The Slanted Screen Film Summary

Jenn Fang portrays Orientalism as "the way that the West perceives of -and thereby defines- the East" (Fang 3), and it is similar to The Slanted Screen by Jeff Adachi, that Asian were dominants by Western in the movie industries. When Asian are given parts in tv and film, those parts often maintain the stereotypical ideology which has been prevailing for quite a long time by Western. Asian American stereotypes in these media range from martial arts or bad guys, often set forth a wrong impression of what Asian Americans resemble.

There were some interesting Orientalist images in the documentary caught my attention. To begin with, the racial self-hate and it originated from images of Asian Americans men as being powerless impotent and desexualized (The Slated Screen, 28.20). It starts with the thoughts of white men, and white people bring in control and in charge. Second, a film called Replacement Killers. The original script the villains is not Asian but the studio said since the hero is an Asian, they had to make the villain Asian (The Slated Screen, 29:00). If an Asian play as a good guy and a Caucasian play as a bad guy, it will make the Caucasian feel less empower. Also, they assume minority group will not watch an Asian play as the main hero and will turn off their tv. Last, when kids watch Asian on screen they either Nerdy or doing Kung Fu, it limits the aspirations of goals of the younger generation. Who they think they can become when they grow up because there are no role models in a diversity of ways shown on tv (The Slated Screen, 26:55). After watching all the images in the documentary, I have a better understanding of the term “Orientalism.”