Leilani Nishime
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252038075
- eISBN:
- 9780252095344
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252038075.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
This first book-length study of media images of multiracial Asian Americans, tracing the codes that alternatively enable and prevent audiences from recognizing the multiracial status of Asian ...
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This first book-length study of media images of multiracial Asian Americans, tracing the codes that alternatively enable and prevent audiences from recognizing the multiracial status of Asian Americans. The book's perceptive readings of popular media—movies, television shows, magazine articles, and artwork—indicate how and why the viewing public often fails to identify multiracial Asian Americans. Using actor Keanu Reeves, the Matrix trilogy, and golfer Tiger Woods as examples, the book suggests that this failure is tied to gender, sexuality, and post-racial politics. Also considering alternative images such as reality TV star Kimora Lee Simmons, the television show Battlestar Galactica, and the artwork of Kip Fulbeck, this incisive study offers nuanced interpretations that open the door to a new and productive understanding of race in America.Less
This first book-length study of media images of multiracial Asian Americans, tracing the codes that alternatively enable and prevent audiences from recognizing the multiracial status of Asian Americans. The book's perceptive readings of popular media—movies, television shows, magazine articles, and artwork—indicate how and why the viewing public often fails to identify multiracial Asian Americans. Using actor Keanu Reeves, the Matrix trilogy, and golfer Tiger Woods as examples, the book suggests that this failure is tied to gender, sexuality, and post-racial politics. Also considering alternative images such as reality TV star Kimora Lee Simmons, the television show Battlestar Galactica, and the artwork of Kip Fulbeck, this incisive study offers nuanced interpretations that open the door to a new and productive understanding of race in America.
Leilani Nishime
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252038075
- eISBN:
- 9780252095344
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252038075.003.0006
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
This chapter focuses on Kimora Lee Simmons and her reality television show Life in the Fab Lane. Rather than striving for a colorblind, deracinated public image, African/Asian American fashion model ...
More
This chapter focuses on Kimora Lee Simmons and her reality television show Life in the Fab Lane. Rather than striving for a colorblind, deracinated public image, African/Asian American fashion model and designer Simmons capitalizes on both her race and gender in her advertising campaigns and television show. While her show is certainly complicit in the twin projects of capital accumulation and globalization, the chapter argues for a camp reading of her image as resistant to dominant misogynistic and essentialist representations of African American women. A detailed look at Simmons' multiracial visibility shows that, ironically, representation in itself is not enough to challenge racial categories. Instead, the show vividly demonstrates how multiraciality signifies visually through its intersections with the power hierarchies embedded in class and gender difference.Less
This chapter focuses on Kimora Lee Simmons and her reality television show Life in the Fab Lane. Rather than striving for a colorblind, deracinated public image, African/Asian American fashion model and designer Simmons capitalizes on both her race and gender in her advertising campaigns and television show. While her show is certainly complicit in the twin projects of capital accumulation and globalization, the chapter argues for a camp reading of her image as resistant to dominant misogynistic and essentialist representations of African American women. A detailed look at Simmons' multiracial visibility shows that, ironically, representation in itself is not enough to challenge racial categories. Instead, the show vividly demonstrates how multiraciality signifies visually through its intersections with the power hierarchies embedded in class and gender difference.
Leilani Nishime
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252038075
- eISBN:
- 9780252095344
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252038075.003.0002
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
This chapter uses the specific example of Keanu Reeves in order to trace how the specter of homosexuality both responds to and redirects a reading of Reeves as multiracial. The celebrity culture ...
More
This chapter uses the specific example of Keanu Reeves in order to trace how the specter of homosexuality both responds to and redirects a reading of Reeves as multiracial. The celebrity culture surrounding Reeves, particularly the flurry of news activity that accompanied his supposed marriage to David Geffen in the mid-1990s, coincided with the passage of the Clinton Administration's “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” policy and popular media discussions about gay visibility. Reeves' star persona demonstrates how, following the push for multicultural inclusion and representation in the 1980s and 1990s, queer and anti-queer coming out rhetoric reframed ethical concerns about racial passing. Supported by an analysis of Reeves' movie reviews and his publicity photos during this decade, the chapter argues that critics' and fans' repeated characterization of Reeves as a bad actor reflects beliefs about racial authenticity and concerns about both racial and sexual passing.Less
This chapter uses the specific example of Keanu Reeves in order to trace how the specter of homosexuality both responds to and redirects a reading of Reeves as multiracial. The celebrity culture surrounding Reeves, particularly the flurry of news activity that accompanied his supposed marriage to David Geffen in the mid-1990s, coincided with the passage of the Clinton Administration's “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” policy and popular media discussions about gay visibility. Reeves' star persona demonstrates how, following the push for multicultural inclusion and representation in the 1980s and 1990s, queer and anti-queer coming out rhetoric reframed ethical concerns about racial passing. Supported by an analysis of Reeves' movie reviews and his publicity photos during this decade, the chapter argues that critics' and fans' repeated characterization of Reeves as a bad actor reflects beliefs about racial authenticity and concerns about both racial and sexual passing.
