On The Real: Representations of "race" in the media

Don't Stereotype Asian American Men


So I was surfing YouTube the other day and came across this interesting and eye opening video. I have always known that Asians or minorities are represented in certain and limited ways. The video shows a very good example of Hiro (Masi Oka) from the show Heroes. Although Hiro is represented as a hero in the show, if you look deep enough into the video, you will see that he does not speak English and that he is a stereotypical nerd, and that the protagonist in the show are white (Peter and Claire). This is just one example, there are many other sources of stereotypes from the media. But I want to take this subject matter deeper than the video does. Asians, most of the time, are seen in the media as either nerds who are really smart and good at video games, who also can't get any girls, or they are shown as drug dealers/gangsters. But why is it that White actors/actresses are seen as pretty much every social category (nerd, gangster, cop, athlete etc.)? When people watch the media these representations start to become realities in everyday life, even though these realities are fictional. Some Asians will start to behave in the nature that they are represented by and some will be confused of who they really are because they don't fit into any of the stereotypes/categories that their "race" is represented by in the media. While the white children will benefit mostly from the media because they are represented as pretty much everything and can see themselves as different characters in a wide array of categories. I'm not trying to blame anything on the white people of the world, but everybody, not just white people, have to start to look at things deeper than what is shown on the surface. We have to be more critical of things in the media, and even literature, to not make the same mistakes as previous authors had made. This theory can be applied to all minority groups, whether you're black, Latino, or gay, stereotypes are always being shown in the media and in literature.

Some more thought provoking videos:

Kal Penn


Yul Kwon