Image via austin2012.sched.org
SXSW 2012 is going on now!
‘Seeking Asian Female,’ a documentary directed by San Francisco-based filmmaker Debbie Lum, will world premiere at the festival on Monday, March 12.
Watch the trailer for the eccentric modern love story about Steven, an aging white American man who finds Sandy from China online after considering hundreds of other Asian brides. Lum narrates with skepticism and humor as she documents the early stages of Steven’s search, Sandy’s first steps onto U.S. soil, and the good, bad, and ugly, a year into the tumultuous marriage.
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LOL. I saw an interview of Lum recently about this film.
Such. Utter. Nonsense.
More utter, complete nonsense about the “widespread” “asian fetish” mythology. Asian women love to inscribe their own obsessions with themselves on to me — a white man who has done lots of work in Asia. Many of these Asian women have come after *me* — aggressively, and with this creepy attitude that, because I am a white man, I am automatically “obsessed” with them. When I rebuff their creepy advances, many times they will later mete out revenge by accusing me of being in Asia because I am obsessed with them. It’s completely sicko. And I’ve experienced it a number of times, from professionals in the finance industry, to clerks at the local 7-11 in whatever Chinese city.
But of course, we never hear about creepy asian women that make advances on white men in the “asian american community,” do we asian women like Ms Lum?
No, I’m serious— these asian female creepies actually are offended to find out that I am indeed NOT obsessed with them. After all, that is the prevailing myth in the minds of many Asians — both American and native: white men are obsessed with you. And it’s no surprise why: it makes them feel good about themselves. Indeed, many times the very women who accuse white men of this fetish are the ugliest asian women. I mean, think about it: Lum is highly unattractive, and yet she is convinced that hordes of white men are obsessed with her. LOL. Well, maybe losers like the guy in the film. But I can assure Ms. Lum that no good looking, solid white guy would ever even glance in her direction. So, hey, Ms Lum, I guess you don’t have to worry any more huh? But women like Lum have a vested interest in the perpetuation of a myth that they are somehow magically attractive just because they are asian. Alas, sorry to burst your creepy bubble.
Here’s a tip for all the creepy asian women that get off on this myth: if I date an asian women, it is absolutely not because I am obsessed with any of them. I don’t care how great or attractive you think you are. I go out with women of all races, and sometimes they are asian. Why do I press this point they ask? If you don’t have a “fetish” then why do you care, they inquire? Because, as usual, there is absolutely no attempt to qualify the circumstances of the film as completely different from the way that most white men actually think about asian women. Therefore, simply by having interest in asian things, or dating an asian woman, I am suspect of the same attitudes and behaviors of the weirdo in the film. And that is exactly what Lum seems to want.
They call the asian fetish-myth “creepy.” Uh-huh. Well, I call it, disturbing, racist, and INCREDIBLY creepy, that Lum actually has the desire to imply that this fetish is so wide-spread. She implies that even being interested in asian culture is indicative of “asian fetish.” So if I use chopsticks, Lum will be sitting in the corner with her “asian fever radar” up wondering, “Hmm… the white guy using chopsticks is obviously obsessed with me…” Now THAT is creepy when you get that from Asians…. The fact is, “asian fetish” is indeed very widespread—but only in the minds of creepy asian men and women who are determined to perpetuate it.
Now, is the guy in this film unstable? I would say so. But the fact that Lum chose this weirdo, out of all the examples of balanced inter-racial marriages (even mail order marriages) that might be proffered, is a clarion example of the tendency for many (of course not all) Asian women to *demand* that white men are obsessed with them. My observation is that unattractive asian women like Lum tend to fancy themselves as the object of a white fetish, and then perpetuate that mythology by promoting it in media like this, in order to feel good about themselves. It’s pretty sick.
I qualify this by saying that there are, of course, huge numbers of Asian women and men who are not like this at all. I know some of them. They understand that there are small percentages of every race–male or female–who have weird fetishes of people from a different racial group. And to single out white men who date asian women is not only indicative of a creepy bias, but also academically and ethically suspect.
And finally, I will share the truth about mail order brides because — of course — Lum did not. The racial group with greatest number of males seeking out asian male order brides is [drumroll please] ASIAN MEN. And among Asian men, the larget asian male group is South Korean men, who aggressively seek out not only sex excursions in Mongolia and southeast Asia on a regular basis, but also purchase mail order brides by the thousands on a regular basis. Don’t believe me? Just google “mail order bride south korean men”.
But that’s not important to note is it, Ms Lum? In an article that primarily is about perpetuating ugly stereotypes of white men, why let the facts mess up a good thing, right? Demonizing white men is good business to some Asians.