Bianca and Jeff unravel the complexities of Asian representation & Asian romance/relationships against the backdrop of US imperialism. From fetishization to emasculation to the “military sexual complex,” we highlight the socio-political context of these experiences and explore how we decolonize not only the stereotypes, but this conversation altogether to center those most impacted by gendered imperialist violence.
Bianca and Jeff unravel the complexities of Asian representation & Asian romance/relationships against the backdrop of US imperialism. From fetishization to emasculation to the “military sexual complex,” we highlight the socio-political context of these experiences and explore how we decolonize not only the stereotypes, but this conversation altogether to center those most impacted by gendered imperialist violence.
I'm Bianca and I'm Jeff and you're listening to Good Thunder.
Speaker 2:We're a Filipino and Chinese husband and wife duo talking all things, personal and political, because the personal is political and the political is personal.
Speaker 1:We speak from our positions as Asians in the US, as new parents and as concerned citizens working to get free from American imperialism.
Speaker 2:All right, we made it to episode three. How are you doing, Bianca?
Speaker 1:I'm doing okay. I am not as tired as last week. For people who know, I'm in a PhD program and so I've been studying for comps right now, which is basically like the I don't know grad student equivalent of like the bar or like licensing exams for med students. It's just like the big test that is outdated, that we really don't need to like do our work, but we have to do anyway, and it's been kind of miserable studying for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sounds rough, but it seems like you've been making a lot of progress, so that's good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, anyways, it's just one of those things, but how are you doing?
Speaker 2:I think revenge bedtime is getting to me. We've been spending every night this week just scrolling too long on our phones. Yeah, and I'm starting to feel it with each passing day. But TGIF Thank, because it's like basically Friday already.
Speaker 1:Jeff was trying to fight me on this, and I'm not saying you don't say it on Friday, I'm just saying you can also say it on Thursday afternoon.
Speaker 2:I don't think that's the truth. People say TGIF on Friday and Friday only. But anyways, if you feel otherwise, let's let our audience aside. So if you think you only say TGIF on Friday, comment only Friday, If not say both Thursday and Friday.
Speaker 1:Thursday afternoon, whatever. Anyways, what are we talking about today?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you tell me it's something you're really excited about.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we are talking about the first Asian Bachelorette and Empire, it's all going to come together. Y'all Just stay with us. But we're talking about this because I actually made a TikTok this week about how I was stressed about the Bachelor franchise naming the first Asian Bachelorette for their next season and the response was overwhelming, probably because it's one of the few videos that hasn't gotten shadow banned lately, so people actually saw it. But it was just interesting for me to notice this like collective anxiety slash, what my friend Oyan calls rep sweat over the first Asian bachelorette. And you know a lot of people were just talking about how we are afraid of the franchise's poor handling of representation and racial dynamics that are going to come up around, like hometown visit and the inevitable fetishization that might happen on the show.
Speaker 1:By the way, I actually don't watch the show. I watched like maybe a few seasons of this a decade ago probably. I stopped watching with Juan Pablo, if you know. You know he's like the most unlikable man on earth and afterwards I was like I'm done In my TikTok I was like it's, the heterosexual nonsense is too wild, even for me, someone who loves reality TV. But anyways, you know, just feeling concerned about this franchise, which is a white institution and its audience being, I assume, mostly white not being able to understand the nuances and just for a lack of care for women of color on the show that we've seen in the past, with the example of Rachel Lindsay, the first Black Bachelorette, really being thrown under the bus by the franchise. And then there, was also.
Speaker 2:You know, I got one comment that was like I'm worried and stressed because all the guys are going to be uggo, and I feel that too because these men not watch American and Western reality TV? Yeah, only Terrace House here and Korean reality. So I don't know if I'll be able to chime in about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Jeff is so much better than the rest of us. He doesn't dabble in, you know Bravo or Housewives, like the rest of us trash consumers. No, actually it's really funny because you get really stressed out. Do you want to share actually how you feel when I watch things like Housewives?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like secondhand cringe, Like I get so stressed by the decisions that people are making with their lives and I don't know. It's just like Western reality TV is. I feel is very exploitative and I think like instead of alcohol, they should be given access to a therapist while on the show. But of course that doesn't make great TV.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, it is exploitive. It is one of the tensions and contradictions I live in here in the imperial court that I am participating in, consuming this very problematic exploitive system. I think my dream job actually is to be like an on-site sociologist. I can't help people with their mental health, but like if they would just hire me to like give commentary on racial dynamics and stuff happening, that'd be like a dream job for me.
Speaker 1:The Bachelorette and, by the way, we're not actually going to talk about Jen, the woman who was chosen for the Bachelorette, although we want her to feel supported, we want her to feel taken care of, not just by the franchise but by the Asian American community. At least I feel protective of her, even though I know nothing about her. But what we're going to talk about is the structures and systems that frame this conversation we're having around Asian fetishization, around exploitation and I would say even around the consumption of something that is often as intimate and personal as dating right, and the racial dynamics that frame these conversations. And so, going back to a lot of the comments I got in the conversations I had off of that TikTok, I feel like these fears and this, you know, stress that we were all talking about. It comes from actually a lot of our own experiences in dating and just living in this world, in this country and, you know, experiencing firsthand the refusal and inability of white institutions to really care for us, as well as the historical construction of Asian women in the context of US empire.
Speaker 1:Right Like it's not just about how is the franchise going to handle the first Asian bachelorette, it's about all these other things that shape this conversation we're having and because Good Thunder is about getting free from US imperialism. You know we want to have this conversation because imperialism isn't just about geopolitics but it's closely tied to how operationalized through fetishizing, stereotypes and the systematic sex workers as quote, the military sexual complex, and this has always been integral to military culture and practice and discourse within and beyond Asia. This fetishization and over-sexualization and dehumanization is part of the dominating colonial logics that uphold imperialism and militarism.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean like nothing. Nothing good comes out of the US military and their goals, and wherever they are, they seem to cause trouble.
Speaker 1:Sexpats. Sex work is work and, at the same time, like from what I, the little I've learned about sex, sex pads and the exploitation that happens in that industry is that a lot of times these women don't have any other options and are exploited for that reason. No-transcript hear about it, but you know the murder of Jennifer Loud. She's a Filipina trans woman who was murdered by Joseph Scott Pemberton, who was in the Marine Corps, and he admitted to assaulting and deploying what he called trans panic defense. Sorry, experts have called it trans panic defense. Basically, he claimed that he assaulted and murdered her because he was unaware of Jennifer being trans, which is totally transphobic and violent and nonsensical. His charge was downgraded from murder to homicide in 2015 by a judge, but in 2020, the Philippines president at the time, duterte, actually granted Pemberton absolute pardon.
Speaker 1:So it's just really wild, right, like again everything we've been talking about with imperialism, militarism and its intersections with sexual violence and transphobia and patriarchy, in the very specific ways that these systems and structures affect Asian women and trans women and sex workers in particular. And you know, even with the Atlanta spa shooting that happened a few years ago, the perpetrator claimed that he was quote struggling with sex addiction and had to quote take out his temptation. And so you know this is dark stuff. This took a turn. If you're like, well, this took a turn, this is just I don't know. This is how our brains work. This is how this podcast is going to go. Right, that the personal and the interpersonal is political.
Speaker 2:That the personal and the interpersonal is political. That, how you know we also affects Asian men, but also in a different way. And you know we see this in the ways that Asian men are emasculated, the way that they are portrayed, as you know, undesirable and undeserving of love, and we rarely see them as love interests or leads in TV shows. And there is a history of this by US empire In the beginning, back during the gold rush and also the construction of railroads here in this country, chinese workers were all men because they weren't allowed to bring their families over, because America didn't want these Chinese men and their families to stay. They weren't welcome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, actually the law that prevented that was the Page Act, which also was intertwined with the sexualization of Asian women. They said that to prevent. You know, they only wanted Chinese labor, not Chinese families, chinese humanity. So they said that no Chinese women were allowed to come because they were all prostitutes, right?
Speaker 2:So the sexualization went hand in hand with the emasculation and isolation of Chinese men at the time gold rush and the building of railroads there is labor disputes between um european settlers and these, uh, chinese men, to the point where, you know, america, american government sided with these white settlers and therefore chinese men were relegated to jobs that were often portrayed as feminine, like you know, opening up laundromats and um, those type of labor, compared to the labor that these white settlers were getting, you know, and this was the beginning of the emasculation and effemination of Asian men in America.
Speaker 2:But in the 1920s, 1930s, there was a kind of like a different Asian group, asian male group, that came over. Asian male group sounds like they're a K-pop band, but another group of Asian immigrants, predominantly men, also moved to America in search of a better life, and these were Filipinos. But there was a main difference here the majority of these Filipinos actually spoke pretty good English, because at that time the Philippines was a colony and the majority of these Filipinos that came over were young men and they were actually very popular amongst all women during that time. They would be attending dance halls and frequenting social events and they were very popular with, um you know, white women in particular and as a result, white men uh sought to create a counter narrative to that and began also another for another round of emasculation and othering of Asian men, and it often took the form of physical violence and hate crimes actually Exactly exactly.
Speaker 2:And then, as we were talking about empire and US imperialism, america was involved in many wars after World War II and, in particular, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War was one of the first wars where actually America did not win.
Speaker 2:In the Korean War and the Vietnam War was one of the first wars where actually America did not win. In the Korean War, they suffered a stalemate, they were pushed back by Chinese forces as well as North Korea, and also in the Vietnam War. It's the first war that they lost as an empire. And not only was America as an empire reeling from these losses abroad, but also domestically, with the uprisings of the Black Power Movement and the Solidarity that they have built with different coalitions, specifically the anti-war movement. Like America as an empire was suffering and, as a result, they turned to Hollywood to actually push pro-war propaganda and anti-Asian propaganda. Like in the 60s and 70s, asian men were often portrayed as these supervillains throughout many war films and then, moving on towards the 80s and 90s, hollywood began to strip Asian men of their sexuality and power and portray them as these weak, emasculated, effeminate men, and this is a result of America feeling the need to change the narrative after losing the Vietnam War.
Speaker 1:We see that, you know, in the last decades too, with the ways that Arab men and. Muslim men are portrayed through Hollywood as well, and I feel like there is a construction of a quote deviant sexuality that is part of the narrative of them being terrorists, which we know is all BS and all propaganda. But it's just interesting to think about how sexuality has been weaponized in different ways towards different groups over the decades weaponized in different ways towards different groups over the decades.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it all depends on who is America's quote-unquote enemy at that time. And you know, hollywood goes hand in hand with the US military industrial complex in painting who is a worthy victim and who is an evil enemy. And that's just part of the arm that is manufacturer's consent of its masses, of its populace, of its citizens, to go along with the atrocities that the US is committing. Yeah, and you know, this isn't just like a historical thing. I think for me, like this is a very personal topic because I myself I'm Filipino and, like, growing up, like I never saw Asian men as a love interest, I barely saw myself on screen. And when I do, it was, like you know, whack character caricatures of a man Like and even when you know there is anian male lead like jet lee in romeo must die um, which is supposed to be a reenactment of romeo and juliet, in the end, like alia and jet lee didn't even kiss they had, they only walked away from the screen holding hands. And that's because there was apparently there was like a pre-screening where the director had people watch this scene. Apparently there was a lot of backlash of Jet Li, an Asian man and Aaliyah, a Black woman, kissing on screen that they removed that scene altogether.
Speaker 2:Wow, yeah, it wasn't until Glenn Rhee in the Walking Dead that I saw an actual Asian male lead or Asian love interest altogether, and that was already when I graduated from college. And you know, not only have it took Glenn Rhee to me seeing an Asian male lead, but I don't think I ever saw an asian love growing up like to where there were, uh, an asian man and asian women be love interest towards each other and actually that kind of points to like my own personal um and painful experiences was, for me, growing up, the only times I've experienced like being told that I am not lovable because I'm an Asian man, was from Asian women and you know it was painful when they participated in the emasculation and othering of Asian men like myself. You know, not only do I see Asian women on TV say they would never date Asian men, but it's not just the women I saw on TV say they would never date Asian men, but it's not just the women I saw on TV, but it's also the women that were really close to me. I've had friends that told me unprompted that they would never date an Asian man. And also I've had a friend told me that they didn't want to introduce me to their friend because they only date Asian or white guys, not.
Speaker 2:Lastly, I recall this one specific instance where I was watching America's Next Best Dance Crew and my friend, just out of nowhere, just said look at these Asian guys trying to be cool, as if, like, they're not allowed to be cool or take up space or even just simply be. So it's like, you know, the Asian women around me were the ones that were participating in something that was painful and hurtful. But, you know, even though interpersonally that was hard, you know, I think it's part of the systemic, you know, effect of US imperialism and US empire. But at the same time, interpersonally, we have the choices to participate in that or not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it just goes to show how you know also, these stereotypes, like interpersonally, it shows up in the ways that we internalize yeah Right, and the things that we come to believe and, at the same time, like desire, something like desire and attraction. They are political and they aren't just like you know, they're socially constructed in many ways. Ok, you talking about that, I totally wasn't going to talk about this, but when you because best dance crew. So coming up with this episode I was like I don't know what personal thing to share about this. I just like had nothing, but now I do. When you said America's Best Dance Crew, basically in high school, so some background, I went to an all-girls school from fourth grade to 12th grade.
Speaker 2:And you went to an all-girls.
Speaker 1:I went to an all-women's college and I loved it. I loved both of those experiences. But in terms of dating, as an Asian woman, I just like dating wasn't even in the question because I didn't even know any boys. But I do remember in high school my friends and I started randomly hanging out with this like group of Asian b-boys in our city. I don't know how we met them and we like all went as a group to watch Planet B-Boy together in Pasadena and I just remember I was like, oh my God, these guys are like the hottest shit I've ever seen.
Speaker 1:For a while in my adulthood I was really embarrassed that as a teenager I was like so infatuated with this group of guys because you know, you just look back on your teenage self and everything is embarrassing. But looking back now, as we're having this conversation, I'm thinking like, wow, how beautiful that these guys, these young Asian men, had this community with each other. How beautiful that they were able to take up space and perform and like look freaking cool right and break dancing Like there's nothing embarrassing about that at all. That's actually really beautiful. And I think you know for those who have been following like my work here and there for a while know that I talk about growing up in an Asian ethno-burb and I think that is one of the beautiful parts about growing up somewhere. Hella, asian is that there are these subcultures where people can find each other, connect over interests and, in particular, like young Asian men, are able to find this outlet where they can be the main character. Quite, literally, they are in the middle of a dance circle. So, anyways, I think you know, hopefully now with like TikTok and I don't know like K-pop is so everywhere, right, like I feel like young people have more examples of besides like what we grew up with.
Speaker 1:But going back to you know, now in adulthood, I think this topic can be hard to talk about when I think about like Asian men and women dating dynamics, but hard for me to even hear it as like a partner listening, because I think so much of my experience was really like hijacked a few years ago when MR Asians, so MR, like men's rights activists who are Asians like basically tried to dox and target me several years ago during the Stop Asian Hate Movement.
Speaker 1:Some contacts like these folks. I guess they like to abuse Asian women online. They often like to call them quote, race traitors for dating or desiring white men and for a time they were targeting Asian women who were speaking out about things like anti-Blackness and they would say things like I don't know, like I'm selling out to this white elite or I'm selling out just to be accepted by the quote woke mob, and I bet you have a white husband, all this stuff and I'm like if you only knew, anyways. So I feel like that made it hard for me to hear your experience at times, because I would just like trigger, I would get triggered. I would associate the things you were saying to the things that MR Asians were like screaming at me about in my inbox, you know.
Speaker 2:And I think, like with MR Asians, like it is just inflicting the violence of empire on to people within our own community.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I think you know I that's really traumatic to go through. I'm like I'm just I just made my profile public, I'm just trying to share what's on my heart and I'm seeing during the Stop Asian Hate movement that women and elders were being disproportionately attacked and here those of us were who were trying to speak out for it and about it also being disproportionately attacked online but by people in our own community. And so I think you know all of this makes it really hard to have these conversations and it made me like whenever people like I would see things on TikTok, like Oxford study, which apparently is a study pointing out to the statistics around white male, asian female partnerships, I would just be like just shut up, like I don't care, and you know what a part of it is that I don't care, like I don't care who like, why is that any of my business? And I also don't. I'm having such a hard time talking about this.
Speaker 2:I don't know where I'm going with this, but I think like that experience just made it really hard to talk about this because I felt like so many Asian men were using the very valid pain they have and weaponizing it to inflict violence on me, you know, and other Asian women no-transcript that I experienced growing up is real, but that doesn't give men the right to inflict that violence onto Asian women and I think, like you know, we can't use the empire's tools and the empire's violence has inflicted on us towards each other, because that is, you know, falling deeper into this pair that you know empire already tries to bring upon us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, perpetuating these cycles of violence, exactly no-transcript. And who experience this gender based violence in distinct and specific ways, like how can we be more supportive and informed about each other's experiences? How can we protect those who are most vulnerable to the gendered aspects of American imperialist violence, like Jennifer Lau, the Filipina trans woman I brought up earlier?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And overall, like, how do we like create like communities of care, to where you know we're supporting each other, not just in the aspect of dating, and our identities are not who we date but us, as you know, individuals, you know, just trying to resist against the empire but also trying to care and love one another.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think, as we close, one thing I think of that has been really helpful for my journey is actually the organization AAPI, women Lead, based in Oakland. When I was still living in the Bay Area, my students and I would go to their conferences. I would follow their work and since I've moved, I have still been following their work, at least online, and just the connections they've been able to make, for example, between the Atlanta spa shooting with the imperialist you know historical context that we talked about earlier, as well as just the healing spaces that they provide for women and non-binary folks in particular who have been victimized by this kind of violence, whether directly by US empire or horizontally by people in our own community. I think you know spaces like that are, you know, lifelines, given what we're talking about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, and we're grateful that you joined us in this conversation. It was fun. And diving into this aspect, you know, I felt like the past two episodes were very heavy, so hopefully this was a bit more lighthearted for y'all.
Speaker 1:I feel like it still ended up a little heavy, but we actually would be so curious to hear what you all think. So if this is something you've talked about with your partners or your friends, we'd love to hear in comments what do you think about all this, how have you experienced all of this? And, as usual, rate and subscribe and follow and tell your friends All right, and see y'all next episode.