Even in the 21st century, people have not changed their perspective towards Asian men when talking about interracial dating. On the other hand, one would expect just the opposite of this. But, in reality, this is not the case, as still there are people who have stereotypes regarding Asian males dating interracially. People still find it weird for some reason. But, the main question is why do they think so?
Stereotypes like “Asian men aren't sexy (They are geeky)” prevail everywhere. In fact, the best examples of such stereotypes are depicted on the small screen where Asian men get rarely involved in interracial relationships. And, even if they try to hook up with non-Asian women or get attracted towards these women, then their efforts seem to fail simply because they are seen as geeky.20
ON THE TV
In this case, you can take the example of the popular television show ‘Two Broke Girls.’ In it, you can see the character of Han Lee (Matthew Moy). He is constantly the laughingstock of various racist jokes and stereotypes that insult Asian men at every turn, like short, cherubic, disrespected, impotent, childlike, unmanly, unattractive, emasculated, unpopular, gullible, effeminate, desperate, et3c.
Another show that contributes to this nerdy and unsexy image of Asian males is ‘The Big Bang Theory,’ in which the character of Raj Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar) is the ideal example of such stereotypes. In the majority part of the show, he is shown as if he cannot even talk to women.
IN REAL LIFE
You can see the undesirability of Asian males in real life too. For example, when Lorde, the New Zealand singer posted her photos with her Asian beau, James Lowe, the critics had a field day. There were many unforgiving tweets about their photos, which called Lowe “PSY gone wrong,” referred to him as “ugly,” some did not forget the “math nerd” stereotype, and some compared him to “Mao Tse Ting (mao zedong).” Some people even said that they just felt “uncomfortable” by seeing both of them together.
Many other couples have also reported that they too have dealt with such racist remarks and stares. Grace Mineta, who is a white woman, is married to a Japanese guy. On her blog, she writes about their relationship and how she has learnt to deal with racism. This clearly shows that the concept of AMWF (Asian Men White Female) coupling is not a very normal thing for most of the people.
Here, the main thing to be noticed is that female counterparts of Asian men have been praised over the years. Plus, this is also due to the stereotype of the ‘yellow fever.’ The women are seen as submissive and exotic and have been sexually objectified and fetishized in the West. Additionally, interracial relationships between White men and Asian women are more likely to be popular as compared to relationships of Asian men and White women.
Moreover, these stats are not only because of the fetish theory of White men and Asian females. It is also due to the fetish of dating Asian women. There are some Asian females who exclusively prefer to date Western males, because they idealize the Western ideals of romance and Western standards of beauty. Most of the women prefer Western men, because they are brought up in a culture that desires Western men.
This is true as much as AMWF relationships are found to be very rare. But, does this mean that we do not even show them on television too? Well, at least there is a TV show, entitled ‘Selfie,’ that tries to debunk such stereotypes related to the unsexy Asian man, where John Cho plays the character of an Asian Male, who is just the very opposite of the previous versions of Asian men on the small screen. The show gives a hope to AMWF couples by featuring this unusual interracial couple combo and by dispelling the interracial dating barrier on television.
Thus, there is still a long way to go for the acceptance of interracial relationships and maybe much longer for AMWF couples. However, if shows like ‘Selfie’ are regularly shown on TV, where an AMWF couple is portrayed positively, then seeing real life couples, such as Lorde and Lowe will not be so uncomfortable.
But, the big question here is that why people really feel uncomfortable over such pairings?
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