Lack of Meaningful Roles for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders — Both On- and Off-Screen — Signal Need for Change in Hollywood

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KQED

News Commentary, News, Politics

4.2 • 727 Ratings

🗓️ 18 June 2021

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Of the 1,300 top Hollywood films of 2007 to 2019, just 44 featured Asian American and Pacific Islander lead actors, and of those only six were women. That’s according to a new USC Annenberg study that found a dearth of AAPI representation both behind and in front of the camera — as well as abundant on-screen stereotypical depictions that exoticize, hypersexualize or emasculate Asian characters. We’ll talk about the study and hear from actors, writers, directors and producers about their experiences of anti-Asian bias and stereotyping in Hollywood and what needs to change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:00.0	Support for KQWED Podcasts comes from Landmark College, holding their annual summer
0:04.9	Institute for educators from June 24 through 26th. More information at landmark.edu slash LCSI.
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0:28.6	From KQED.
0:31.6	... From KQED Public Radio in San Francisco, I'm Mina Kim.
0:46.4	Coming up on forum, this year's Oscar wins by director Chloe Zhao and actor Yajong Yun were breakthrough moments for Asians in Hollywood,
0:55.0	but a new study that looked at the biggest films of the last decade or so
0:59.0	finds just a fraction featured in Asian-American Pacific Islander lead,
1:03.0	only 44 out of 1,300 films.
1:07.0	The numbers get much worse when broken down further by gender, sexuality, or ability.
1:13.4	As film and television shows begin to address the long erasure of people of color, the issues
1:18.5	of tokenism and colorism, we look at how Asians are being represented and whether those
1:23.4	portrayals are authentic and inclusive. Join us.
1:33.9	This is Forum.
1:34.9	I'm Mina Kim.
1:45.3	Stephanie Shu plays Maylin, a smart and thrilling and confident Chinese-American woman in the 1950s for the series, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. I put money down.
1:46.8	Hey, I'm just to tell you.
	...

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