the pageants were a strategy for assimilation, whereas in the 1990′s Japanese Americans were asking whether assimilation had gone too far and how they could ensure cultural preservation.” (216)

What’s the CRISIS?? What does it mean to be a “Model Minority”? For Asians…Stereotypically..are the smart? nerdy? angry? exotic? predictable? ect…

On page 184, Lee talks about the “Asian American family increasingly has been upheld as a model not only to blacks and latinos, but to whites” as well. Already that crisis has been proven wrong; In the film The Slanted Screen, the film introduced actor Sessue Hayakawa as being the first male Japanese actor to have leading roles with leading ladies…ANND was also dubbed a sex symbol. He was making money for everyone and the ladies loved him. Another example is none other than Bruce Lee. He became a huge action star and role model for all Asian Americans. However, I do have to note that some people do consider Bruce Lee a stereotype now because of the stereotypical “kung fu asian character” that white society expects when they think of a stereotypical asian.

But..What’s the Crisis you ask? The crisis is these asian stereotypes in Hollywood [film] that traps asian males AND females into only specific roles. You have the action hero, nerd/silly, foreign exchange student, brainiac ect. Asian Males are given no love interests because that’s not what the white audience wants to see. Asian males are being desexualized . With the film Saving Face, the crisis that you never see is an unfamiliar sighting with Asian American females. They have leading roles and are lesbians…which is something you never see in film. With this film, you see Asian American women in a new light that other movies don’t show, which is refreshing. You never see a film where there is a gay or lesbian movie, where the main character is a female and she’s a doctor.

To recap, Asian Americans still deal with this crisis…but are definitely making strides to show other Asian Americans that it is possible to break out and not be stereotypical.

I really liked this movie. It was very lighthearted, the characters were entirely believable, nobody was a caricature, all the reactions were very realistic. There were no stereotypes of people in the movie. I liked how the characters had honest struggles with their issues.

I found that the two movies on the various stereotypes in movies were both very informative. I thought that “Slanted Screen” was a little bit more balanced because it sought to find both positive portrayals of Asians in movies as well as negative ones, whereas I found “Dragon Lady” to be more one-sided in that aspect.

With Lee’s readings and watching the films The Joy Luck Club and Slaying The Dragon, I saw a lot of connections with self identity, self worth, and the correlation with beauty standards and assimilation.

On page 175, Lee talked about how all the female characters in Flower Drum Song, ”held the keys to successful ethnic assimilation”, while Nancy Kwan, just by her looks, already had assimilation in the bag…that was an illusion. The film Slaying The Dragon  connects with that because of the “Dragon Lady” stereotype. I do not agree with that at all, but  Nancy Kwans character was cast as manipulative, deceiving, and exotic asian female. Lee also talks about “defining whiteness”, and just like Ozawa, it didn’t matter “how assimilated” he was, he still could not become an American citizen because of his skin color and race. Joy Luck Club connects with this because all the daughters had obvious issues with self worth and identity, and overall, what that really meant for them. If you can compare Nancy Kwans character to the daughters of Joy Luck Club…you could see through what the real issue was. Which was either being too Asian or not enough and struggling with that identity and balance.. I ask myself, do you really need to choose?