Asian Stereotypes

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Hemant Shah in “Asian Culture” and Asian American Identities in the Television and Film Industries of the United States (2003) claims that “mass media, as important sites for the production and distribution of cultural symbols, can be understood as central not only to the policing of symbolic boundaries of difference between, for instance, acceptable and unacceptable people and human characteristics, but also as complicit in policies to segregate and degrade those deemed different” (2) She refers to Asian characters in early 20^th century cinema, as being depicted as different from the white norm” (3) with four common stereotypes discussed. 

The Yellow Peril stereotype depicts Asian men as “menacing, predatory and lusting after white women”. The Dragon Lady stereotype depicts Asian women as “diabolical, sneaky, and mean, but with the added characteristics of being sexually alluring and sophisticated and determined to seduce and corrupt white men” (3). The Charlie Chan stereotype created in 1936 depicted Chinese men as non-threatening, wise, quiet and unassertive, and the Japanese were represented by cruel Japanese soldiers. Post WWII, the roles changed as China was viewed as a threat and Japan as non-threatening. So-called positive images of Japan portrayed Asian women as “submissive, meek, and ready to serve a man’s every need”. The Lotus Blossom stereotype was born of this image(4). China, now the apparently “evil” communist nation, led to the Chinese in cinema to once again be depicted in the Yellow Peril stereotype as “deceitful, cruel, addicted to drugs, and hateful of Westerners”(4).

These stereotypes of Asians in American film and television persist today. Asian men are represented by characters involved in drugs, theft, and gang activity, while Asian women are still depicted as attractive and manipulative (3-4).Images of Asians represented as the Yellow Peril and Dragon lady stereotypes “dangerous and threatening…can be used to justify racism, discrimination, policing, segregation, and form of degradation.” The Charlie Chan and Lotus Blossom stereotypes as non-threatening and produce an image that suggest that this is how “Asians and Asian Americans must behave if they are to ‘fit in’”. At best these stereotypes are not good or beneficial role models for Asians or Asian Americans. At worst, they are dangerous in the sense that they enable and justify a population’s racism and exclusionism.

References

Shah, Hemant. “Asian Culture” and Asian American Identities in the Television and Film Industries of the United States. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 2003.

New Age Aboriginal

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Peter Sutton (2010) opens his article, Aboriginal Spirituality in a New Age, by discussing the spiritual duality of a Wik man of Cape York Peninsula, Silas Wolmby. He describes Wolmby as a Presbyterian Reverend who has “no trouble with this combination of Wik and Christian post-mortem cosmologies” easily manages to blend his Christian beliefs with those of his traditional indigenous upbringing. He goes on to describe the difference between the two belief systems, stating that “Aboriginal religious thought is performative rather than meditative…relational more than privatistic,…concerned with similarities, with the integration of oppositions, and with revelatory semiotic experiences of relationships between entities, especially those of representation and transformation.” However Sutton accepts that it is possible for Wolmby to achieve this duality.

Alternatively, when discussing the disparages between New Age beliefs and Aboriginal spiritual beliefs, Sutton outlines elements that are indicative of New Age such as voluntarism, optimism, individualism, power, naturalism, conservationism, feminism and more, and concludes “a profound incompatibility between Aboriginal thought and New Age thought”. He surmises that this makes “it unlikely that people of a classical cultural orientation would be susceptible to New Age influences except perhaps superficially”, but concedes that “an urban-style individualism and eclecticism” developed by some Aboriginal people has made some “receptive to New Age or similarly exotic influences on a deeper level”.

If Silas Wolmby can blend his traditional Aboriginal beliefs with seemingly incompatible Christianity, then as long as New Age beliefs are not mistaken for Aboriginal beliefs and Aboriginal beliefs are preserved without distortion, it should be possible for others to blend their traditional beliefs with that of New Age. 

References

Sutton, Peter, “Aboriginal Spirituality in a New Age,” The Australian Journal of Anthropology 21, no. 1 (2010): 79-89.

Turkish Australian or Muslim

Liza Hopkin’s paper, Muslim Turks and Anti-Muslim Discourse: The effects of media constructions of ‘Islamic’ and ‘Arabic’ in Australia, highlights the tendency by media in Australia to represent Muslims in Australia as Arabic or Lebanese thereby not taking into consideration “sectarian differences; national, ethnic and tribal diversity; linguistic divergence; and political, social and economic disparities” (2008, 41-42).  Hopkins views the experiences of Turkish Australians to illustrate the problems faced and caused by this view.

Image: www.smh.com.au

Even within the category of Turkish speaking Australians, there are three groups – Turks, Kurds and Cypriots. Each of these groups has their own history of migration to Australia that is, migrating at different times and for different reasons (Hopkins 2008, 52). The Turkish represented the “first major Muslim wave of immigrants” to Australia and although they experienced racism similarly to that of other post-war migrants from Europe, they were “generally well regarded” due to the “nationally binding sentiments that had developed around the battle of Gallipoli”. However, events occurring in 2011, that is, public knowledge of the gang rapes in Sydney, the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Tampa crisis, contributed to an anti-Muslim sentiment in Australia (Hopkins 2008, 47). Turkish-Australians, although not Arabic speaking or Lebanese, are included in the blanket term of Muslim and therefore subjected to the stereotyping and racism that they did not previously experience or endure.

  

Turkish-Australians are more likely to identity culturally, nationally or linguistically than they are to identify religiously as Muslims (Hopkins 2008, 51). The term “Muslim” is too narrow to encompass the diversity of Muslims in Australia, just as the term “Christian” or “Buddhist” does not take into account other aspects of people of those religions. Hopkins (2008, 45) highlights the plight of the migrant with regard to cultural identity:  

“In the context of international migration, retaining cultural identity and cultural ties may be as much about negotiating a place for oneself within a small diasporic group, coupled with the transmission of cultural and ethical norms and values to the next generation, as about negotiating with the mainstream of the host society.”

 

References

Hopkins, Liza. “Muslim Turks and Anti-Muslim Discourse: The effects of media constructions of ‘Islamic’ and ‘Arabic’ in Australia”. Australian Journal of Communication 35, no. 1(2008): 41-55.

An Image of Islam

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According to Sandra Canas in her article, The Little Mosque on the Prairie: Examining (Multi) Cultural Spaces of Nature and Religion, “Arabs and Muslims have a long, often dark history of representation by dominant western media” (Canas 2008, 195). The television series, The Little Mosque on the Prairie that Canas writes about situates a Muslim community within that of a small Canadian town, with storylines portraying their every-day lives, as well as challenges faced by Muslims living as a minority in a non-Muslim country and community.  Some of these challenges include finding a public space for a mosque (199), the decision whether or not a young woman should wear a hijab upon reaching puberty (201), and how to calculate the beginning of Ramadam (201). The series also highlights “some of the most common prejudices and assumptions associated with Islam and Muslims, propagated through and reinforced by media and public institutions” with accusations of terrorism directed toward some of the characters (199).

The series identifies diversity and disparages within the Muslim community itself, namely that between the modernists and the traditionalists (Canas 2008, 201) even within generations of the same family. As well as that, members of the community originate from various different countries, including Canadian born Muslims and a Canadian convert. An increase in television programming containing images of Muslims in this context, or even western language translations of existing Arabic language soap operas and dramas, could aid in the reduction of orientalism in western media that mostly portrays Muslims and Arabs in a negative light.

References

Canas, Sandra. 2008. "Little Mosque on the Prairie: Examining (Multi) Cultural Spaces of Nation and Religion." Cultural Dynamics 20 195-211.

Green Marketing

Many individuals and sectors of the world’s communities have always taken care to have a minimal impact on the environment. However in more recent years, in response to global warming and other damage that humans are inflicting on the environment and the natural world, there has been a call for large corporations as the major contributors to the damage to minimise their impact. When once, the conscious consumer was required to conduct their own research in order to source ethical products, publications such as Shop Ethical: The Guide to Ethical Supermarket Shopping have simplified the process. This has led manufacturers of cleaning and personal care products, particularly, to improve some of their processes and to change their marketing strategies to attract the conscious consumer.

Image: http://www.ethical.org.au

Anne Marie Todd’s article, The Aesthetic Turn in Green Marketing: Environmental Consumer Ethics of Natural Personal Care Products, highlights some of the changes that have occurred in response to the increasing market for environmentally sensitive personal care products.  Even for the consumer who limits their consumerism, there are still necessities required to maintain even a “most basic level of personal hygiene” (Todd 2004, 89) so the market will always be there for at least the most basic of personal care products. Companies respond to this by marketing their products as “self-improvement aids” promoting a combination of both “aesthetics and green consumer ethics” (Todd 2004, 89) that will “enhance the health or appearance of the consumer as well as the well-being of the environment” (Todd 2004, 93).

Todd (2004, 89) believes that companies need to be aware that there are consumers whose “buying habits already reflect an awareness of ecological implications of consumption”, as well as others who “must be convinced that the eco-costs of products are important”, and that their products need to be marketed to both of these groups. Consumers not only wish to purchase products that are environmentally friendly but also from companies with environmentally sensitive “business ethics and social responsibility” that reflect consumer values of “community, honesty and integrity” (Todd 2004, 92).

Companies that market successfully to all consumers establish an “eco-friendly brand identity” (Todd 2004, 92) that promotes their products in a way that attracts the green consumer as well as increasing awareness of environmental issues in order to attract all other consumers to their products, effectively creating a broader market of green consumers.

References

Ray, Nick and Healy, Clint. 2012.  Shop Ethical: The Guide to Ethical Supermarket Shopping. Ethical Consumer Group: Melbourne. 

Todd, Anne Marie. 2004. “The Aesthetic Turn in Green Marketing: Environmental Consumer Ethics of Natural Personal Care Products.” Ethics and the Environment  9 (2): 86-102.