You're absolutely correct that such tropes only reinforce what is socially acceptable and culturally relevant. Reducing Asian-American female fictional characters to such narrow clichés ultimately hurts us. Unfortunately, I was an Asian girl who *did* grow up feeling odd and eerie, an angsty and misunderstood poet and novelist, whom nobody ever crushed on at the height of teenage puppy-love politics. I wanted to literally *be* Luna Lovegood, which is hard when you're Korean-American in a bumfuck Midwest suburb of about 4,000 people.
If I may, I'd like to gently push back against your point on how WAACs can never be read as "legible people". Nobody is raised the exact same way, and maybe this is solely the product of my own upbringing, but "succeeding" at Westernization has never been worth anything to me. I relished being Korean, and if anyone laughed at my food or made a North Korea joke (more Asian diaspora clichés!) I would bristle defiantly, or strike back if provoked. But I also dealt with it by leaning into my own strangeness, my potential for capriciousness. I loved movies like "Amelie" and "I'm a Cyborg, but That's OK". For me, the traits of these main characters were a vehicle to imagine, then approach, a version of myself that was closer to my ideal– which was a girl with creative ideas and unique thoughts, who always had something fascinating to say.
I cringe when I think about how annoying, theatrical, and self-absorbed I must have been. I see all the ways that it backfired on me. Despite that, I think the "quirkiness" I strived to recreate, helped people (classmates and teachers alike) to witness and understand that I had depth, that I possessed creative ideas and interesting viewpoints, that I was a person beyond my race and not some blank slate for some broad sense of Asianness. Being inscrutable actually freed me, because the people around me were required to know me and figure me out, or at least compelled to try.
The key danger in this trope is dehumanization, so maybe my experience is not quite the same as what you write about. I'm unfamiliar with Mantis since I'm not a Marvel fan. Lilly's character is so one-dimensional and lacks the subtlety to be even slightly funny. Miss Casey is hardly even a person. Also, I don't mean this to be a "gotcha!", but artists like Regina Spektor, Bjork, FKA twigs, and Lady Gaga when they first came on the scene were subject to similar mischaracterizations. I'm not sure this is strictly limited to Asian-American artists; most art created outside the confines of whatever cultural wave is trendy will receive this attitude from general audiences.
Okay, now can I blame my lack of Substack notoriety on how my "genius and depth" is masked by the "oddity of [my] presentation, mannerisms, and speech"? Looking forward to your next post!
Thank you for leaving this comment!!! I appreciate the thoughts and have so many of my own + would love to chat :3
A quick response – I totally agree that the goal should not be to succeed at Westernization, and I think that's actually what I mean by being illegible. I.e., not fitting into a preconceived mold of what an (Asian) girl should be. I think there's a lot of merit in wanting to be illegible, and we see that in the writing of authors like Anne Anlin Cheng – who, funnily enough, writes precisely about the freedom of cyborgdom – and Black Studies thinkers, like Bayo Akomolafe, who talk about dehumanization as a form of resistance, fugitivity, and defense. My use of the word "legible" was not meant to denote value, but rather the total opposite. In being illegible, we open up new routes to covert resistance and alternative future embodiments.
And yes - agree that Miss Casey is hardly a person, but I think that's a little bit the point. What makes her hardly a person is her lack of opportunity to socialize, spend time with, and speak the same way as the rest of the crew. If we think of her "107 hours" as akin to being FOB, then it becomes clear that our conceptualization of new immigrants falls short of full personhood.
Finally, I totally agree that white artists are also prone to being seen as weird and strange – but I don't think that it disqualifies my understanding of Yoko Ono and Mitski's strangeness as being distinctly racialized. Idt Weirdness has to be exclusive to Asian femmes in order for the WAAC stereotype to hold true :)
Thank you again for this comment !!! Rly appreciate that you read so deeply and would love to connect.
It’s interesting because black women want to break free of the sassiness trope and be seen as weird. Being in these kind of roles would be praised. It’s interesting what is oppressive for some of us, is freedom to others.
True! Ideally, one could be either trait without being reduced down to a two-dimensional trope or stereotype.
And in some ways, I'd rather be seen as weird than a submissive sex object, which is the alternative Asian trope lol. But in a utopian world, I wouldn't have to pick between those lessers of two evils hehe.
Very interesting point re: Black women wanting to be seen as weird.
I’ve been thinking about how problems abound for trope obsessed folks when biraciality is introduced. My daughter (who is Black and Korean) can’t simultaneously be sassy, aggressive, and a submissive sex object. Methinks this is why certain people are invested in impressing a singular identity upon others—makes for easier parsing.
Looking forward to engaging with your work further!
i’ve definitely had this idea floating around my head (alongside techno orientalism) after watching severance and i’m grateful that someone wrote this!
Late to the party but I really loved this! So well articulated. I wonder if the narrative around Bjork being 'strange' is influenced by the mistaken belief she is East Asian.
I wonder if part of it isn't the mirror Asian and Western culture hold up to each other. Take Haruki Murakami, for instance: he writes Japanese versions of Raymond Chandler novels that have now come back around and influenced a whole generation of readers and writers. Murakami is often criticized for his weird sexuality but I think a lot of that comes from applying very different Japanese attitudes towards sexuality to Chandler's subversive (and fan-servicey) portrayal of sexuality. Then you influence it with Japan's more holistic spirituality/shintoism, unique culture, and broader/less rigid approach to storytelling and you something quite different and interesting yet still familiar. With Anime and Manga becoming so mainstream in addition to just a lot of Asian migration in North America it might be cementing Asians, and women in particular, as simultaneously weird and familiar in our collective imagination without any intention or realization. Asian women are going to be a lot more open to Asian media like anime and manga which has a very different set of mores, particularly in the way it treats women, which might send unintended messages to western writers.
**Spoiler** Miss Casey is particularly interesting this way since when we find out her back story her outtie is so painfully cool but also in a very western way (I actually wonder if she was simply cast but not written as an Asian woman). I'm still not sure how much I trust the writers of Severance but they could actually be en route to a really interesting commentary on exactly what you're pointing out: a giant corporation takes a very westernized Asian woman and reduces her down to her individual parts in a very mid-century white way. It's the corporation itself that is fetishizing Miss Casey's Americanness, an Americanness that most western women (and I think Helly R specifically) have been rejecting for generations now. I'm actually just now reminded of the camera trickery they were doing near the end of the season where they were overlaying Helly R's face with Miss Casey's. We won't know what they're doing with that until at least next season but there's clearly some kind of comparison being made. It remains to be seen whether they stick the landing or where they're going with it but it'd be cool if that was the destination. And I'm sure the writers are anime/manga fans. Severance has a very manga feel to me.
You’re right—those stereotypes only box us in. I grew up as the nerdy Asian girl no one ever liked back. I’ve never considered the “weird” Asian stereotype, love this take!
i’m personally very not a fan of mitski but it’s something to be said ab the excess hate (east) asian artists get all the time for something their white counterparts also do. thank you for this essay :)
You're absolutely correct that such tropes only reinforce what is socially acceptable and culturally relevant. Reducing Asian-American female fictional characters to such narrow clichés ultimately hurts us. Unfortunately, I was an Asian girl who *did* grow up feeling odd and eerie, an angsty and misunderstood poet and novelist, whom nobody ever crushed on at the height of teenage puppy-love politics. I wanted to literally *be* Luna Lovegood, which is hard when you're Korean-American in a bumfuck Midwest suburb of about 4,000 people.
If I may, I'd like to gently push back against your point on how WAACs can never be read as "legible people". Nobody is raised the exact same way, and maybe this is solely the product of my own upbringing, but "succeeding" at Westernization has never been worth anything to me. I relished being Korean, and if anyone laughed at my food or made a North Korea joke (more Asian diaspora clichés!) I would bristle defiantly, or strike back if provoked. But I also dealt with it by leaning into my own strangeness, my potential for capriciousness. I loved movies like "Amelie" and "I'm a Cyborg, but That's OK". For me, the traits of these main characters were a vehicle to imagine, then approach, a version of myself that was closer to my ideal– which was a girl with creative ideas and unique thoughts, who always had something fascinating to say.
I cringe when I think about how annoying, theatrical, and self-absorbed I must have been. I see all the ways that it backfired on me. Despite that, I think the "quirkiness" I strived to recreate, helped people (classmates and teachers alike) to witness and understand that I had depth, that I possessed creative ideas and interesting viewpoints, that I was a person beyond my race and not some blank slate for some broad sense of Asianness. Being inscrutable actually freed me, because the people around me were required to know me and figure me out, or at least compelled to try.
The key danger in this trope is dehumanization, so maybe my experience is not quite the same as what you write about. I'm unfamiliar with Mantis since I'm not a Marvel fan. Lilly's character is so one-dimensional and lacks the subtlety to be even slightly funny. Miss Casey is hardly even a person. Also, I don't mean this to be a "gotcha!", but artists like Regina Spektor, Bjork, FKA twigs, and Lady Gaga when they first came on the scene were subject to similar mischaracterizations. I'm not sure this is strictly limited to Asian-American artists; most art created outside the confines of whatever cultural wave is trendy will receive this attitude from general audiences.
Okay, now can I blame my lack of Substack notoriety on how my "genius and depth" is masked by the "oddity of [my] presentation, mannerisms, and speech"? Looking forward to your next post!
Thank you for leaving this comment!!! I appreciate the thoughts and have so many of my own + would love to chat :3
A quick response – I totally agree that the goal should not be to succeed at Westernization, and I think that's actually what I mean by being illegible. I.e., not fitting into a preconceived mold of what an (Asian) girl should be. I think there's a lot of merit in wanting to be illegible, and we see that in the writing of authors like Anne Anlin Cheng – who, funnily enough, writes precisely about the freedom of cyborgdom – and Black Studies thinkers, like Bayo Akomolafe, who talk about dehumanization as a form of resistance, fugitivity, and defense. My use of the word "legible" was not meant to denote value, but rather the total opposite. In being illegible, we open up new routes to covert resistance and alternative future embodiments.
And yes - agree that Miss Casey is hardly a person, but I think that's a little bit the point. What makes her hardly a person is her lack of opportunity to socialize, spend time with, and speak the same way as the rest of the crew. If we think of her "107 hours" as akin to being FOB, then it becomes clear that our conceptualization of new immigrants falls short of full personhood.
Finally, I totally agree that white artists are also prone to being seen as weird and strange – but I don't think that it disqualifies my understanding of Yoko Ono and Mitski's strangeness as being distinctly racialized. Idt Weirdness has to be exclusive to Asian femmes in order for the WAAC stereotype to hold true :)
Thank you again for this comment !!! Rly appreciate that you read so deeply and would love to connect.
It’s interesting because black women want to break free of the sassiness trope and be seen as weird. Being in these kind of roles would be praised. It’s interesting what is oppressive for some of us, is freedom to others.
True! Ideally, one could be either trait without being reduced down to a two-dimensional trope or stereotype.
And in some ways, I'd rather be seen as weird than a submissive sex object, which is the alternative Asian trope lol. But in a utopian world, I wouldn't have to pick between those lessers of two evils hehe.
Very interesting point re: Black women wanting to be seen as weird.
I’ve been thinking about how problems abound for trope obsessed folks when biraciality is introduced. My daughter (who is Black and Korean) can’t simultaneously be sassy, aggressive, and a submissive sex object. Methinks this is why certain people are invested in impressing a singular identity upon others—makes for easier parsing.
Looking forward to engaging with your work further!
i’ve definitely had this idea floating around my head (alongside techno orientalism) after watching severance and i’m grateful that someone wrote this!
Very very techno orientalism. Like... ex machina definitely floats around in this essay somewhere lol
idk man i love being a fag
ur not wrong
please enjoy each zubstack post equally ❤️
thanks for verbalizing something i’d noticed but not put to words.
Thank u!!
this is INCREDIBLE omg
Omg thank u 🫣
appreciated this!
💕💕💕
I’d be interested to know what you make of Gemma’s arc in severance season 2
Late to the party but I really loved this! So well articulated. I wonder if the narrative around Bjork being 'strange' is influenced by the mistaken belief she is East Asian.
I wonder if part of it isn't the mirror Asian and Western culture hold up to each other. Take Haruki Murakami, for instance: he writes Japanese versions of Raymond Chandler novels that have now come back around and influenced a whole generation of readers and writers. Murakami is often criticized for his weird sexuality but I think a lot of that comes from applying very different Japanese attitudes towards sexuality to Chandler's subversive (and fan-servicey) portrayal of sexuality. Then you influence it with Japan's more holistic spirituality/shintoism, unique culture, and broader/less rigid approach to storytelling and you something quite different and interesting yet still familiar. With Anime and Manga becoming so mainstream in addition to just a lot of Asian migration in North America it might be cementing Asians, and women in particular, as simultaneously weird and familiar in our collective imagination without any intention or realization. Asian women are going to be a lot more open to Asian media like anime and manga which has a very different set of mores, particularly in the way it treats women, which might send unintended messages to western writers.
**Spoiler** Miss Casey is particularly interesting this way since when we find out her back story her outtie is so painfully cool but also in a very western way (I actually wonder if she was simply cast but not written as an Asian woman). I'm still not sure how much I trust the writers of Severance but they could actually be en route to a really interesting commentary on exactly what you're pointing out: a giant corporation takes a very westernized Asian woman and reduces her down to her individual parts in a very mid-century white way. It's the corporation itself that is fetishizing Miss Casey's Americanness, an Americanness that most western women (and I think Helly R specifically) have been rejecting for generations now. I'm actually just now reminded of the camera trickery they were doing near the end of the season where they were overlaying Helly R's face with Miss Casey's. We won't know what they're doing with that until at least next season but there's clearly some kind of comparison being made. It remains to be seen whether they stick the landing or where they're going with it but it'd be cool if that was the destination. And I'm sure the writers are anime/manga fans. Severance has a very manga feel to me.
Really enjoyed reading this. I love being a weird little gaysian beetle, but as far away from the white gaze as possible.
so eye opening! my love for mantis will never be the same, thanks for sharing 🙌
you put into words something i find hard to express, thank you </3
You’re right—those stereotypes only box us in. I grew up as the nerdy Asian girl no one ever liked back. I’ve never considered the “weird” Asian stereotype, love this take!
i’m personally very not a fan of mitski but it’s something to be said ab the excess hate (east) asian artists get all the time for something their white counterparts also do. thank you for this essay :)