There needs to be a bigger push for more Asian representation in media

Asian Americans in film are hard to come by — and portrayals that don’t rely on stereotypes are even more sparse. I had always been aware of this to some extent, but this past week, as I was working on a project for my web apps class, it became even more clear. The assignment was to create a database, and so I sought to create a database of movies with diverse casting — movies that didn’t have a completely white main cast. I saw this as a relatively low standard to meet, but I was surprised how hard it was to come by films that met my standard. It was a struggle to find films with an inclusive cast across different genres, but when I started specifically looking for more Asian American casts, I had to dig further into years past. One of the only films in the past year I could easily find with an Asian American lead was “Lion,” which stars Dev Patel.

While Asian Americans have had more success in TV lately, movie casting still leaves much to be desired. There is a lack of roles written for Asian Americans, but there is also a lot of whitewashing, including, most recently, Tilda Swinton’s character in “Doctor Strange” and Scarlett Johansson’s role in “Ghost in the Shell.” Both were Asian in the source material and should have been played by Asian actors.

Since the cancellation of “All-American Girl” in 1995, progress in inclusive casting of Asian Americans on TV was completely stagnant until just recently. Because it was a one-of-a-kind show at the time, its cancellation revealed just how hard it is for minorities to break through. If “All-American Girl” had been about a white woman, it would be just another bad sitcom that went off the air, but because it was the first one that featured an Asian American in a starring role, there was a lot more pressure to prove that Asian American representation was worth it.

More recently, “Fresh Off the Boat,” “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” and “Master of None” have shown that inclusive programming is successful. Still, often token characters end up getting killed off, as was the case for Glenn Rhee on “The Walking Dead.” Even after getting their foot in the door with one role, it can be difficult for Asian American actors to move onto other projects. “Master of None” is the notable exception, since Aziz Ansari was able to move from “Parks and Recreation” to creating and starring in his own show.

Even behind the camera, Asian Americans struggle with representation in directing and producing roles, where they would be able to change the system from within. According to a study by USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism that included 1,000 popular films, directors are majority white and male — only 3 percent of directors are Asian or Asian American, and only 5.1 percent are black or African-American. Even among minority filmmakers, the directors were overwhelmingly male. The study also concluded that progress has been slow: “Consistent with female and Black helmers, there has been no change in the percentage of Asian directors from 2007 to 2016.”

Increasingly, Asian Americans have become more vocal. There is hope for better representation in front of and behind the camera. While media representation may seem like a superficial and unimportant issue, according to The Critical Media Project, the media is where ideas that fuel inequality and injustice persist by reinforcing the idea that people of color are the “other.” Representation is a way to fight the perpetual foreigner and model-minority stereotypes — among others — that are still prevalent today despite the insistence that we live in a post-racial society.

Nicole Dan is a UF political science and journalism junior. Her column appears on Mondays.