Jovan Hsu
Hey Hollywood! Where’s the Kiss?
I grew up as part of the Star Wars generation. We all did, we had no choice.
Those glowing swords, tin-can robots, walking and talking shag rugs, Darth Vader, The
Force, “Luke, I am your father”, that stuff was like kid cocaine, and we ate it up. Family
gatherings were never a chore. It seems like the enduring memory I have of every one of
them is of all of us cousins gathering around the TV watching that familiar Death Star
space combat scene for the 200th time as parents talked in another room, confident that
the children would be well occupied for the next couple of hours at least. Star Wars had
everything a kid could want, so much so that I never once stopped to wonder, in a movie
populated by good guys and bad, humans and aliens of every shape, size, and color, why
didn’t I see anybody in that movie that looked like me?
Not that it was my fault. Being a Chinese guy, Asians, specifically Asian males,
were absent from all American movies, not to mention television shows, popular music,
and sports. So of course, the fact that Star Wars featured no Asian male (or female) of
any significance made it par for the course. The lack of Asians in popular culture was the
norm, and thus I made the assumption that these things were simply not meant to be.
Asians weren’t rock stars or movie actors, sitcom stars, or basketball players. They were
scientists and engineers. That was the way things were and always would be, or so I
believed.
It certainly didn’t help that I was an Asian male growing up in a white
neighborhood without any Asian role models, save perhaps my parents. I learned early
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on to ignore the racial jokes and not to be offended when out of curiosity or some other
darker motivation, classmates asked me to speak in Chinese to them. I found that if I
acquiesced, they would leave me alone. Later on, I discovered that I liked the attention.
By the time I reached middle school I found myself embracing whole-heartedly the nerdy
Asian male stereotype, worrying excessively about grades, shunning physical activities,
reveling in my love for classical music. After all, my parents had long ago drilled into
my head the idea of becoming another member of the proud fraternity of Asian engineers
and scientists, and the only Asian male I ever saw in magazines or on TV was the famous
cellist Yo Yo Ma.
Whether consciously or unconsciously, I had fallen into the Asian male
stereotype, and strangely, found some measure of comfort in it. By being what my
classmates expected of me, I also became relatively safe from their barbs and taunts. By
being the typical Asian guy, I stopped having to confront the stereotype, because I was
the stereotype.
As middle school gave way to high school and things like cracked voices and
body odor became pressing concerns, the issue of sexuality reared its ugly head. Did I
say that the Asian male stereotype was comfortable? I take it back; hormones changed
everything! Some of the subtleties of the Asian male stereotype which I had previously
ignored or misunderstood became all too clear. Suddenly, being good at school meant
being unpopular with classmates and ignored by girls. Listening to classical music was
the epitome of uncool. The disadvantages of the Asian stereotype were made most clear
in the locker room, where talk of things sexual was frank and uncompromising.
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According to locker room chatter, Asian guys were pussies, meek, without power or force
or conviction. Uncoordinated and frail. They had small penises, of course.
These stereotypes infused me, infected me, and affected me in ways I could not
have predicted. Stuck in the morass that is adolescence, I had no way to deal effectively
with these newfound pressures save to turn them inwards upon myself. I felt
uncomfortable dressing for gym class and avoided conversation with my classmates for
fear their attention would be turned upon me and my phantom deficiencies. On the field I
struggled, not because I wasn’t as strong or fast or as athletic as the other boys, but
because I thought I wasn’t. I stopped socializing normally with my peers. The Asian
male stereotype seemed in conflict with every concept of maleness that I had ever known,
and thus I began to wonder whether it would ever be possible to be male and Asian at the
same time. It seemed to me that one of the two had to give.
I can’t say exactly what helped me to finally emerge as a sexually confident Asian
male, but I do know that it had something to do with kung fu. Kung fu movies to be
exact, and my awakening to them and all the possibilities they suggested.
It was at a party with some of my Asian friends that I was first introduced to the
genre of martial arts flicks. My friend Jerome had been raving all night about this Hong
Kong movie he had bought. He couldn’t wait to pop it into the VCR to show everyone
his new obsession. He kept talking about this guy I had never heard of, Jet Li, and his
amazing skills with martial arts. Jet Li? Sounded like Bruce Lee, not that I knew much
about him, either. The only images of kung fu movies that popped into my head were
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grainy and indistinct and typically featured Chuck Norris. Not cool. Still, curiosity won
over, so when Jerome popped the tape into the VCR, I watched.
To describe Jet Li in words would be to commit a grave injustice to his work.
There were no words, just action. Jet Li, he looked like me: short, wiry, Chinese. Jet Li,
he was a force of nature. His body didn’t move, it flowed. Smooth like a river, then
suddenly fast and strong like a waterfall. He was so quick and efficient, dispatching bad
guys left and right with an ease that I had never seen. And at the end, when the room was
littered with the writhing and groaning bodies of his opponents, Jet Li was cool,
charismatic, and badass. My friends and I played that movie over and over again; we
couldn’t get enough. That night, I thought back to Jet Li and wondered, is it really
possible? Can an Asian man really be so powerful? He looked back at me with
confidence and asked, how could you have ever doubted?
I was a believer, and for the next couple of years I followed his career closely.
Jackie Chan had already begun making some tentative forays into the American market
with translated versions of his slapstick martial arts comedies. Jet Li had also appeared,
albeit briefly, in the movie Lethal Weapon 4 as the bad guy martial arts enforcer. He did
nearly nothing in the movie and barely spoke, but I had high hopes for his next project, a
movie called Romeo Must Die. Billed as a modern day retelling of the Romeo and Juliet
love story, it pitted two crime families against each other, one Chinese and one AfricanAmerican, with Jet Li and the R&B singer Aaliyah as the protagonists. At last, I thought,
a movie that would do him justice. Finally the American public would understand the
greatness that is Jet Li. Finally they would be able to marvel at his unparalleled fighting
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style on the big screen. And as an added bonus, he would get to romance the up and
coming (and good looking) actress/singer, Aaliyah. I was pumped.
Alas, the fight scenes did not quite live up to my expectations. The acting was
also pretty bad. But I was still excited just to see Jet Li, my hero, on the big screen in a
starring role. All that was left towards the end of the film was that final kiss between
Romeo and Juliet, the consummation of their undeclared love. I waited and waited and
waited and then the credits rolled, the lights came up, and people started leaving the
theater. What happened? Where was the kiss?
I tried to rationalize it. Maybe an interracial romance between an Asian man and
an African-American woman was just too controversial. Or perhaps it just didn’t fit with
the rest of the movie. After all, despite the title, there really wasn’t much romance in the
movie itself. But deep down I was disappointed. True, Jet Li had demonstrated his skills
and shown everyone that a Chinese man could be physically powerful. Yet for all that, it
seemed America still wasn’t able to regard him as sexually attractive. Still, I had hope
for the future.
Was I too naive? Perhaps. With each subsequent Hollywood movie starring Jet
Li, Jackie Chan, or Chow Yun Fat I sat and wondered whether this would finally be the
one to break the stereotype. No luck. Roles that logically would entail some sex,
romance, anything, instead offered relationships more akin to those of siblings or best
friends. Whereas other American films starring more conventional action stars had sex
galore, films with Asian stars seemed to ignore the issue. Though by this time I hardly
needed the reassurance as to my own sexual identity, I felt that the age old Asian male
stereotype persisted in film. Asian guys still couldn’t get any.
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One notable example was the movie Anna and the King, a retelling of the musical
The King and I starring Chow Yun Fat and Jodie foster. Chow Yun Fat did no martial
arts in the movie and there was very little action in general in the film. The focus was on
the difference in cultures and the growing love between Chow Yun Fat’s King of Siam
and Jodie Foster’s Western tutor. Yet at the end of the movie, the two characters parted
ways without so much as a peck on the cheek. Their love, unexpressed through the most
chaste of kisses, was merely suggested to the audience. Chow Yun Fat, perhaps the most
desirable actor in all of Asia, was left high and dry in the United States, unable to get past
the stereotype.
From Star Wars to the current crop of Hollywood produced kung fu flicks, Asian
male stars have come a long way. Jackie Chan is truly a superstar in America, with Jet Li
and Chow Yun Fat following close behind. While by no means abundant, movies
starring these actors appear regularly and usually meet with good commercial success.
Yet despite the progress, Hollywood continues to perpetuate the Asian male stereotype of
asexuality in its movies. Jet Li can beat up whole armies of bad guys, but when it comes
to romancing his female costar, he is still somehow seen as inadequate. This discrepancy
then serves to further the stereotype in society as a whole. In a way, the myth of Asian
males as asexual is today perhaps stronger than ever.
I do, however, have some hope for the future. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon,
despite being an import from Taiwan, was a huge success in the United States. Along
with its elements of fantasy, the movie portrayed realistic, physically expressed love
between several of its characters, all Asian. Perhaps this film and others like it will make
it possible for future Hollywood movies to move beyond the stereotypical Asian male as
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fighting machine and offer more complete roles that include love, romance, and yes, even
sex. After all, what’s the good of saving the world if you can’t get the girl afterwards?
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