theavc: The Henry-Dong polarity: The changing face of Asian male leads on TVHollywood’s Asian
theavc: The Henry-Dong polarity: The changing face of Asian male leads on TVHollywood’s Asian men—the few there are—have a history of being typecast from a very small pool of characters: the nerdy comic relief, the villain, or some sort of kung-fu master. Rarely do they get the part of the romantic lead. “If American media tend to hypersexualize Asian women, then they’ve turned the race’s opposite sex into essentially sexless creatures.”Enter Selfie’s Henry (John Cho) and Kimmy Schmidt’s Dong (Ki Hong Lee), who not only get a girl, but get the girl: two Asian men on mainstream American television paired with the lead actresses of their respective shows. (Important to note: lead Caucasian actresses—Asian men are rarely shown dating outside their own race on TV.) It’s certainly a victory for a race of people who have been underrepresented—and mostly unloved—on-screen for years.Full story at avclub.com -- source link
#article#john cho#by carlotta