By Claire Hamilton
From examining the manner in which Asians are represented in the television show Psych I argue it both subverts and reinforces stereotypes about Asians. There are two main ways in which erroneous ideas about race are subverted: through the characters’ interactions with the Asian character Ken and through the main character’s behavior during the episode. The main character’s words can also be said to reinforce the status quo because he is never shown to derive any real consequence for expressing such ideas.
For those who are unfamiliar with it, Psych is a show about Shawn Spencer, a fake psychic who uses his abilities to solve cases for the Santa Barbara Police Department. He is joined on each case by his best friend Burton Guster, or as he is commonly called on the show, Gus. In the episode entitled “Romeo and Juliet and Juliet,” Shawn and Gus work on a case in which Arthur Chang’s daughter, Becky, has been kidnapped. They later discover that two Chinese gangs, the Golden Triad and the Dragon Triad, are involved and that Mr. Chang is actually the head of the Golden Triad. As it turns out, far from being kidnapped, Becky fell in love with the son of the rival gang’s leader and ran off to hide with him. Matters are complicated in that the other son of the Dragon Triad is attempting to use the situation to ensure that a violent conflict will arise. It should also be noted that the entire episode is essentially a parody of the marital arts film genre: for instance it exaggerates all the fight scenes.
This video contains all of Ken’s appearances in the episode, most of which involve Shawn and Gus consulting with him for advice on their case. Contrary to their expectations, Ken turns out to be rather ill-equipped to give it despite being an Asian-American character presumably of Chinese descent (his ethnicity is never explicitly mentioned in the episode). These scenes are very important because of their effect on the audience.
From analyzing Shawn and Gus’s interactions with Ken, one can interpret that the primary intent of these scenes is to evoke the audience’s laughter. (Psych is a comedy, after all.) The producers and writers encode these scenes so that they will most likely be decoded as comedic. In order for this effect to be realized the racial stereotypes provided by Shawn and Gus have to be recognized by the viewer as irrational to such an extent that holding even one of them would make a person look exceedingly stupid. It is the fact that the character will come off as stupidly silly that makes people laugh and a corollary effect is that the stereotype is discredited in the viewers’ eyes. An example of this process can be found in one of Ken’s scenes where Shawn and Gus are giving a laundry list of what they need Ken to explain for them. Gus asks Ken “to explain the end of Crouching Dragon, Hidden Tiger to [them].” The expectation that Ken, their ex-secretary, knows all about Chinese mafias and Hong Kong counterfeiting operations is an unrealistic notion on its own. Additionally expecting Ken to explain a martial arts film glaringly emphasizes a lack of touch with reality. This and other instances in which Ken is badgered for information act to challenge the stereotype in which a person takes it for granted that any Asian will have expert knowledge of their culture, disregarding the possibility that he or she could be second or third generation and therefore very removed from it. A common way in which this stereotype manifests is in the presumption that a member of some ethnicity as a matter of course will know one of its languages. Ken also subverts this version of the stereotype.
Moreover, Psych brings racial stereotypes into conflict with an alternate representation of Asian identity. This alternate image of Asians is encoded into Ken’s character and is antithetical to the image of the stereotypical Asian. For the audience he is representation of an Asian who actively resists these stereotypes, directly confirming for the audience that such notions are not only racist but also offensive to him. He is visibly upset by them and rejects them in his interactions with Shawn and Gus. Another character who encodes a resistant identity is that of the martial arts instructor who Shaun ends up taking a class from.
As can be seen in this clip, Shawn’s stereotypical grouping of all Asian marital arts into the narrow box of “karate” is venomously rejected by the instructor. However, in the next scene Shawn is witnessed referring to it as “karate” once more, implying that he has not really paid the character’s protestation any consideration. This brings us to the less beneficial effect that Psych can have for its viewers.
Shawn Spencer’s remarks, which espouse stereotypical notions about Asians, witnessed throughout this episode are as problematic as they are “funny.” As noted in the aforementioned example, while various characters in this episode call Shawn, and therefore these stereotypes, out he never suffers any ill effects for behaving in that way (other than their ire). Furthermore, he does not seem to take what they say to heart, disregarding the worth of their objections and persisting in his offensive behavior. He still gets his way even though he has adopted this flippant and insensitive persona. This could be taken an implication that there are no consequences for acting in such a manner, but then again racism is in general much more subtle in modern times. As such one could assume that the public would appropriately censure someone for their blatant racism should it arise in reality. Yet there is a distinct lack of exploration of the consequences of acting in this manner, something I think rather undercuts the shows’ mockery of racist ideas.
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I have seen this treatment of foreign (non-white) races in several other movies. It seems to be that it is mostly Asians, although I might just pick up on those occasions more, as I am Chinese-American. Other common behavior which I didn’t see you mention is the speaking English slowly and loudly to non-whites. Usually I’ve seen these behaviors in movies played for comedic effect. I’ve experienced some of these behaviors in real life as well, such as people asking me if I know Chinese culture or speak Chinese. I wouldn’t call it racist though as they were just asking, not assuming. Unfortunately, I have seen the loud and slow speaking in real life, although it wasn’t to me. The same as you, I have not seen any repercussions to this racism.
ReplyDeleteWe could also look at the reverse of this situation: Shawn makes white males look bad. He too, when there is no repercussions for his actions, reinforces stereotypes concerning white males. They are expected to be insulting, offensive, unaware, racist, etc. It almost makes it seem okay; as in "this white man is racists, and its funny! So it's okay if you're this way too, 'cause it isn't really racist if you don't mean it!" It compounds on the belief that all whites are racists or culturally naive.
ReplyDeleteOn a side note, Ken is a typical Japanese name, so unless Ken is far removed from Chinese culture and has adopted the American name, then I think it is implied he might be Japanese. This just makes it all seem that much more insulting...
To add on to what Michael said, it is true, that there is no harm seen in this kind of racism, in fact, having grown up in Hong Kong myself, I would view this kind of stereotypical behavior as perhaps healthy, as it is not done in a negative way. I would in fact argue that because of the comical attitude of the show, the racial comments in fact alleviate the more problematic train of thought that people have in reality of viewing Asians. Being a huge fan of Psych, one thing that I have noticed through this show time and time again is that it tries to address issues of race and gender in a comical way to address the audience that needs to be corrected on their assumptions of different cultures and people, the show does not imply negative connotations attached to characters' identities, then again, that's just how I viewed this show so far.
ReplyDelete-Anisha Sindher
I do agree with you guys that it is healthy to have some kind of dialogue about stereotyping. However, I do think there is a difference between just portraying stereotypes in a comical manner and actually creating some sort of dialogue about them. From what I have seen in the clip, I don't think that a real dialogue is created because as Claire pointed out, Shawn really doesn't seem to take what Ken is saying to heart. He does have a very blasé attitude about the whole thing and repeatedly makes the same kinds of comments even to Ken's objections. I have never seen this show before so I might not be completely understanding the humor that the show offers. For me personally, I think there is something lacking in the creation of this dialogue about stereotypes which is present in a variety of shows that attempts to do the same such as (I think) Family Guy and American Dad but that's a whole other story.
ReplyDelete-Visnu Ghosh