When I was in seventh grade, I realized that I didn’t have a lot of role models in the media that I could identify with. Sure, I admired the people I saw on television, but none of them were Asian-American. In fact, I could count the number of famous Asian-American actors I knew on one hand. This discovery surprised and perplexed me. How had I not realized this disparity before?
After having this revelation, I began to actively search for Asian-Americans in the media I consumed. Spoiler alert: there weren’t a whole lot. The majority that I did see were portrayed as stereotypes. Needless to say, it was disheartening.
It seems that my initial observation in middle school was accurate. In a study from the Annenberg School of Communications, researchers analyzed the diversity of the 100 most popular films each year from 2007 to 2015. The data they found was troubling: in this eight-year period, of all 800 films they examined, not a single one featured an Asian as a lead or a co-lead. To make matters worse, they also found that at least half of all television shows didn’t show Asians at all. People gain many of their perceptions from the media. Our society’s idea of what is “normal” is largely modeled off of the people we see in the media. If Asian-Americans are being misrepresented in film and television, then people are gaining an incorrect impression of the race as a whole.
There is hope, however. In the past few years, shows such as Fresh Off the Boat and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend have been helping to depict Asian-Americans in roles that portray them as dynamic characters. Constance Wu, who plays Jessica Huang in Fresh Off the Boat, has been a vocal advocate on social media for positive representation of Asians in Hollywood. An increasing number of people are beginning to ask media networks for better portrayals of Asian-Americans. With the cause starting to gain attention, it is reasonable to expect change to happen in the years to come.
It is clear that Asian-Americans deserve better representation in television and film. In this case, quality and quantity are equally important: it’s not just the number of Asians featured, it’s also key that they are depicted as more than just stereotypes. As people become more aware of the issue of representation in media for Asian-Americans, we can begin to hold our media to a higher standard.
