Asian American Commercial Watch: Familiar Pairing Of White Men And Asian American Women

By John | Thursday, October 4, 2012 | 10 Comments

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Last week, the Washington Post wrote an article about the obvious, but I’m glad that they did, since the is the first time I recall the “mainstream” press as called attention to this issue that anyone who watches television with a critical eye has observed:

“Asian Americans have gained a presence in commercials in recent years, with companies such as McDonald’s, Verizon, AT&T, Wal-Mart and others featuring them as individual characters and in a variety of settings. But when it comes to depicting couples, the portrayal goes mostly in one direction: White guy and Asian American woman. The combination may be the most common depiction of mixed-race couples in popular culture; African Americans are rarely glimpsed with white mates in TV shows or commercials, for example. It may even be more common than an Asian American man paired with an Asian American woman. And it’s a sore point among some Asian Americans. A coalition of Asian American activists, known as the Asian Pacific American Media Coalition, has “regularly” raised objections to the image in meetings with studio and network representatives, says Bill Imada, chairman of IW Group, a Los Angeles-based ad agency. “It seems to be okay if the man is white and the woman is Asian. The community thinks it typecasts Asian women as exotic or as playthings.””

When I read this, I was like, “Yes, I’ve been blogging about these issues over the past five years.” And have (or someone else at 8Asians) covered or observed in almost every instance the issues the article covers, including:

and there are countless other examples I have blogged about that the reporter didn’t reference (since indeed this pairing is so common it is almost expected):

Asian American Commercial Watch: Ally Bank and Randall Park – something new?
Asian American Commercial Watch: Volkswagen

Even Target, which I have diligently documented as a model advertiser highlighting Asian Americans in their ads such as:

But for the only mixed couple commercial that I’ve seen Target broadcasted with an Asian American again is with an Asian American woman and white husband – (at least from what I have been able to see):

Asian American Commercial Watch: Target’s Old Pipes

Coincidentally, I happen to meet Bill Imada over the weekend at the NAAAP-SF conference and we discussed the issue briefly. Now in reality, Asian American women do marry outside of their race at about twice the rate of Asian American men (about 30% versus 15% I believe is the figure), but in television, it looks like almost 100% of Asian American women do. Let’s try to more realistically portray the diversity of Asian American, as well as all relationships, out their in our television commercials (as well as shows and movies while we’re at it). That is why I thought the McDonald’s and Ally Bank commercials were such a breakthrough and a breath of fresh air.

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DiscriminationEntertainmentObservationsTV

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weirdalsuhf

I think that as long as the target audience and largest consumer base is the white male, the white male / asian female couple will always be typical in the media. But you’re right, it is good to bring this issue up and make people realize that this is an inaccurate portrayal of asian female relationships.
my self

The over all appeal in these commercials is to who makes up the middle class. The black middle class was virtually wipe out after the ‘recession’ as well some of the white. Yet Asians show an increase and whites staying at the steady as the economy desperately tries to up swing.

If there is one thing I notice a lack of is black women, especially young black women in commercials. There is an increase of young black women both in colleges, universities and professional fields. Next to the Asian male, black women of America are being pushed aside. Its like advertiser are convince we don’t consume nor interact with one another or the rest of America. We live in caves and survive on mushrooms while gloating over sexual frustration. Distracting ourselves with work and fighting racial stereotypes online.

Enough to make you wanna punch a bitch
zdrav

U.S.-born Asian men outmarry at around 40%. In a generation or two, when more Asian-Americans will be U.S.-born, we should start to see the IR gap decrease significantly.

I wonder if American media will reflect that reality or continue to flatter its white male audience into thinking that all women want them.
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xolang

my own sister married a White friend of mine, but the way mainstream media distort the reality in spite of the interracial marriage gender gap is just ridiculous.
so thanks for contrasting the real gender gap and the media’s overexaggeration.

I personally switch the channel or just look away everytime I know a commercial is going to show the IR combination. :p
Kenneth

No it won’t moron. The IR gap will never decrease for Asians.
zdrav

So the Pew data is wrong, and your factless assertion is right?

Sorry, loser White guy. In the future, there won’t be an underclass of racially insecure women for you to poach after you get rejected by a hot blonde for the 500th time in a row.
xolang

the question is whether a hot blond will still be promoted as the most desirable type of woman. similar question goes also for the white man. for the longest time in the american history, white (man and woman) has been on top, and throughout the 20th century this has been strongly endorsed by the visual media, which is why marrying/dating/fükking a white person has been, consciously or not, some source of pride for many.
I think this way of thinking is changing. slowly, but surely.
zdrav

Go to any magazine or website’s “Top 100 Hottest People” list. Probably about 90% of the people there will be of Western European origin, with a few exceptional minorities (like Beyonce, Halle Berry, Eva Mendes, Ziyi Zhang) to provide token diversity.
xolang

yes. and not all people of western european origin are blond.

I guess what I’m saying is that nowadays we have more choice outside of mainstream TV, mags, Haolewood, so that “blond” becomes less predominant in what we consider hot, cool, sexy, desirable, ideal.

do blonds or whites in general still predominate? absolutely.
but sooner or later, they are going to have to learn to share the hotspot.

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