초록 열기/닫기 버튼
Given the deep-rooted image of the earlier Asian immigrant women as prostitutes and the American participation in several wars in Asia, Asian women have been often positioned in the genre of romantic melodrama. Hollywood cinema has created the stereotypical images of Asian women, such as Madame Butterfly, Lotus Blossom Baby, China Doll, and Suzie Wong, focusing on their positioning within an interracial romantic relationship with a white man. This paper examines the representations of Asian women in the U.S. romantic melodramas of the 1990s including Come See the Paradise (1990), Thousand Pieces of Gold (1990), Snow Falling on Cedars (1999), and Heaven and Earth (1993). The selected movies present the Asian female who has a romantic relationship with the white male in the backdrop of America’s historical events involving Asia and Asians. The Asian female protagonists in the American romantic melodramas of the 1990s become more independent and active than their earlier counterparts, occupying more significant positions in the narrative. However, they are still portrayed as sexual and romantic interests to the white male characters with an emphasis on either the existing stereotypical images as sexual convenience for white men or the Oriental femininities such as submissiveness, chastity, and domesticity. The selected movies illustrate how differences of gender, race and ethnicity are intersected in the American popular media texts. Despite the increasing power of racial and ethnic minorities and the dominant notion of cultural diversities, the racial and sexual dynamics has been operating beneath the surface, leading to the perpetuation of the stereotypical images of Otherness. While the Hollywood industry makes good use of the global trend of cultural exchange, its products still reflect the power relations within the U.S. and around the world from the perspective of white conservative America. The movies incorporate this contradictory nature of American cinema in the burgeoning era of cultural globalization.
