Respond to one or more of the following questions:
Negotiating New Asian-American Masculinities
“[US-born Asian men] rely on economic power...and embrace caring as part of their masculinity. In contrast to U.S.-born Asians, immigrant Asian men...simply see their masculinity in terms of attractiveness.”
What is your definition of masculinity? Of the all characteristics that the study uses, which, in your opinion, best embraces that definition of masculinity?
The Most Outrageous Masquerade: Queering Asian-American Masculinity
“What are we to make, then, of this alliance between Asian-American and homosexual men? If heterosexual romantic failures are deemed to be unspeakable...what does this reveal to us, not only about the formation of these marginalized subjectivities, but also about the constitution of the normative male subject? And what are the subversive political implications of these queer identifications?”
Describe the alliance between Asian-American and homosexual men that Parikh identifies. Does the alliance hold true today, nine years after this was written?
Breaking through the Chrysalis: Hanh Thi Pham
“I used to wear very feminine shoes that young women are supposed to wear, and had very long hair, and was married for twelve and a half years. So in that time I served the role of a formal wife, the genteel woman.”
Lee identifies various symbols (e.g. shoes and Buddha) and their meanings to Pham. What is a symbol to which you relate and what is its meaning to you?
Details Magazine Gay or Asian Spread
Satire is often utilized to illuminate a societal issue, eliciting an emotional reaction. What is the purpose/issue, if any, that this spread attempts to demonstrate. Is it effective? Does it perpetuate Asian-American stereotypes, and if so, what stereotypes?
Negotiating New Asian-American Masculinities
ReplyDeleteIt was interesting for me reading about this survey because I kept on trying to see which group’s opinions my own views were most similar to. I identify with immigrant Asian men because I lived in Hong Kong for around 20 years of my life. At the same time I feel that my outlook on many things align more so with an Asian American perspective. Lastly I am half White, but cannot picture myself fully identifying as White. As for my own definition of masculinity I don’t have a concise one. I think every individual has masculine and feminine attributes/characteristics/mannerisms. I don’t really like qualifying or rating what is more masculine or feminine because it starts feeling like everyone is obligated to fully embody whichever they more strongly identify with. I do base my definition on attractiveness or more so physical traits, which are correlated with someone’s testosterone level. I don’t really associate being caring as something masculine and instead just see it as a good trait in anyone. Economic success and conforming to being the bread winner is something which I don’t think should factor in at all.
Details Magazine Gay or Asian Spread
I’ve seen this page from details at least once every year I’ve spent in college. It’s become a staple at Pitzer’s Asian American Sponsor Program. The spread is a smorgasbord of Asian and gay stereotypes that sees no boundaries between different ethnicity, references portrayals of Asians/Asian culture in movies, and supports the binary that you are either gay or Asian and can’t be both. The incessant metaphorical use food perpetuates the idea of many Asian people as restaurant workers as well as establishing the ethnic other as something to be consumed. Mentioning the lack of body hair on Asian men sets them up as effeminate, and this is based off of white hegemonic views of masculinity (which is odd since white male beauty standards promotes models with zero hair on their washboard abs). They point out the delicate features of Asian men AKA not as “defined” as Caucasian features and therefore womanly. The spread also perpetuates the stereotype of Asian men as really metro and obsessed with brand name goods.
this is Thomas btw >_> sorry I'm the only one that used a screen name.
So where exactly our this week's readings? or mainly the two articles?
ReplyDeleteThey're not on Sakai, but here are the URLs (you need to be on a Claremont college network):
ReplyDeleteNegotiating:
http://www.metapress.com/content/k312n36t2249576t/fulltext.pdf
Breaking:
http://www.metapress.com/content/j42p26t93h3x8666/fulltext.pdf
The Most Outrageous:
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/modern_fiction_studies/v048/48.4parikh.html
Details Magazine, Gay or Asian Spread
ReplyDeleteA question that has been often raised in regards to the Details spread is that of its political agenda and positionality. While it seems too nauseating and bombastic to be taken seriously, does it, in fact, function as a piece of satire? I wholeheartedly agree that humor and irony can be very effective tools in dismantling dominant ideas and assumptions. Yet within this particular example, Details seems to do a poor—if nonexistent—job in that endeavor. At its best, satire exposes, undermines, and ridicules those in power. By assuming that the categories of gay and Asian are mutually exclusive, Details not only binarizes these categories but proceeds to stage a battle between them; it constructs tension in trying to “sort out” certain material signifiers as singularly gay OR Asian. Considering the magazine’s audience—just take a look at Details’ web site and see if you can possibly ignore its investment in white heteronormativity—the spread does not attack its dominant readership but instead separates and pits marginalized individuals against one other. Layered with all sorts of ridiculous stereotypes that add nothing better to this media power play, the spread leaves its readers laughing not at racism or sexism but at disempowerment of the “other.”
I find it tricky to pin down how I define masculinity in the context of the "Negotiating New Asian-American Masculinities" reading. In general, I believe there are serious shortcomings associated with this kind of study. While the authors certainly tried to historcize these various forms of masculinity by linking it to the hypermasculinization/emasculinization of Asian American males, they also acknowledge their limitations. One limitation is that the study focused on college educated males who identified as white, Chinese, and Japanese. As the authors themselves acknowledge, this is only a small portion of who is considered Asian American.
ReplyDeleteAnd while this study focused specifically on heterosexual males, I believe that this binary cannot be explicitly drawn. Furthermore, this study did not focus on other experiences of people of color. Although I am hardly a social scientist, I was left uneasy by the conclusions that can be drawn by this study, as well as the framework for drawing this conclusions.
I don't mean to invalidate their results, and certainly they engage with questions of constructions of Asian American masculinity. However, particularly in the context of our course aims and the other readings, the study seemed limited in framework and understanding.
Therefore, I'm not sure how I want to define masculinity in the context of this study. Will I define it as college educated males? Exotic or not exotic? Redefining or cementing pre-existing gender roles? Physical attractiveness?
I'm still working through some of these ideas in part because I don't think that I can compartmentalize it to Asian American heterosexual immigrant and/or U.S. males vs. White college educated heterosexual males.
What I find interesting is how the "Negotiating" article and the Magazine Spread present different signifiers of masculinity, both problematic in their own ways. The sociological study is severely limited, as Laura says, and relies only on "personal" attributes of masculinity, within interrogating why these particular attributes should be read as masculine.
ReplyDeleteWhat makes the Magazine Spread interesting is the way it reduces masculinity (leaving out the question of whether we are viewing a heterosexual or gay masculinity) to material signifiers, particularly in its emphasis on class signifiers and consumption. What I find interesting about these class signifiers is that there's no particularly reason to read them as "asian" signifiers, on a purely visual level. Nor do they really signify gender or sexuality. Really, they only represent class and the ability to consume certain kinds of commodities.
Now, the text of the spread attempts to connect the visual representation to particular stereotypes and innuendo, but it is telling that it requires such intervention to explain why the reader should see the model's material signifiers as representing "asianess." I would argue instead that these material signifiers actually render the Asian model "white" by its particular focus on consumption habits usually attributed to white upper-middle class gay men. The question of the article then isn't whether one can be both Asian and gay, but is it possible be both Asian and a particular form of white male homosexuality as rendered through class signifiers. Of course, this totally excludes the possibility of a particularly gay asian male subjectivity, or the possibility of appropriation of particular signifiers of "whiteness." and now I just feel like I'm rambling so I'll stop there.
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ReplyDeleteDetails Magazine Gay or Asian Spread
ReplyDeleteAuthors of racist, sexist, and heterosexist material may claim that their works are satirical to defend against accusations of racism, sexism, and heterosexism, but this does not mean the material actually qualifies as satire. To qualify as satire, there must be an element of self-awareness - the social commentary must be deliberate. To qualify as good satire, that commentary must also be incisive. The Details Magazine "Gay or Asian" spread fails to provide any substantive critique of media portrayals of Asian-American and/or gay men, and any aspect of it that could plausibly be interpreted as critical social commentary seems to be in no way deliberate.
The author of the "Welcome to the Family" article, published in TSL last semester ( http://tsl.pomona.edu/new/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1624%3Awelcome-to-the-family&catid=25%3Aopinion&Itemid=82 ) claimed his article was satire, and that this excused the blatant misogyny, racism, and heterosexism in it. Using a heavily racialized extended metaphor to regurgitate widely held societal views of sexuality that take autonomy away from women and queer people and objectify their bodies is not a qualification for satire. It didn't work in Details, and it didn't work in TSL.
Some things that the Details Magazine "Gay or Asian" spread does do well are racializing gay sexuality and sexualizing Asian-American male identity. The positioning of the categories "Gay" and "Asian" as mutually exclusive erases queer Asians and Asian-Americans and implicitly racializes gay sexuality as a white identity. The implied difficulty of reading a person as either gay or Asian means that the endless double entendres not only serve to oversexualize queer men's sexuality, but also Asian-American male identity. The popular view of Asian-American masculinities as being inferior to white masculinities pervades the entire feature.
How could this spread become successful satire? It would need to be aware that its own premise is ridiculous. An example of a joke that reads more like satire is: "You can tell by his trendy messenger bag that he is in fact a white man who has sexual and romantic attraction to other white men, and not, in fact, an Asian-American man. Studies show that the messenger bag is the best way to determine both the race and sexuality of a man." It may be ridiculous, but it is ridiculous in the sense of "worthy of ridicule." Satire is intentionally ridiculous - it exists to direct society's ridicule to spaces where it can be productive.
Breaking through the Chrysalis
ReplyDeleteLike Pham, I've become increasingly aware of how my hair connotes my various identities-- gender, race, age, class. In elementary and middle school when chemically straightened hair was in vogue, the pristine swish of curtain-like, straight black hair was definitely an indicator of wealth among my Asian American female classmates. I kept my hair long for most of my life and then decided to get it cut about a year ago, and have maintained a shorter hairstyle since then. To myself, this length "feels" right; I was always uncomfortable with the net of femininity cast by longer hair, especially when I was expected to style it. I've been interested to observe the reactions of others, however. My parents seem vaguely disapproving and voice their preference from time to time, but I was particularly surprised to overhear my mother somehow justifying? excusing? my short hair to some family friends by saying that I was tired of it getting in the way of my studying when I said no such thing. At first, it was a little shocking to see that conservatism in the older Korean (Christian) community extends to policing my hair length. But upon thinking about it, I realized that I don't know any older Korean women long hair in my community! It's a strange reversal of roles--I wonder if this has something to do with the expectation that middle-aged women should be settled down with a family and thus have no reason for advertising their femininity.
Regrading Parikh's description of the alliance between Asian American men and homosexuals, I understood it to mean that because both Asian American men and homosexuals are marginilized and oppressed, their masculinities are in a sense "queered" in how they are constructed, and therefore different from the majority. Becuase of this, they have a sort of comraderie if sorts. While I can see why Parikh would say this, I feel that in America, the line seperating people by sexual orientation is a lot thicker than the one seperating those who contruct their masculinities different from the norm. Perhaps this may have been useful at the time the piece was written, but I feel these days such a suggestion is kind of moot. I mean yes, both are still marginilized, but again just because two groups are marginilized together does not mean they will get along or form an alliance of sorts.
ReplyDeleteOr perhaps there is and I just don't see it, which is totally another possibility.
And regarding symbols, one particular symbol I find myself constantly shoved in my face as a gay (or whatever I am) male is a rainbow. "Be Proud! Be Loud! Stand up against the oppressive straight community!" are things I am often told by more intense members of the queer community, and this is often accompanied with a rainbow shirt, flag, or pin I am expected to wear and join in on the fight.
But what if I just do not care? What if I am perfeclty happy with my life the way it is? What if I don't care if I can't get married or don't see homosexuality as something treated completely equal to heterosexuality? Because honestly, I really don't. In this sense, I actually feel more oppressed by the queer community because it is expecting me to adhere to a certain "loud and proud/ fight against heteronormativity" standard that honestly does not bother me that much. Where I am right now, in Southern California, I can do what I want sexually with whoever I want, be it a guy or a girl, and not get killed or put in jail. I am thankful enough for just that, and I can keep on living the way I want.
That is enough for me.
*Disclaimer* - This posting will rely heavily on stereotypical identity constructs. Bear with me, it's central to my point.
ReplyDeleteThe "alliance" between Asian-American men - especially single ones - and homosexual men elaborated in the "Outrageous Masquerade" article would be better described as an alignment. The connection is made by an outside actor, the mother, and based on a perceived trait of the two identity groups. Yes, these are surface-level traits, but they are common to both groups. Much of identity is based on the perceiver, so in that sense there is a strong alignment between these two groups.
In speaking of an "alliance," however, I am reminded by the affinity between certain gay men and Black girls. I am not claiming that this is generally applicable to everyone in these two groups, yet I have experienced this phenomenon in the context of my high school. In this situation, the alliance was internal, a bond based on identity attributes which we ourselves perceived were both part of our identities and shared between us: things such as speech patterns, preferences, social status, etc. In both cases, constructs were employed, but this is often times the easiest way to create initial links between different groups of people from which can come deeper understandings.