East Asian Representation in the 1990s American Films

Abstract

This work looks at how Asians were represented in American films in the 1990s and how they tried to break stereotypes with examples from those years. In the American media, the 1990s are associated with technology and the rise of multiculturalism, which is not entirely true for the American-Asian audience since there were few such characters on the big screen. In addition, it was mostly in secondary roles if they did appear. Representation itself has been haunted by the old problems of oversimplification of images, or even of their sexualization or criminalization. All this distance from the real idea of the whole group and, to some extent, mythicized them, creating the concepts of exemplary minority and yellow fever. At the same time, Asian artists have tried to create paintings that convey personal stories or deal with pressing social issues such as immigration or self-identification.