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Representation matters now, more than ever, given the rise of anti-Asian racism in pandemic times. I became interested in media when I came to the United States as a young immigrant at the age of five. I was a latchkey kid, and I largely watched television to learn what America was about. I quickly learned that the image of what America was on TV was very different from the diverse world I inhabited in real life.

The first time I ever saw myself was watching The Joy Luck Club (1993) in high school. Since then, there have been a smattering of Asian American images throughout Hollywood but still very sparse. In more recent years, there are more complex and varied representations as well as box office draws like Crazy Rich Asians (2019).

The changes happened concurrently with the #OscarsSoWhite movement which began on January 15, 2015 when activist April Reign tweeted out “#OscarsSoWhite they asked to touch my hair,” in response to all 20 acting nominations given to white actors. It happened again the following year. This led to more public outrage, which pressured the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to make reforms. In September 2020, the Academy announced that to be eligible for Best picture, movies have to meet a certain number of inclusivity criteria.

There have been very few Asian actor nominations and wins in the 93-y history of the Academy Awards. There have been only four wins: Miyoshi Umeki for Best Supporting Actress in 1958, Ben Kingsley for Best Actor in 1983, Haing S. Ngor for Best Supporting Actor in 1985, and Yuh-Jung Youn for Best Supporting Actress in 2021. This lack of representation reflects all of Hollywood. The film industry has a long tradition of casting white actors in Asian roles. And while it may seem like things have improved, opportunities for Asian actors continue to be whitewashed in favor of Emma Stone in Aloha (2015), Tilda Swinton in Doctor Strange (2016), and Scarlett Johansson in Ghost in the Shell (2017). The history of Asians in Hollywood is pretty bleak, but where do we go from here, and where are we now?

Let's take a look at what Asians are in terms of the population. Asians make up 5.9% of the population and are the fastest growing demographic group. From 2000 to 2015 Asian Americans grew by a whopping 72%. By 2060, Asian Americans are projected to double. That's a really big jump. But how does it compare to media representation? A UCLA study from this year that looked at “all film roles” in 2019 found that Asians make up 5% —1% less than the nearly 6% of U.S. population. In terms of television, the UCLA study revealed that broadcast had 4.6% Asians , cable at 3.0%, and digital is 4.9%. Overall, Asians remain under-represented on screens.With a team of sociologists, I examined how Asians and Pacific Islanders (API) were represented on television in the 2015-2016 season. We looked closely at the 142 API series regulars. First, we broke down their screen time compared to their non-API counterparts. We found that 87% of these API regulars were on for less than half of the episode, and 17% of them were actually the lowest screen type compared to all the other regulars. And then, on these shows, whites are on screen more than three times longer than Asians. So even when Asians and Pacific Islanders are numerically represented, they're not necessarily represented well. In our research, we also found that the types of relationships API series regulars had were less complex than their non-API counterparts. So not only were APIs barely on, but they were also more one-dimensional.

If we look at history, the first Asians were played by white actors in yellowface makeup. In 1915, Mary Pickford, a very prominent silent movie star, played Cho Cho San in Madam Butterfly. Then came the “Fu Manchus” and the “Charlie Chans.” White actor David Carradine starred in the Kung Fu TV series instead of Bruce Lee. Yellowface and brownface occur not just in live-action film and television but also in animation. What's the problem with Apu?, a 2017 documentary currently available on HBO Max by the comedian Hari Kondabolu, calls out brownface voices in animation. The documentary centers on the Indian character “Apu” voiced by Hank Azaria on The Simpsons, which is the longest running series in the history of U.S. television. In the documentary, Indian American actor Utkarsh Ambudkar describes the problem with Apu:Problem is that we didn't have any other representation in this country. There was no Aziz, no Mindy, No Kal, no “that dude who was on lost”, and then “that other dude from heroes” and “that dude that's in the Apu documentary”. No politicians, or reporters and no whatever Deepak Chopra is. This is all we had. Apu reflected how America viewed us. Servile, devious, goofy. And that creates a problem when the most popular show on television, which it was, is showing mainstream America what an Indian is, and it's a potbellied dude who can't speak English, is an idiot, basically.

In the documentary, Kal Penn also talks about how he hates The Simpsons entirely because of Apu. The documentary discusses how South Asian Americans were seen through the lens of Apu because there were no other representations. An animated character can have such a huge impact on the popular consciousness of so many, especially how non-Asians perceive Asians. Because people watch media unfiltered, they are seeing it uncritically, and that can impact the way people perceive out-groups.

Watching media can also affect how groups of color see themselves. One longitudinal study found that for Black kids and all girls, the more hours of television they watch, the lower their self-esteems are compared to white boys, who actually had higher self-esteems for each additional hour of television watched.6Racial and gender differences in the relationship between children's television use and self-esteem: a longitudinal panel study. And that's largely because, who are the heroes? Who are the leads? Who had the most screen time? Who are the ones that audiences identify with? It's usually not the Asian character, for the most part, in television shows.Despite Hollywood recognizing its diversity problem, the culture of colorblind racism protects the status quo. Hollywood says the underrepresentation Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) actors is not black or white or brown issue, it's a “green issue.” Meaning it's just business. Historically, the industry has operated under the false belief that there's no audience for BIPOC-led shows in certain U.S. markets and in international markets. But the truth is, they devote very few resources in distribution and marketing when it comes to films and shows centering BIPOC. The argument that there is no audience for Asian American representation is discounted by actual facts. Asian Americans are the highest streamers of everything, from YouTube to subscription video. According to Nielson data, 84% of Asian Americans subscribe to at least one streaming service, which is 10% higher than the total population. Asian Americans are an audience to be reckoned with. Furthermore, segments of Asian Americans have huge buying power above and beyond their actual population percentage.Furthermore, diversity sells. According to a UCLA study, ratings among white households actually peak when TV casts are composed of more than 30% people color. So even white households want to see people of color represented. Because, if you think about it, young people are growing up in much more diverse social networks than older generations. Films like Star Wars: The Last Jedi topped the domestic box office and Kelly Marie Tran, who's Vietnamese American, was one of the lead actors. Crazy Rich Asians was the top grossing romcom in 10 y. People have said the romcom is dead, but one with an all-Asian cast revitalized the genre.

Another problem with representation is that Hollywood has long stereotyped Asian Americans. In my research, I found that Asian American actors are stuck. There are either not “American” enough for roles or they're not “ethnic” enough. One psychological study asked university students who they thought was more American: Lucy Liu or Kate Winslet? And they overwhelmingly said Kate Winslet despite the fact that she is British and Lucy Liu was born and raised in Queens, NY. In terms of Asian American actors not being seen as American enough, Chloe Bennett only started getting roles after she changed her name from Chloe Wong to Chloe Bennet. She is mixed raced: her father is Chinese American, and her mother is white. She says: “That's a pretty clear little snippet of how Hollywood works. It means I had to pay my rent, and Hollywood's racist and wouldn't cast me with the last name that made them uncomfortable.” And she's not the only Asian American actor who felt pressured to change their names. Kal Penn talked about how his auditions went up 50% after changing his name from Kalpen Suresh Modi.

But things are changing. Andrij Parekh, who won a 2020 Emmy for directing an episode of Succession on HBO gave a really inspiring speech. He said: “I want to dedicate this Emmy to all the kids whose names like mine are difficult to pronounce. To those who don't look like their classmates and are defined as outsiders as hyphenated Americans and not simply just as Americans? This is proof that you belong. This Emmy is for you.”

Another issue that Asian American actors face is being told by Hollywood that they are not “ethnic” enough. And what does that mean? It's the idea that they're not fitting into stereotypes. One Chinese American actor told me that he was auditioning for a role for a Japanese Yakuza role, and they said can you do it in an accent? He thought, you know what, I'm going to do a Toshiro Mifune accent, because he admired the actor. And he thought about what an authentic Japanese accent would sound like, so he did it. For the most part, casting directors are not formally trained in what they do–it's kind of learned on the job–so they pretty much replicate just like all parts of Hollywood. They replicate this system, which I argue in my book, Reel Inequality: Hollywood Actors and Racism (2016), is a racist system. So, the casting director, after hearing him, told him, “that's not a Japanese accent.” And so, he reverts to this stereotype pseudo-Chinese accent. When he did it, the casting director responded, “that's it, the accent, that's the Japanese accent that we are looking for!” They are looking for stereotypes when they say, “do it more Asian.” Unfortunately, Asian American actors to this day still get asked to do an accent during auditions according to ongoing conversations I have with Asian American actors.

Asian Americans have long faced the model minority stereotype. From Sixteen Candles (1984) all the way to Crazy Rich Asians (2018), Hollywood has long represented Asians as nerds, highly educated and now, wealthy. But in reality, Asian Americans have the biggest wealth gap of any group, according to a Pew study. While roles are improving for Asian American actors, Hollywood has yet to represent Asian Americans in their full complexity and diversity.

More than ever, the average person has the power to demand greater inclusion in Hollywood representation. Here are some ways to demand more films and television shows with diverse casts. Put your money where your values are and consume more diverse projects. Buy movie tickets for diverse films and tune into diverse shows on television, streaming video, and web videos. For films, opening weekend box-office sales matter the most to studios and movie theaters, so try to purchase tickets for films with diverse casts the first two opening weekends.

Social media now serves as the communication platforms for rallying both promotion and protest of films and television shows. One example of using Twitter to promote and support diverse projects comes from the case of Scandal (ABC). Scandal grew in popularity partly due to live tweets from the show's cast members, particularly star Kerry Washington, and from audience members (many of whom were African American women, the top Twitter user group). One study found that when people, especially cast members and talent, live tweet during a show, more people join in that Twitter conversation. Presumably, more people joining a Twitter conversation means more people are watching the show live—something networks prefer because advertisements are most effective when shows are watched live. Audiences can leverage social media to promote diverse films and shows.

Besides supporting inclusive projects, audiences can use social media to file complaints and instigate protests. Audience members can protest television networks, film studios, and even individual artists (e.g., directors, executive producers, and actors), most of whom are on social media. Twitter is an especially effective forum for gathering like-minded people for a virtual protest through hashtags. Hashtag activism is the use of a # symbol plus a phrase to unite Twitter users to tweet about a particular issue or policy. The biggest hashtag activism to date is #BlackLivesMatter, which developed on Twitter as a response to the killings of unarmed black men and evolved into the most powerful social justice movement to emerge this century.

Hashtag activism has been used to protest racist imagery in Hollywood. The #OscarsSoWhite hashtag, originally circulated by activist April Reign as a critique of the 2015 Oscars, resurfaced for the 2016 Oscars. After the hashtag went viral and got picked up by celebrities such as Spike Lee, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the organization behind the Oscars) set about a set of reforms including inviting more women, people of color and international talent into its membership. In 2020, the Academy instituted inclusion standards that films must meet to qualify for Best Picture. Because Twitter and other social media platforms are heavily monitored by studios and networks due to its ability to make or break a film or show, audience members can use Twitter as a platform for both promotion and protest. Hashtags can serve as a form of public accountability and can be paired with other protest measures, such as boycotts.

Diversity is not just about the volume of roles, but also about the quality of roles—especially lead roles. We must urge Hollywood to move beyond casting actors of color as background extras and stereotypes, and instead see them as full-range actors capable of embodying a variety of characters. The implications of on-screen diversity go beyond the Hollywood industry. Media has an impact on all of us: on how we feel about ourselves, others, and the society we live in.

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Article InfoPublication History

Published online: May 07, 2021

Accepted: March 6, 2021

Received: March 2, 2021

Footnotes

Meeting presentation: Presented as the Keynote Address of the Society of Asian Academic Surgeons 5th Annual Meeting, September 2020.

Identification

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2021.03.004

Copyright

© 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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