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  The Asian I (cont'd...)
by Pauline Nguyen, Staff Writer

When The World of Suzy Wong was released, a new conception of Asian fantasy was created. Suzy Wong had both the bad girl and good girl image. She was a prostitute but deep down, she was just trying to be a good girl. Suzy Wong had embodied the two separate archetypes of the time: the subservient good and pure female, and the seductress. It struck another chord in the male fantasy: having a good girl with an inferno of passion inside. Suzy Wong became the standard for modern day actresses. Even Hollywood has not overcome its fascination with Suzy. Guy Lee, a talent agent with the Betty Loo Agency, confesses that Hollywood has not advanced far from 1960. They have fallen in love (or in lust) with Suzy Wong and continually ask aspiring actresses to emulate her. Guy advises some of his female clients to sometimes forgo their reluctance to play the archetypes because Hollywood is not finished with their love affair with Suzy Wong.

The Asian American Camera.
In the documentary, Slaying the Dragon, several white males are asked about their general opinion of Asian American women. Most men refer to their fantasies of the Asian female in films and explain their attraction to the exotic and mysterious characters. Somehow, the Asian film characters have become synonymous with Asian American women. Through the lens of the male camera, Asian women are seen through the eyes and minds of a man's fantasy. With Deborah Gee as director, the camera lens finally gets a pair of Asian American eyes. She explores the creation and development of the Asian film stereotypes and how these expectations have been transposed onto Asian American women.


...I can clean your American house, I can be your Japanese wife, and I can be your Chinese cook.

The Asian American I.
I remember my first experience with my Asian I. As I climbed the stairs of a subway stop, I felt the presence of a woman continually trying to cut me off. I kept my face forward and allowed this woman to pass me. As I took my last step, this little old white lady called out "Slanty eyes." I turned around to look straight at her and glared. She was shocked. As I played the incident back in my head, I realized that her obscenities became fiercer after she had tried to pass me. From the back, she did not know that I was Asian. Did she suddenly gain courage once she saw my slanty eyes? Did she see the slant of my eyes and assumed that it also carried the history of subservience? When I had tried to let her pass and kept my face forward, I wonder if she thought I was satisfying her knowledge of the history by averting my eyes. Did she think that I, a slanty-eyed person, would not have the gall to confront her?

There was no denial that the slant of my eyes displayed my Asian heritage. She saw the history of my culture's subservient nature drawn from popular culture. She thought she knew my eye's history and tried to predict that it would cower from confrontation. Patricia Williams in her essay "The Pain of Word Bondage" expresses the duality of seeing: "But the lesson I learned form listening to her wild perceptions is that it really is possible to see things- even the most concrete things- simultaneously yet differently" (Williams 150). The little old lady saw the eye's history and tried to extrapolate upon that knowledge. I saw the slant of my eyelids as the result of genetics and biology. She assumed differently. She thought she knew the truth behind these eyes.

The Asian eye has a slanted eyelid. But the position of this line contains a history of subservience that Asian Americans Is are trying to defy. The public has only seen the Asian I from film portrayals, but they do no know the Asian American I. They see the depiction of Suzy Wong and assume these images must be the same ones that Asian American women see. What causes the fascination with the Asian eye? Is it merely the angle of which the eye slants? If the slant of the Asian eye were removed, would the Asian I still be as desirable? In Robert Haas's "A Story About the Body," a woman learns a cruel fate when her intended lover rejects her because she has lost both her breasts. Although he has never been preoccupied with her body before, his desire withers away when the symbol of her femininity, her breasts, are gone. Would the male lose their attraction to the Asian I if there was no Asian eye? When the Asian I's symbol of sensuality, the eye, is removed, will there still be the fantasies and expectations?

 
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