Consuming Orientalism

Cindy Shuai
Blog #5
Kim and Chung. “Consuming Orientalism: Images of Asian/American Women in Multicultural Advertising.”
Harry M. Benshoff and Sean Griffin. "America on Film: representing race, class, gender, and sexuality at the movies"

"Cute Asian Girls" http://www.iphonebot.com/iphone-apps/lifestyle/cute-asian-girls/

In the article of "Consuming Orientalism," Kim and Chung wanted to explore specific examples of how American media consumes gender relations to the Orientals in images etc. It was easy to see how different cultures has become a style or taste that one can adapt. Asian women are portrayed in a certain oriental fashion, and in a way to sell the culture to the public. I was reminded of the book "America on Film: representing race, class, gender, and sexuality at the movies" I remember the book being quite controversial for evaluating some of the film classics such as The Jazz Singer and The Grapes of Wrath, as well as Disney movies such as Lion King. The film dedicated a section to the white relations to the ethnic groups: with Asian Americans as one of the sub-groups. The book is now used in some film studies classes as a textbook, and I only read partial of the book on Asian Americans, yet it wasn't something that I haven't learned already from lower division of the Asian American studies courses. However I remembered it as one of the first time to recognize the Asian American in unfair treatment by gender as a part of the big picture of America film.

Back to the subject of selling culture, there are now more updated versions of technology to better serve the needs of the American public, sarcastically speaking of course. As Iphone/Itouch becomes a new frenzy, there is now a new Iphone/Itouch Application that lets you browse, select, and download pictures of "cute Asian girls" to your Iphone/Itouch. Understand that the creator(s) of this application is smart in his/her exploitation of the Asian culture, combined with the new obsession of American men in Asian women. The creator(s) are obviously smart in that there are just pictures, and as long as they have Google image or Yahoo image that they will never go out of business. This particular service is coincidentally called the "Cute Asian Girls" Iphone App. How original. And if that doesn't infuriate you as it is, the description of the application says:

Are you down with the asian persuasion?

Cute Asian Girls gives you HUNDREDs of photos of the most beautiful asian girls you have ever seen. Whether you’re looking for asian girls with weapons, or girls in maid uniforms, or even just the casual girl in a summer dress, we have them all! Our photo collection is growing by the day and will continue growing by the truckload. Every day will introduce new photos for your viewing pleasure.

Download as many asian girl photos as your heart desires for free after you buy the app. Use them as your wallpaper, send them to friends, or set them as your contact’s photos.

I rest my case.

On the other hand, compact challenge is going okay, since some of my friends and I are packing and cleaning out our apartments and are trading clothes that we have "outgrown" (aka got fatter) or things that we don't wear anymore. Other than that, packing and moving makes me spend too much money as it is, therefore it's not like I had plenty of money to spend anyway.

PS. My friend was webcamming with her friends on my computer and print-screen-ed to take a picture. However the tag of opened site for "Cute Asian Girls" was showing, and everyone accused me of watching pornography. I felt wronged by this blog.

The End.