Supplemental post 1--Hollywood Chinese

Last summer I visited the Arthur Dong collection entitled “Hollywood Chinese” at the Chinese American Museum in downtown LA. Being Chinese American and very interested in the film industry I thought it would be the perfect way to see how people from my own heritage have evolved in Hollywood, especially since we are under represented.
During my visit I felt a mixture of pride and shock. We display so proudly posters from the films where Chinese Americans actually appeared in Hollywood, and Asians were not just portrayed by White actors. But for the first several decades that Chinese Americans were in film, they usually played stereotypical “dragon lady” type roles, or servants. While I recognize the big step it was to have actual Asians in films at all, the roles were painfully stereotypical and even seemed offensive to me. The men were portrayed as crafty and untrustworthy, and the women were so subservient. And yet, there was almost an entire floor celebrating the clichéd view of Asian Americans.
The other major part of the exhibit celebrated one of the most famous Asian American female actresses, Nancy Kwan. As one of the major sex icons of the 1960s, she is best known for her performances in The World of Suzie Wong and Flower Drum Song. She was actually at the event I attended at the museum and looked great. My mom told me that growing up she always wanted to be as beautiful and talented as Nancy Kwan, and that she was a huge cultural role model for young Asian American women who didn’t have anyone else to look up to in the media. But, interestingly, Kwan is not even one hundred percent Asian. I think that Kwan was able to reach such mainstream popularity is because, although clearly she is of Asian decent, she does not have the same look as other Asian women. The fact that she is half white really made her accessible to wider, white audiences. It was very interesting to me that one of the major icons of Chinese film culture is not actually full Chinese, and yet only she was able to bridge the huge gap between offensive and tolerable depictions of Asian Americans in film.

Jennifer Lopez and Racial Ambiguity (Core Post)

Over the semester we have analyzed race from both a white and black perspective. However the readings this week make us examine star image in a multicultural context as opposed to a biracial one. As we saw, Out of Sight stars Jennifer Lopez, a Puerto Rican star. However, according to the readings her racial ambiguity and fair skin allow Lopez to play a variety of racial ethnicities and often leave her race open for a viewer’s interpretation. For example, in Out of Sight, she plays an Italian character.

Racial ambiguity allows for a larger audience to identify with Jennifer Lopez’s character. While watching the movie you’re not really sure what race she is, but depending on a viewer’s own racial identity, they can project and interpret their own meaning.

In the Aubry reading, she discusses how black audiences could identify with Lopez because of her “big butt” something often associated as African American. White audiences are also able to sexualize Lopez because of her fairer skin. Aubry describes this ability for white audiences to identify with Lopez, “…[It] is more palatable to white audiences, a safe vehicle with which to indulge a café au lait fantasy. A pale face with a black butt is intriguing, titillating, as any reflection of a racial mélange has always been in this country; a black face with a black butt has always been worse than ordinary.”

The Negron-Muntaner reading takes a similar stance on Lopez’s racial ambiguity and her ability to identify with larger audiences. Lopez doesn’t try to negate the fact that she is Latina. In fact her ability to speak Spanish as seen through the marketing campaign for her movie Selena proved to be a big draw for Latino audiences who found her very relatable.

The fact of the matter is, racial ambiguity is a highly effective tool in making audiences feel more comfortable. This isn’t just seen in film, advertisers use it all the time to sell more products. Many if not most try to use racially ambiguous actors to appeal to a larger audience. I came across this commercial the other day, which makes fun of this very fact.



1. Does Mariah Carrey have a similar racial ambiguity to Jennifer Lopez? Does she idenity across races the same way?

2. Has Jennifer Lopez completely escaped her “Jenny from the Block” Latina roots?

3. Is racial ambiguity still necessary for white audiences to identify with a black star (ie Obama or does his half white heritage make him more accessible for white audiences?)

J LO'S BUTT!!!

I was quite fascinated with this week’s articles from both Negron and Aubry dealing with the ethnic ambiguity of Jennifer Lopez. They argue that it is this ambiguity that makes her appealing to white mainstream audiences and not just to a Latino fanbase. Her lighter skin tone helps her with this success as she looks closer to a white woman, and she also has the spunk and “butt” that us white folk just don’t see in our women. However, Latino audiences can still identify with her race which expands Lopez’s reach even more. It’s upsetting to think of how different races can become successful in Hollywood but when you think about it, it is nothing but the truth. When I look at very talented actors like Dijmon Hounsou, who has been nominated for 2 Academy Awards, but basically plays the same roles of the barbarian African in all his movies because of his extremely dark skin tone. To most Americans, as these articles suggest, Dijmon just seems too exotic for the mainstream audience, whereas J Lo is “just ethnic enough” to excite American audiences but doesn’t go over the top where she’s a Latino hero but not popular in mainstream. Also, J Lo can play many different roles, like the role that was meant for an Italian woman in the film we viewed in class, “Out of Sight” and this also makes her easily utilized by American film studios. However, with Dijmon who looks and speaks very foreign, there really isn’t much versatility to what he can play, as evidenced by a few of his most popular films like “Gladiator” or “Amistad”, where he plays a slave. Although there is no doubt in my mind that this American attitude towards race is wrong, Americans like being comfortable. The most popular films in terms of box office are franchises, such as Harry Potter and Star Wars, easily consumable films that the audience is already familiar with and knows what they will get when they pay for the ticket to see the movie. I do not think we will ever get out of this need for comfort and this will definitely hurt the actors and actresses who don’t have the light skin and “booty” that J Lo has been blessed with.

Core Post #4: Jennifer Lopez- Making It Acceptable to be Non-White in Hollywood?

It's no secret that Hollywood is dominated by whiteness. White people, white culture, white actors, white directors, white executives. However, there have been numerous occasions in which other races and ethnicities penetrate the dominantly white Hollywood, and some have done so with tremendous success.

No one in the Latino community has broken into Hollywood or American culture quite so well as Jennifer Lopez. Negron-Muntaner's article Jennifer's Butt seems to argue that through Jennifer's embracing of her curves-- most notably of her well-above-average derriere, she has broken through Hollywood's beauty standards a prominately nd made it "cool" to have a Latina (or African American) body. Negron-Muntaner even claims that Lopez is figuratively "Kicking ass"--as a "form of revenge against a hostile cultural gaze" and " 'showing ass' as a sign of identity and pride." The article makes a stronger argument, however, by explaining that because she (and Hollywood) have recognized the potential to make money off of Lopez's physical assets (or really just her one asset), so this is why her body is so featured and promoted.

I don't know if I can agree with Negron-Muntaner's sentiment that Lopez is a force of "kicking ass" against Hollywood's typical standards of beauty. I am much more in agreement with Aubry's Back is Beautiful article for Salon.com. Aubry explains that yes, Lopez may be a step in the right direction for the promotion of multiculturalism, Lopez is marketable and highly successful because "like Halle Berry and many other women who date back to Lena Horne and long before, she appears racially ambiguous and therefore is more palatable to white audiences... A pale face with a black butt is intriguing... [but] a black face with a black butt has always been worse than ordinary."

Lopez celebrates her Latina heritage in Selena, yes, but she has rarely taken movie roles that portray her as Latina. In Out of Sight, she is racially ambiguous (she might be Italian?). In Maid in Manhattan, she's also Italian. She also claims to "love her curves," but has been in the media talking about her weight loss strategies, her extreme diet (she never drinks alcohol, doesn't eat after 6 pm), and her dedicated workout regimen. Lopez, and other "multicultural" (AKA non-white) actresses are successful because of their ability to blend their distinct non-whiteness with white culture.

The argument that Aubry makes that resinates the most with me is that when people of other races are shown in movies, they are often portrayed in highly negative ways. In Out of Sight, the most vicious criminals are black or "otherwise colored" (Don Cheadle, Luis Guzman), while "the most virtuous outlaws were white (George Clooney, Stephen Zahn, Albert Brooks)." This still seems true today. One of the greatest movies of last year, Precious, was a very multicultural movie with a phenomenal and arguable uplifting message. However, it still showed terrible aspects of black culture. And on top of that, the movie was not very commercially successful.

I think more and more, other races have been able to intigrate into Hollywood, and American culture is more accepting of other races' (especially in terms of their beauty). Lopez is marketable because she is racially ambiguous, but she really is a step in the right direction towards making the standard of beauty not just tall, super-thin, blonde white girls.

Questions:

1. Lopez has changed her looks and persona so often. What is her star context today?

2. What star context made Lopez the most famous? When did she have the greatest public appeal?

3. Has any other Latino/Latina star been so commercially successful as Lopez? Why/why not?

4. Has American culture become more accepting of other standards of beauty because of Lopez? Or is the standard really just the same as it always has been?

Jenny from the block

Jennifer's Body Post #7

One of the most evident features of Jennifer Lopez’s celebrity as described in the readings, is her mild form of ethnictity, and the exaggerated response of white and mainstream audiences to this hint of “otherness.” Frances Negron-Muntaner also points out the fact that wile Latinos are treated as a homogenous group by Hollywood and consumers, “Latinos” themselves are well-aware of the stark division between different ethnicities and nationalities. In other words, within this group there are obvious divisions between Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, etc. However, should Cubans only be allowed to play or represent other Cubans, there would be very few roles available. Part of why Jennifer Lopez was able to achieve such success is because of her ability to cross ethnic divides, not only representing non-Puerto Rican Latinos, but also playing other ethnicities. It is her ambiguity and ability to straddle the line between mainstream American and minority that makes her successful, though as is expressed by Abraham in the movie, Selena, “Abraham: "We've gotta be more Mexican than the Mexicans and more American than the Americans both at the same time. It's exhausting!”

Sadly, as Erin Aubrey observes in her piece on Jennifer Lopez’s over-hyped behind, often what is publicized to be a great leap for Hollywood, is but a small step for minorities. Aubrey observed that while she had heard ravings about Jennifer Lopez’s butt, when she saw it herself, it hardly left an impression. While by Hollywood standards it is surely outrageous, by everyday standards, it is unremarkable. Thus, Jennifer Lopez’s body is more remarkable for the way it illuminates the staunch requirements that we as an audience demand of those on-screen, an altogether baffling fact as we as a country are grossly over-weight and under-exercised, than for its innate splendor. Through Jennifer Lopez we are forced to face the fact that other types are only acceptable if they are wrapped in recognizable packages of light skin. Lopez is able to be sexualized as a way to embrace minorities, while still keeping them at a distance, outside the realm of more proper white women.

1) What restrictions are placed on male minority celebrities? Are they sexualized in the same way women are?

2) In a society plagued by obesity, why do we continue to have such an unattainable standard of beauty in Hollywood?

3) How has Jennifer Lopez transformed herself physically to fit into the standard mold of beauty, and does conforming to these standards lessen her impact as a “Latina” actress, if in fact her minority status is represented primarily through her physical appearance?

It's interesting how stars encorporate their nationalities into their texts ...

The Negron-Muntaner and Aubry articles both take issue with (or, at the very least, note) how Jennifer Lopez's "ambiguous ethnicity" makes her more pallatable to white audiences. Aubry's article, in fact, goes so far as to say that Out Of Sight does not live up to its promise of a really racialized leading lady.

The Roberts article addresses Carmen Miranda and her legacy, and the Latina identity in American film more generally. Though the first two articles, about Jennifer, seem more to be critiquing the system within which she is working -- the Hollywood studio one -- there is also an implicit disapproval of her allowing this watering down of ethnicity to occur.

However, I think that stars can (and have) deal with the issue of nationality in one or two ways. The first, I would associate with Jennifer Lopez (and Bill Cosby), the second, with Don Cheadle (who's particularly interesting to consider given that that he and Lopez were both [obviously] in Out Of Sight.

I don't believe that Lopez has done anything to hide her ethnicity. At the same time, though, I don't think she's gone out of the way to emphasize it. It was an inherent part of her role in Selena, admittedly (Negron-Muntaner's whole article is based around this film). However, since she gained stardom -- and assumedly, then, more say in her roles -- she has played it safe, working largely as a romantic comedy leading woman, not in social problem films, for instance.

This is not a critique of her. In fact, almost the opposite. Lopez's approach reminds me of that of the Cosby's during The Cosby Show (not his more recent behavior and comments). He too seemed to ignore the race issue, but not in a way that denied it -- in a way, rather, that deemed it too unimportant to even address. It was the "yeah, so?" approach, that had a racialized body focused on reversing stereotypes by acting against them (being a upper middle class father with Leave It To Beaver-inspired values) rather than complaining about them.

Contrast that to the Don Cheadle approach (again, this is not a critique of his trajectory either). As I said in a previous post, he appears to have taken the stereotyped roles (as in Out Of Sight) as a stepping ladder to roles that he's more interested in. Whereas Lopez did the same thing with Selena, the roles that she's been interested in since have not been social problem ones, as Cheadles have (again, Rowanda, Traitor).

Although Cheadle's roles are not didactic (they would not succeed if they were), they obviously make more of the race issue than do Lopez's, and take a different approach than Cosby's lack of address of ethnicity.

Both approaches are effective -- though Lopez is a bigger star than Cheadle, both their names are known -- but Lopez's lack of direct address and more MLK-style passive resistance may contribute to the criticism that the Negron-Muntaner and Aubry articles speak to. But then again, perhaps she is the most misunderstood modern actress, following in the footsteps of Sidney Poitier and Bill Cosby in fighting stereotypes by acting against them quietly rather than loudly.

Questions:
1) Is Lopez uninterested in enacting social change, or is she doing so subtly?
2) Do all racialized actors need to play to stereotype at first to act in Hollywood?
3) Which do you find more effective in changing your preconceptions about people: someone hilighting prejudice and pointing out how it's wrong, or someone ignoring prejudice and acting against stereotype?