College is hard.

[Kevin]

3 hours of sleep last night... 2 the night before. at least my paper kicks any other paper's ass.
-kev

[Sled_Dog]

... your paper is alive? maybe you do need some more sleep

[Joe]

yeh man if your papers are fighting you need to stop drinking what ever mexican stuff you smuggled back, and get some sleep

and put the sheep away

[Butcher]

hey my papers fight all the time! leave kev alone, he has papers to keep from getting arrested!

Originally posted by Butcher:
hey my papers fight all the time! leave kev alone, he has papers to keep from getting arrested!

nah, let the papers get arrested! then they wont bother you any more. Just make sure to staple them together, that way they count as one paper and get one phone call (instead of phone calls begging for bail times the number of sheets)

[Sled_Dog]

staple is like the handcuffs in a street fight.

[Kevin]

Hellz yeah read this shit...

The Lack of Asian Anchormen: Reasons and Conclusions
Media images and discourses shape identity. Ben Fong-Torres’s “Why Are There No Male Asian Anchormen on TV?” brings to light that there is not a single Asian man holding a lead role in a television news program. Two concepts that explain the situation are Yen Le Espiritu’s idea of controlling images and Stuart Hall’s notion of the ideological struggle in the media. Espiritu defines controlling images as made by the majority group in order to justify the economic and social oppression of Asian American men and women (Espiritu 87). The ideological struggle is the construction and morphing of different ideologies (Hall 440). As depicted in Fong-Torres’s article, negative stereotypes are controlling images, part of an ideological struggle, which shape the identity of Asian American men and limit their progress.
When it comes to Asian American broadcasters, all major positions are given to women. Asian men must always settle for the position of a field reporter, which pays less than one fifth the wage of an average news anchor. In a recent survey of individuals involved in the television industry, none were able to cite an instance where an Asian man held the lead position on a news program. A reporter commented, “It’s not like segregation in the South. What it is is very subtle . . . bias” (Fong-Torres 509). The subtle bias is an unspoken form of racism. Asian American men have certain labels that they have acquired over history in the eyes of white America. Movies, commercials, television, and other mediums have reinforced these labels. When the labels become subconscious thoughts, Espiritu defines them as controlling images. According to Espiritu, the two most developed controlling images of Asian males are “characterized both as asexual and as threats to white women” (Espiritu 90).
The two primary controlling images of Asian men have been indelibly etched in American society for ages. Dr. Fu Manchu, the movie character, promotes the image of an Asian man lacking masculinity, being asexual, or even homosexual. “Though ruthless, Fu Manchu lacks masculine heterosexual prowess, thus privileging heterosexuality” (Espiritu 91). Dr. Fu Manchu’s image chafes traditional white masculinity. Even modern television shows such as Bachelor Father, Bonanza, Star Trek, and Falcon Crest feature Asian males playing the part of a subservient, maid-like figure who performs functions typically associated with female roles. “As on-screen rivals of whites, Asian males are neutralized . . . and prohibited from sexually engaging white women” (Espiritu 92). This controlling image of Asian men lacking sexuality is contradictory to the definition of white masculinity that America respects. If Asian men are not perceived to be respectable males, the demand for them as authoritative news anchors is nonexistent. This supports Fong-Torres’s article, addressing the absence of Asian anchormen on television.
In addition to the depiction of Asian males as feminine figures lacking sexuality, Espiritu shows that an additional, opposite controlling image of Asian men has been developed. This is the image of the Asian man as a ravishing rapist on the prowl for white women. “The racist depictions of Asian men as ‘lascivious and predatory’ were especially pronounced during the nativist movement against Asians at the turn of the century” (Espiritu 90). For example, in 1916, William Randolph Hearst released Petria. This movie was about a group of crazy Japanese men who descend upon the United States and go on a rampage to rape a white woman. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the image of the hypersexual, invading Japanese became more real. This image coincidentally was perceived as patriotic and Asian men were scorned (Espiritu 90 – 91). Through the discourses of the past, white society is left with the two negative stereotypes of Asian men: the effeminate Asian man lacking sexuality and the hypersexual, ravaging Asian man. Neither of these coincides with typical white masculinity, and Asian males are not considered palatable as lead figures in the television medium. This supports Fong-Torres’s observation that there is not a single Asian anchorman in today’s news. Similar to Espiritu’s idea of controlling images, which show reason behind truth, Hall uses his notion of ideological struggle to explain the present racial stereotypes.
Hall defines an ideology as “those images, concepts and premises which provide the frameworks through which we represent, interpret, understand, and ‘make sense’ of some aspect of social existence” (Hall 440). The ideological struggle is the intervention of something in the construction or transformation of ideologies. Anything that changes the way an ideology takes shape can be considered part of the ideological struggle. The media is the incubator of ideologies. It transforms and creates ideologies based on other ideologies, current events, and other affairs in society (Hall 440 – 441). For example, the media reporting on the Japanese Bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 negatively affected the ideologies surrounding Asian men. Asian men were looked upon as the enemy, the evildoers. The ideologies toward Asian males were negatively transformed, and the ideological struggle continues.
Hall depicts the racist ideology of seeing others as subservient, dependent, childish figures. “Many Asians have come on to the screen in this disguise . . . Devoted and childlike, the ‘slave’ is also unreliable, unpredictable and undependable . . .” (Hall 443). When the media constantly depicts Asian males in this role, the ideologies about them are subconsciously changed inside the audience. The negative stereotypes are further promoted. Through the ideological struggle, the perceptions of Asian males in relation to the unmarked white male race constantly changes. Historically, the perceptions of Asian males have been changing for the worse. As Fong-Torres observed, Asian males will not be hired as anchormen unless the ideologies surrounding Asian males are positive and affirming.
Controlling images, which are part of the ideological struggle, cause the current nonexistence of Asian males as television anchormen. These subconscious stereotypes, ideologies, and limits shape the way society perceives Asian men. In “Ethnicity: Identity and Difference,” Hall argues that identity is not a fixed, resolute idea which can be realized. He feels that identity is an amorphous perspective of one’s self in relation to how he or she is treated by others (Hall 27). The identity of Asian men and how they feel about themselves takes a turn for the worse every time another shallow, controlling image is introduced and every time the ideological struggle meets a disruption.
There is not a single Asian anchorman on television currently. There never has been. Despite the large population of Asians in the United States, an Asian male is never hired as a news anchor. The controlling images keep recycling themselves and the ideological struggle moves forward. The racist society of the United States chooses to make life easy by classifying an entire group of people based on the images that media provides. These images naturally are based on stereotypes. Every time the media produces a negative controlling image, the self-perception that an Asian man is lowered. He sees society poised against him; so he turns against himself, since humans only know how to identify their self by how others identify them. The television medium is controlled by a remarkably low number of corporations. The top executives of these firms such as Sumner Redstone at Viacom, Michael Eisner at Disney, and Rupert Murdock at News Corporation are dominating white males. Diversification of media ownership is necessary for negative controlling images to be dispelled. However, given the current trend of media consolidation, such diversification may never occur.

[Butcher]

hand me that mop will ya, need to mop my brain up...

[iceheart]

That was painful, not to mention perverted.

[Kevin]

muahahha my paper kills all!
-Kev

[Joe]

reason for no Asian anchormen? Simple

listen to this: http://gearmedia.ign.com/media/hardc...es11092001.asf

I dunno.. that would get REAL annoying after bout 5 min.

[Sled_Dog]

I think my brain turned to mush Joe.

[Kevin]

joe - hahahha . I watched that clip. FUNNY SHIT.
-Kev

[RedTalon19]

well i didnt read all that paper there but from i did read it was good.

starting papers is the hardest, having a good idea of what you want to write after that helps then it all fills in from there...

this is my first semester for me... i just gotta get off my ass and do these projects earlier than 2 days before they're do... espically when i have 2 weeks to do them..

[Kevin]

RedTalon, I really agree. It took me so long to get the damn intro nicely set up so it laid out my whole paper. When I finally did though, with the help of a red bull, the rest of the paper only took a few hours.
-Kev