racism on desperate housewives?

[rezaf]

i am just watching desparate housewives. isn't it too much openly racist towards the chinese? why do they do that when the problem is in the middle east?

[zozzen]

could you quote some examples?

[tony1343]

Examples would definitely be nice. I'm not following what you're saying at all. I gather you believe something in Desparate Housewives (which is an American "nightime soap opera" TV show) is openly racist towards the Chinese. If so, this would obviously be morally wrong and politically incorrect.

I, however, am confused by your statement:

why do they do that when the problem is in the middle east

While I don't think anyone would disagree with the statement that there are problems in the Middle East, that still wouldn't justify racism or prejudice against those in the region. You seem to be suggesting that the show has to be racist towards someone, so it might as well be Middle Easterners. Is there even a connection with Middle Easterners in the show? The choice between Chinese or Middle Easterners is definitely a false dichotomy.

[shibole]

My wife used to watch this show all the time. I could never stand it and insisted on calling it "slutty housewives"

At some point she stopped watching it partly because she felt the concept of humor in the show was getting kind of old and stupid, but she also mentioned that she felt they made it out like Chinese women were either unskilled maids or sluts. Basically there were two Chinese women in the show before she stopped watching it. One was a house maid. I'm unsure if there was some implication that she was an illegal immigrant or not. The other was having an adulterous affair with the husband of one of the main characters, and was portrayed as some sort of sleazy seductress or something.

So she wasn't happy about that and it was one reason she stopped watching it.

[rezaf]

sorry to answer so late. it's in the final episodes of the second season. when the show only has two chinese women and both of them are being shown as poor maids, one starts to wonder. the racist and political comments are especially very clear with the second girl who is a slave worker . of course they are not expressed by blonde americans but by a mexican american, probably to avoid putting the blame on caucasian americans.

i am not talking about morality. yes, racism is wrong but the world is far more complicated than that. medias play a very important roll in preparing the society for economical, social and political decisions like education, homosexuality, sending troops for war and etc. racism is one of the tools that governments can use. no matter how much we deny it, it is within us in some levels. (<-i clearly remember when my friend was offended in one of london's pubs.) of course racism is a very sensitive issue and western medias mostly use it indirectly. that's why i was suprised when i saw direct comments in desperate housewives.

i just think that if they are going to -indirectly- show a bad face of a country it would be a better idea to choose middle easterns or in better words muslims. of course it is a little bit risky because muslims are very sensitive these days.

[gougou]

i just think that if they are going to -indirectly- show a bad face of a country it would be a better idea to choose middle easterns or in better words muslims.

Why is that?

[magus]

i just think that if they are going to -indirectly- show a bad face of a country it would be a better idea to choose middle easterns or in better words muslims. of course it is a little bit risky because muslims are very sensitive these days.

you said racism is bad, and then you stated that if someone had to be put a bad label on, they should be "middle easterners" ..

i'm not a "middle easterner“ myself, but i still feel uneasy about it. is it really necessary to defend one race by attacking the other ?

who can fully define "racism" anyway? actually i dont think that those definitions of the word cant cover all its characteristics..

but yeah, something about that soap sucks.

[rezaf]

my english is not good. when i say racism in movies, i mean portraying a certain group of people as outsiders then showing how uncomfortable it is to live with them and how beautiful life is without them or showing how needy and undeveloped they are.

i am not defending the chinese by attacking the middle easterns because i am a middle eastern.due to oil middle east has suffered a lot from the western countries and there is a strong hatred of the west growing in the middle east. in my view at this point some portrayal of middle east as the bad guy would be natural. i just don't understand where that soap opera is getting at by attacking china.

[Pravit]

i just don't understand where that soap opera is getting at by attacking china.

Americans enjoy racist humor, but they know they'll get the pants sued off of them if they say anything about Blacks or Hispanics. They're too strong of a political force. So the next logical target is Asians. There aren't very many of us, and we never speak out enough against the racism. I've even heard some ridiculous arguments from white Americans that racist humor against Asians is OK, because Asians are doing so well in this country, comparatively. Never mind the model minority stereotype.

Turn on the TV and you'll see plenty of racist Asian stereotypes or humor. For some reason society has deemed that it's OK to make jokes about Asians, but god forbid you say anything about Blacks (unless you're Black, of course). Sadly enough, it's just the status quo, and won't change until Asians represent a larger percentage of the population or start being more vocal about this stuff.

Don't even get me started on all those stupid news stories about defective toys from China...

[tony1343]

Americans do enjoy humor that pokes fun at stereotypes. Recently though the jokes are made by someone of that race though (Chris Rock for black humor and Carlos Mencia for humor about hispanics, etc). Often it exposes the absurdity of racism (and is funny).

On another note, racism against Asians is not new in America. It's a lot better than it used to be. America first started passing immigration controls because they thought the country would be overrun (Chinese Exclusion Acts). If you read these 1800s Supreme Court cases, the absurdity of the racism is apparent. Even a Justice finding the acts unconstitutional still called the Chinese "an obnoxious people" or something along those lines. Seems pretty inappropriate, and couldn't have been great for foreign relations (but I guess the U.S. didn't care much at the time).

People probably do think that because Asians are doing well off in this country that it isn't as big of a deal. Also, the history of discrimination against Asians is clearly not as bad as that against African-Americans. Anyway, obviously America has a ways to go.

I'm not trying to defend any of the racism, but it was stated that Chinese were depicted as slutty on Desparate Housewives. I've only watched the show a few times, but I think everyone is depicted as slutty on it (it is a soap opera), but the news reports on defective products I don't think are driven by racism. For one, as far as I understand they are true. The reason that the stories are so sensationalized though isn't racism, but more of a fear of the churning Chinese economy and a dawning realization that the United States won't be the sole superpower forever. Also there is a ton of media in the United States, so they pretty much report on every mundane thing there is.

Overall, the U.S. clearly needs to continue working on racism. I think this is a problem that exists everywhere throughout the world, but is exacerbated in places like the U.S.,where there are essentially people of every ethnicity in the world (which is a great thing).

[wushijiao]

but it was stated that Chinese were depicted as slutty on Desparate Housewives

Just to question things a bit, aren't white women portrayed as "sluts" all the time on TV as well?

I'm certainly not denying that Asian-Americans aren't steotyped. Actually, the fact that they don't usually get 3-dimensional roles is probably worse.

[gato]

Turn on the TV and you'll see plenty of racist Asian stereotypes or humor. For some reason society has deemed that it's OK to make jokes about Asians, but god forbid you say anything about Blacks (unless you're Black, of course). Sadly enough, it's just the status quo, and won't change until Asians represent a larger percentage of the population or start being more vocal about this stuff.

It seems that there's less racism against East Asian (as opposed to South Asians) in Europe in the U.S. A theory I have is that American culture has always had a macho, anti-intellectual streak, and so it naturally looks down upon East Asians and stereotype them alternately as nerds or sextoys. Europe (at least Western Europe), I'm guessing, has less of that. Those of you from Europe, do you think that's true?

[roddy]

I suspect the majority of depictions of East Asians on UK TV would be likely to be in US TV and movies, to be honest. I'm not sure there are enough East Asian character on domestically-produced TV to form stereotypes, even. Can't think of any in the major soap operas, though I haven't watched them for years. I think there have been a few SE Asian brides turn up over the years though? I remember one in Coronation Street.

There's

which has a North of England Chinese character. He's a bit dense, but I think that's because he's from the North:wink:. There's also been a Japanese part on Jonny Vegas's Ideal, which is a fairly stereotypical 'cutsey Japanese girl' role.

[Lu]

Same on Dutch tv. Virtually all Asians I've ever seen on tv there were in American movies or tv series (Ally McBeal and Grey's Anatomy come to mind). Once saw a Dutch detective starring an Asian policewoman, and there is one mingxing who is I think half or quarter Chinese. But she is just presented as hot, not as Chinese at all.

[wushijiao]

I have is that American culture has always had a macho, anti-intellectual streak, and so it naturally looks down upon East Asians and stereotype them alternately as nerds or sextoys.

Macho, anti-intellectualism isn't really a "steak", it's mainstream!

[gato]

Macho, anti-intellectualism isn't really a "steak", it's mainstream!

Well, that's true, though I was trying to be diplomatic and there is sizeable minority who are more intellectual. But they definitely feel the need to hide that intellectual side in mixed company. Most Americans learn early on not to appear to be too smart, especially girls.

Viewed from a charitable perspective, this anti-intellectualism is connected to a fundamental egalitarianism in American culture. Most Americans tend to think of intellectuals as snobs and instinctively recoil. Even though most of the current presidential candidates are Harvard or Yale graduates, they have to appear to be like an everyman (or woman) to be electable.

See this article for an example:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/23/us/politics/23food.html?pagewanted=all

Where the Votes Are, So Are All Those Calories

[Lu]

I always thought that the US is not egalitarian, and has an ideology of 'you got to be the best', and thus accepts and even applauds people who are smarter (stronger, faster, etc) than the rest. I guess I was wrong then...

[gato]

I always thought that the US is not egalitarian, and has an ideology of 'you got to be the best', and thus accepts and even applauds people who are smarter (stronger, faster, etc) than the rest. I guess I was wrong then...

It's egalitarian in the sense that it's very against class. There's a strong sense in the culture that there should be a level playing field and that one's family background should not matter (though, of course, it probably does matter in reality). At the same time, it's a very meritocratic society, and ability and achievements do matter.

And so you see many Asian Americans doing extremely well financially in the U.S., even while they are still being negatively portrayed in the media. Americans of Indian descent, according to some statistics, has the highest average income among all ethnic groups, for instance. Some of them are now entering into the highest level of the financial and legal industries now, something that may be harder for those of Asian descent to do in Europe, as one's family background seems to be more important in Europe.

[shibole]

Just to question things a bit, aren't white women portrayed as "sluts" all the time on TV as well?

Yea, but the thing is that there are lots of white women in all kinds of roles, whereas in this case it seems like ALL 2 or 3 of the Asian women on this one show were shown in a very unflattering manner. I never watched the show so I don't really know the details but it was enough to anger my wife after she watched it a while and the attitude towards Asian women didn't change.

It's true that the particular show in question is basically about everyone acting trashy, which does make it difficult to show anyone in a very upstanding manner. But from what little I remember there were some characters who were just "all bad" and many portrayed as just sort of normal but "making lots of mistakes."

Regarding anti-Middle-Eastern racism: this tends to not be tolerated specifically because of the problems with various Middle-Eastern governments and terrorist groups. Specifically it tends to fuel these accusations that "the West" just hates Muslims and "wants to wipe out Islam" and nonsense like that. So people are under a lot of pressure to not be racist against people from the Middle East to make it clear that these accusations are bogus, and that the conflicts are related to practical issues like not wanting another WTC bombing, not some sort of racism.

[nipponman]

Honestly, I don't think portraying one race in a particularly bad light is racism. I define racism as something that has an appreciable effect on the person/race. Making Rosa Parks move to the back of the bus. Now thats racism; making fun of a race/portraying them badly on T.V.? Not so much.