Asian American Pop Culture: Representation, Aesthetics, Reception (ASNAMST 85)

3 credits · Undergraduate

While conversations around Asian representation in US media have historically centered on exclusion from the mainstream, the 21st century has seen the global rise and popularity of various forms of Asian and Asian American pop culture. Asian media, music, memes, fashion, beauty, games, and celebrities have become household names, no longer consigned to the realm of obsessive otaku or cringeworthy Koreaboos. We will explore how Asian American popular culture has been created, consumed, discussed and debated in an era of what Lori Kido Lopez has called "Asian American media abundance." This course has three units: representation, aesthetics, and reception. In the first unit, we discuss what it means - or would it mean - for Asian Americans to be represented "properly" in media. How do we assess successful representation? What is the relationship between racial representation and race/racism in American society more broadly? In the second unit, we investigate the aesthetic properties that we have come to associate with Asian and Asian American pop culture, such as cuteness. What does it mean for a text to look, sound, or "feel" Asian American? In the third unit, we explore how audiences have understood, assessed, and responded to Asian American representation in media. Historically and in the present, how have Asian Americans developed media institutions, distribution networks, and fan communities?