Asian Females’ Sexual Obsession and Submissiveness

Dichotomous Stereotypes in The Social Network: Asian Females’ Sexual Obsession and Submissiveness

For a long time, across many fields of life in the United States, the race-related subject has been one fundamental ingredient crucially important to the development of ethnic ideologies and significantly influencing American people’s attitude towards groups generally labeled as “racial minorities”. As one group who comprise roughly 4.8% of the total population of the United States (Karen R. Humes, Nicholas A. Jones, Roberto R. Ramirez, March 2011), Asian Americans are today serving as one important object of research largely due to the stereotypical perceptions placed on them, with prejudiced opinions and discriminating phenomenon being increasingly pointed out by many sociologists and other scholars. One indisputable truth over the stereotypical trend where Asian immigrants are many times treated with inaccurate understandings consists in the fact that depictions given by the media and popular culture contribute to a worsening situation of the experience of Asians. Of all human artifacts, The Social Network, as one biographical drama film directed by David Fincher in 2010, is one visible example that racially categorizes the Asian American group and introduces distorted portrayals of their social and cultural behaviors. During unfolding the Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg’s establishment of his social network empire, the movie’s inauthentic representation is manifested in the character of Christy Lee, one Harvard female student with an Asian American background. Through a detailed review of Christy’s conflicting character, who is either seen as one sexually aggressive girl that disguises her real dating purpose, or maintains her subservient and doll-like existence, this essay stresses a dichotomy of depiction that reveals apparent stereotypes towards Asian Americans. By adopting a theoretical framework made up of “yellow peril” and “model minority”, two contrasting concepts that indicate mainstream racial misinterpretations, it illustrates that both the film’s description of Christy’s hyper-sexualized activities and being obedient embodies incorrect and deep-rooted assumptions of characteristics of Asian Americans (Gary Okihiro, 1994).

The Social Network’s characterization of Christy Lee as one exotic and sexed-up Asian woman indicates a negative presenting approach that underscores fixed images of Asian Americans as “dragon ladies.” Played by Brenda Song, Christy appears as one fellow student of Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin, the co-founder of Facebook, during one lecture given by Bill Gates. The camera zooms in as the supporting character utters “Your friend, is that Mark Zuckerberg (Movies.com, January 2011)?” to Saverin. Dressed in a sexy white shirt, Christy, who has two big eyes, shows her motivation for associating with elite white men as she further seizes her opportunity and mentions that they should go out for drinks. Christy’s side of being hyper-sexualized and morally inferior is displayed in her next scene, where she is witnessed doing oral sex in a bathroom (Reappropriate, 2010). Without any question, the explicit sex message conveyed by the film highlights an image of “dragon lady,” one term suggestive of traditional portrayals where Asian women are explained as conniving and aggressive in their sexual life.

In an evident manner, the film exposes one truth that as one dominant method of recognizing and classifying people in American society, race has moved beyond defining physical distinctions, such as skin colors and body features, and touched social and political spheres. In other words, differences in social positions or possessions of wealth are attached with the importance of considerations during treatment of varying racial groups. In the film, epitomized by Christy’s behavior of seduction, sexuality is used as one device that involves not only physical attraction but additional functions of acquiring strengths and promotions of self-positions. The film’s stereotypical impression that reduces Asian women to prostitute-like and foreign figures, when put into the context of the philosophy of “yellow peril”, is translated as the Asian American group’s threats to westerners regarding political powers and sexual rights (Pawan Dhingra, Robyn Magalit Rodrigez, 2014). The theory, as materialized by Christy, pushes Asian females to the opposite side of rationalism and sexual decency, primarily embodied by local Americans, and dismisses them as overly ambitious and sexually crazy. 

Another notable aspect that exemplifies the film’s extreme racial prejudice over the Asian American group’s experience is the arrangement of Christy’s passivity. Despite that the beautiful Asian girl has been established as goal-driven and active in her sexual life, a visible lack of contribution in terms of occupational accomplishment or business performance is made clear as the audience sees her withdrawal to the very background. During the scene where Christy and her friend, another Asian girl, are drinking on the couch, as Christy offers to help through participating in their expansion plan, a cold answer of “No” is what she receives from Mark. The fact that no filming efforts are exerted on depicting any level of Christy’s unease or frustration towards the Facebook founder’s quick and decisive response provides wide room for the conclusion that she is comfortable with her part as being secondary in an environment where white men possess privileges of power by leading the game. This example, combined with another detail that Christy, as the organizer of the meeting with Sean Parker, the Napster founder, retreats to being a quiet listener and holds back her personal opinions, uncovers a role of being merely decorative (Stephanie Charamnac March 2015). One contradiction is, hence, formed between her Harvard background and her consistently irrelevant existence in business throughout the film.

By arranging Christy’s character as one tool useful mostly for men’s sexual fulfillment, the movie’s result of the objectification of Asian females becomes apparent. Its emphasis on the sexual enjoyment and Christy’s absence of intellectual devotions supports a stereotypical outcome defined by Pawan Dhingra and Robyn Magalit Rodrigez as “model minority”. The conception notes that when Asian Americans are not held as sources of dangerous external threats, their performances at educational or professional areas confront profound misinterpretations that invariably see them as hard-working and submissive. The operation of the theory, as shown in the film, underlines Asian immigrants’ habit of obedience as merely influenced by their ancient Asian values, rather than consequences of assimilations of American culture. Instead of serving as positive remarks, it deepens the senses of Asian Americans’ being less civic. Beyond any doubt, it mirrors Josh Watkins’s observation of one popular ideology in today’s society, where immigrants with origins in Asian countries are perceived as uniquely different and undergo separations from America. One further perspective even suggests that despite citizenship or time of residence, it would be impossible for the Asian group to assimilate fully to the nation. It restates that a wide range of Asian American citizens are trapped in a severe environment in which they are deemed as foreign forces and are victims of stereotypical opinions.

Whether examined from the film’s depiction of Christy as one terrifying and sexually controlling Asian girl or its sudden shift of tone turning her into one useless decoration beside men, these two aspects of representation prove themselves as not only unnecessary but inherently wrong. It deeply reflects one severe reality where different stereotypes jointly relegate Asian Americans to adverse conditions and perpetuates deep-seated misunderstandings towards this ethnic group. Two ideological systems, “yellow peril” and “model minority”, after being given full expressions in Fincher’s film, offer proofs to the nature of untrustworthiness of mainstream approaches to grasping the circumstances of Asian Americans. Obstacles to both sides, either to Asians or the natives, could be removed only when the Asian population are treated with efforts of objective attitudes and new acknowledgment aimed at no racial classifications.