Re-sexualizing the Asian Male

Here are some thoughts from then (1998) Harvard grad student Joan Kee about the Asian male in America:

Asian American male sexuality has long entailed a discourse of nothingness. The Asian or Asian American male is perhaps best known for his absence in the colonizer's sexual hierarchy. This strikes a sharp contrast to the colonizer's perception of the Asian female as an embodiment of excessive sexuality. Asian American males have been consigned to positions of inferiority within the hierarchy -- the Asian male as sexually impotent voyeur or pervert is a reoccuring icon, appearing throughout American cultural history and especially in film. Notable examples of this include Mickey Rooney in "yellowface" as the bucktoothed Japanese landlord who sneaks peeps at Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) or the pathetically asexual nerd Long Duk Dong in John Hughes' adolescent classic Sixteen Candles (1984).

Here are more of her thoughts on the themes involved in a work of art.


"Desexualized" is an apt term in this context as the colonizer has actively engaged in the process of emasculating or "demasculinizing" the Asian male. In Ken Chu's pastiche-like, mixed-media work I need some more hair products (1988), the artist denotes the yearning of the Asian male who applies hair spray in an attempt to become white. Transforming oneself into a white man is a prerequisite in securing a sexual partner, according to the arbitrary ideals of the colonizer, here represented as American mass media and popular culture.