Hong Kong fooey

February 12, 2008 3:12 PM

Hong Kong sex scandal. Edison Chen's cache of private photos may be the biggest Asian sex scandal ever. Starting roughly on Feb. 5, developing, developing. Some pix NSFW but pixelated, and you'll have to google if you want the real images.
posted by klangklangston (142 comments total)

That would be Edison Chen, not Fong.
posted by gen at 3:14 PM on February 12, 2008

Talk about infernal affairs.
posted by basicchannel at 3:21 PM on February 12, 2008 [3 favorites]

I originally read that as Donkey Kong sex scandal.
posted by SpacemanStix at 3:22 PM on February 12, 2008 [3 favorites]

Three pictures of 19 year old Vincy Yeung (杨永晴), Edison Chen's current girlfriend, have also been released by the mystery man "Kira", and here's where it gets a lot juicier. Vincy is the daughter of Ricky Yeung (楊超成), brother of tycoon Albert Yeung (楊受成), the boss of Emperor Entertainment Group who is said to have numerous triad affiliations. Even Jackie Chan (成龍) was said to have appeared "uncomfortable" when told of this latest development and left without making any further comments.

Awwwwww shit. Run Edison run!!
posted by kittens for breakfast at 3:25 PM on February 12, 2008 [2 favorites]

All these citynameist named sites (such as those hosting the last two links) irritate the hell out of me.

Also, anyone a torrent link?
posted by delmoi at 3:31 PM on February 12, 2008

If you want to read what the Chinese are reading, you'd do a lot better to read EastSouthWestNorth's Sexy Photos Gate.
posted by gen at 3:42 PM on February 12, 2008

They used the term "love lollipop" to describe a penis.

I have nothing more to say.
posted by Windigo at 3:46 PM on February 12, 2008 [1 favorite]

Please, this is so overblown.

I'm sick to death of it (anyone interested in my take can read it on the main page of my site).

By all means search for the photos if you enjoy low-grade images of hairy women and a narcissist named Edison.
posted by bwg at 3:51 PM on February 12, 2008

I think the real lesson here is that, you shouldn't let anyone repair your computer you don't trust (or have them do it in front of you). The other thing is that the only way to make sure no one recovers what's on your hard drive (deleted files are recoverable,) is to use one of these on it.
posted by Skygazer at 3:52 PM on February 12, 2008

"...if you enjoy low-grade images of hairy women and a narcissist named Edison."

How did you know that?
posted by puke & cry at 3:53 PM on February 12, 2008 [1 favorite]

Wow, someone I've never heard of has sex with other people I've never heard of.
posted by unSane at 3:55 PM on February 12, 2008 [5 favorites]

Oooh, naked people.

(really, are naked pictures really that much of a scandal anymore? At this point it seems like nudie pix and/or a sex tape is a requirement of stardom rather than a hindrance. I'm just saying)
posted by jonmc at 3:58 PM on February 12, 2008

All these Asian sex scandals look alike to me.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 3:58 PM on February 12, 2008 [13 favorites]

"That would be Edison Chen, not Fong."

Doh.
posted by klangklangston at 3:59 PM on February 12, 2008

"(really, are naked pictures really that much of a scandal anymore? At this point it seems like nudie pix and/or a sex tape is a requirement of stardom rather than a hindrance. I'm just saying)"

Except that this is like seeing nude pix of Marie Osmond back in '77—Gillian Chung is known for being squeaky clean.
posted by klangklangston at 4:02 PM on February 12, 2008

How did you know that?

Sorry, can't self-link.
posted by bwg at 4:02 PM on February 12, 2008

Gillian Chung is known for being squeaky clean.

So was Britney once.
posted by jonmc at 4:08 PM on February 12, 2008

You can self-link to relevant material in a comment, but not in an FPP.

Also, fun fact: Sun Yat-Sen believed that Asians were more evolved because they had less hair.
posted by delmoi at 4:09 PM on February 12, 2008

HirsuteFilter
posted by Senor Cardgage at 4:12 PM on February 12, 2008

PEOPLE ARE STILL HAVING SEX
posted by loquacious at 4:13 PM on February 12, 2008 [2 favorites]

Very well, then.

Anyway, gen has it right: ESWN has all the dirt.
posted by bwg at 4:15 PM on February 12, 2008

Skygazer, the theory that the images were taken off Chen's pink MacBook by a service tech has not been proven. Another theory is that 'Kira' is a rival gang out to embarrass Yeung. It seems that every time Emperor Entertainment, or Gillian Chung, or whoever tries to do damage control, a new batch of photos shows up.

I learned all this from the EastSouthWestNorth blog that gen linked to.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:17 PM on February 12, 2008

The big mystery for me in this affair is, what possessed the man to take his laptop to the repair shop and leave it there with all the photos on it? Could he possibly have forgotten they were there? I've seen the pictures and it's not something I would forget, especially if I was the main feature in them.
posted by tellurian at 4:18 PM on February 12, 2008

The worst part about this is that I had a bet with my friend that the first sex scandal involving people named Chen, Chung, Chan & Cheung would happen in Ireland, not Hong Kong. Man, what a stupid bet now that I think about it!
posted by jonson at 4:19 PM on February 12, 2008 [10 favorites]

Shave.
posted by Jay Reimenschneider at 4:20 PM on February 12, 2008

The big mystery for me in this affair is, what possessed the man to take his laptop to the repair shop and leave it there with all the photos on it?

You'd be amazed at how dumb people can be about that. I used to work in a PC store and one of our service departments main pastimes was scouring the customers drives for music and porn and they found plenty.
posted by jonmc at 4:20 PM on February 12, 2008

Shave.

No, don't.
posted by jonmc at 4:21 PM on February 12, 2008 [2 favorites]

Sorry, my comment above was kind of clunky. What I meant was "how did you know I have a thing for low-grade images of hairy women and narcissists named Edison?" Probably would have been funny if I could have used my words more effectively.
posted by puke & cry at 4:23 PM on February 12, 2008

Well now that you've explained it, it's still funny.
posted by bwg at 4:26 PM on February 12, 2008

And, seriously? "Hong Kong fooey" is the title you went with? How is this not sexist and/or racist?

Or purely purient and anti-sex in general?

WHY ARE YOU USING METAFILTER LIKE A SOAP OPERA GOSSIP RAG?
posted by loquacious at 4:26 PM on February 12, 2008 [3 favorites]

tellurian, you think he would've learned from Gary Glitter's example.
posted by joseph_elmhurst at 4:28 PM on February 12, 2008

jonmc: "I used to work in a PC store and one of our service departments main pastimes was scouring the customers drives for music and porn and they found plenty."

Where have y'all been, that this is shocking? Read the confession of a former Geek Squad tech.
posted by pineapple at 4:30 PM on February 12, 2008

The big mystery for me in this affair is, what possessed the man to take his laptop to the repair shop and leave it there with all the photos on it?

Twice my SO found very explicit videos of (different) neighbors on PCs that they had sold at yard sales or left in the alley to be scavenged. Never could figure out if it was stupidity or exhibitionism. It came to two out of three in one year; the third yard sale computer that year was clean.
posted by dilettante at 4:36 PM on February 12, 2008

You'd be amazed at how dumb people can be about that. I used to work in a PC store and one of our service departments main pastimes was scouring the customers drives for music and porn and they found plenty.

If someone did that in department I ran, they'd be fired with possible criminal consequences, depending on the support policy and user environment.

Work or school environments often have anti-porn clauses in the user agreements, for example, but never did we actively seek it out on their personal machines - at any of a number of locations that I worked at.

Out of hundreds or thousands of users and machines I've supported, I've accidentally seen porn exactly twice. Once was due to how a grad school student had configured an image-browsing program erroneously - which launched during a backup procedure. The second one was an undergrad who was a dumbass and had porn as a wallpaper, and numerous files on the desktop. I did him the favor of an instant drive wipe and saved him from being expelled from the undergrad program, as he was on academic probation already.


But I'm neither naive nor a dumbass, and I wouldn't leave a computer or drive in the service of strangers with full access, especially not the wage slave semimorons that generally populate the lesser general-service consumer tech support centers that have been springing up lately.

However, if you're a tech and you violate the privacy of people who have entrusted their lives and data to your care - you are an asshole. Plain as the day. That's some seriously fucked up shit. Lulz, yeah? No, I don't think so.
posted by loquacious at 4:39 PM on February 12, 2008 [5 favorites]

"And, seriously? "Hong Kong fooey" is the title you went with? How is this not sexist and/or racist?

Or purely purient and anti-sex in general?

WHY ARE YOU USING METAFILTER LIKE A SOAP OPERA GOSSIP RAG?"

Heh. My first thought was all Siouxsie, but I couldn't find any single lines that fit (I figured the one about selling daughters would be too oblique), and then I got that damn Hanna Barbara theme stuck in my head, so the goal was to inflict earworms across the internet.

Though I guess I am the only person who knew who some of these folks were yet hadn't yet heard about the scandal.
posted by klangklangston at 4:48 PM on February 12, 2008

If someone did that in department I ran, they'd be fired with possible criminal consequences, depending on the support policy and user environment.

No kidding. That is some fucked up shit. What the hell.
posted by tkchrist at 4:48 PM on February 12, 2008

Nah, I don't see what's racist about the title. It's like ohhh, 'phooey'... ie, damn, busted.

Incidentally, I saw the French DJ Laurent Garnier in Barcelona a while back, and at one point he mixed the theme to Hong Kong Phooey into a track. In the circumstances - a heaving throng on the Mol de la Fusta, about 3 AM - it was mindblowing.
posted by Flashman at 5:03 PM on February 12, 2008

hahaha! Edison Chen!

His video for "Night Breeze" still remains my absolute favorite, when I'm trying to explain to people why I have an odd fascination with Canto-pop.

Edison Chen - Night Breeze (youtube)

My wife is going to bust out laughing when I tell her about this. Thanks, MeFi!
posted by EricGjerde at 5:03 PM on February 12, 2008

This was all the Chinese students in my department were gossiping about this past week.

jonmc, unless one is an AV actress, videos of this type can still destroy careers in Asia. I'd say it's still a couple of years (decades?) before we'll see Paris Hilton types.
posted by needled at 5:09 PM on February 12, 2008

The idea of Asian women's pornographic photographs being distributed against their wills and gobbled up by anyone, but moreover westerners, makes me want to vomit my heart. Some news stories are best left unpropagated.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 5:23 PM on February 12, 2008 [1 favorite]

HK starlets sell on the wholesome, modest, chaste character. Thus the gossip magazines live on photos and talks of these starlets breaking character.

Gil was specially clean in particular and she kept her image well all these years. Last year (or was it the year before?), some magazine had a picture of her in her bra while changing and there was societal backlash against the magazine; Gil did the whole looking distraught and crying press statement thing and the one issue of that magazine with the pictures was classified as obscene and had to be sold in plastic bags.

She and her company had cultivated the fair maiden look very well and all of a sudden, bang, turns out she's just a regular twenty-something giving blow jobs and using KY jelly like everyone else. Except that even for other 'wild image' stars, that would be career suicide in HK, never mind the Disney-level clean starlet.

Wikipedia actually has a fairly decent article on the 'scandal' if you want a summary of the whole train wreck and the fallout so far.
posted by tksh at 5:24 PM on February 12, 2008

...which was in the fpp
posted by klangklangston at 5:34 PM on February 12, 2008

Oops, my bad klangklangston.
posted by tksh at 5:37 PM on February 12, 2008

Huh. Canto pop makes my cats run out of the room.
posted by goatdog at 5:40 PM on February 12, 2008 [1 favorite]

[THIS IS BAD]

I really don't want to go to MeTa over this, but I'm going to register my complain in-thread, 'cause I know klang can handle it.

This sucks, dude. It's pretty offensive fare for MetaFilter. It's outright sexist, in my opinion, and objectifying and boyzone and so on and so forth.

And, frankly, I'd rather have not heard about this. I don't need to know this. It's why I don't watch TV, or get my news from tabloids - and why I like to read MetaFilter instead. I don't know how you can see that this isn't "OMG NEKKID ASIAN CHICKS".

Scandal? News? People have sex. People who say they don't have sex are probably lying.
posted by loquacious at 5:49 PM on February 12, 2008 [4 favorites]

Yeah, klang, I'm wondering if you're too inured to being a vector for this kind of thing, but I know you must be of two minds. Speak them. As a woman completely livid at the prospect of spending a lifetime with many men who believe one race of women above all others to be the most attractive, and believing that to have awful political underpinnings among the simple preferences, I want special attention paid to this type of woman to ebb, because my emotional revulsion and intellectual suspicion of any representation of Asian Women Naked begins to feel, itself, like racism.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 5:54 PM on February 12, 2008 [1 favorite]

I do run on.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 5:55 PM on February 12, 2008

People who say they don't have sex are probably lying.

or ugly.
posted by jonmc at 6:00 PM on February 12, 2008 [1 favorite]

From his blog:


ONCE AGAIN
yes i have made the statement of IF U FUCKS WID ME I GOTSA FUCK WID U
this is
but i had posted this from MAY 2007
not JAN 2008
PLEASE GET YA FACTS STRAIGHT!!!!!!!!
this is not a game, this is my life.....................


I'm glad to know that at this important junction in his life, he still managed to find strength to tap out a self-defense from his cellphone. It really isn't surprising that the man flunked out of high school back in Vancouver.
posted by reformedjerk at 6:02 PM on February 12, 2008

or ugly.

You get laid, don't you?
posted by loquacious at 6:05 PM on February 12, 2008

yes, but some of my Uggo-American brethren and sistren aren't so lucky.
posted by jonmc at 6:07 PM on February 12, 2008

This story has been front page news in most of the newspapers here in Hong Kong for 2 weeks now - meanwhile 900,000 people in Guangzhou were stuck in a train station for days because of massive blizzards that crippled huge swathes of China. That was page 2 or 3 news.

Actually I think the most interesting things about the story are the media reaction and the over-reaction of the police (amply covered by ESWN) and the contrast between Western and Cantonese pop stars. Just the other day Amy Winehouse, who's struggling with various substance abuse issues, still manages to win a Grammy or two. And if she gets over her addictions there's a good chance she'll have a long career because she can sing and she writes her own material. Gillian on the other hand, can't do anything for herself except play the role she was given by Emperor Entertainment Group - the chaste virgin. Now that image is blown she has to hope against hope that her fans will get over it and keep watching her movies and buying her CD's. So two days ago she held a brief press conference and apologised. Despite the fact that she hasn't done anything wrong (IMO)!
posted by awfurby at 6:13 PM on February 12, 2008

Okay, maybe this is just my cold making me slow today but these two comments threw me for a loop:

bwg:
Please, this is so overblown.

I'm sick to death of it (anyone interested in my take can read it on the main page of my site).

Ambrosia Voyeur:
The idea of Asian women's pornographic photographs being distributed against their wills and gobbled up by anyone, but moreover westerners, makes me want to vomit my heart. Some news stories are best left unpropagated.

Are these jokes?
posted by ODiV at 6:13 PM on February 12, 2008 [1 favorite]

Are these jokes?

You'd understand if you lived in Hong Kong. The news is dominated by this crap.
posted by bwg at 6:33 PM on February 12, 2008

You'd understand if you lived in Hong Kong. The news is dominated by this crap.

As opposed to here in the US, where we never hear about pop stars and their sexual escapades.
posted by jonmc at 6:36 PM on February 12, 2008

I think bwg meant this particular story, not celebrity sex scandals in general.
posted by puke & cry at 6:49 PM on February 12, 2008

Yes, this particular story.

Sorry, I was distracted when I replied; I had a sex scandal in my eye.
posted by bwg at 6:53 PM on February 12, 2008

You know, if I was a woman, I would be pissed as hell that men-children now expect all hair below the eyebrows to be shaved. It's absurd, sexist, and if someone suggested I needed to shave my nethers to be acceptable, they'd soon need a gillettectomy.
posted by maxwelton at 7:09 PM on February 12, 2008 [4 favorites]

All these Asian sex scandals look alike to me.

And an hour later you're horny again.
posted by semmi at 7:26 PM on February 12, 2008 [1 favorite]

Ambrosia Voyeur ,

Could you clarify your comments a little? Because ODiV is right, you're being at best incoherent.

First you make this strange statement that struck me as bizarrely racist and seemed to be saying that this is extra bad because it's Asian women being looked at by Westerners....for some reason. I was wondering if you "vomited your heart" when, say, the Vanessa Hudgens pictures broke and were certainly masturbated to by men the world over. Just the tone of the comment threw me for a loop.

Then you seem to say that the source of the anger in the first comment is that you perceive that Westerners are overly obsessing over Asian women, and that pictures of Asian women are extra bad, yet your first comment seems to indicate that you yourself pay some sort of special attention to them.
posted by Sangermaine at 7:28 PM on February 12, 2008

Meanwhile, Hong Kong still doesn't have universal sufferage.

I found this blog last night by an NYC->HK expatriate, "Learning Cantonese".
http://daisann.com/2008/01/03/ho-yih.aspx

Along with writing on food, language, and culture, she follows the politics and writes about it. If you are intrested in what Long Hair is doing as part of the pro-democracy movement.
posted by sebastienbailard at 7:47 PM on February 12, 2008 [1 favorite]

"This sucks, dude. It's pretty offensive fare for MetaFilter. It's outright sexist, in my opinion, and objectifying and boyzone and so on and so forth."

Sorry, disagree. If I'd known about the EWNS link, I would have posted it, but I thought I tossed up some of the best summaries of the events—and this is a pretty huge deal in HK entertainment circles. I knew Edison Chen because I've been reading up on Stephen Chow, and thought this was something noteworthy that I hadn't seen discussed. I think that the moral aspects of Asian media are interesting in how relatively conservative they are, and this is on par, from what I can tell, with, say, the Rolling Stones getting busted for drugs back in '67—especially because Chung presents such a "pure" image to the press. Just like I thought it was interesting when the High School Musical folks had their nude pix scandal.

All of the "racist" stuff is just a little bizarre to me, and while I acknowledge that you had no interest in this story, well, I don't really care all that much about that, and I don't think I presented this in a boyzone way.

Anything else like this and, yeah, you can go ahead and take me to MeTa.
posted by klangklangston at 7:55 PM on February 12, 2008 [3 favorites]

Skygazer writes "I think the real lesson here is that, you shouldn't let anyone repair your computer you don't trust (or have them do it in front of you)."

Or take the simple precaution of encrypting your stuff. 5 minutes with TrueCrypt's Mac equivalent would have prevented this. Go ahead, do it right now.

tellurian writes "The big mystery for me in this affair is, what possessed the man to take his laptop to the repair shop and leave it there with all the photos on it? Could he possibly have forgotten they were there? I've seen the pictures and it's not something I would forget, especially if I was the main feature in them."

This happens often. The bottom 25% of the user base really is that clueless.

loquacious writes "Out of hundreds or thousands of users and machines I've supported, I've accidentally seen porn exactly twice. Once was due to how a grad school student had configured an image-browsing program erroneously - which launched during a backup procedure. The second one was an undergrad who was a dumbass and had porn as a wallpaper, and numerous files on the desktop. I did him the favor of an instant drive wipe and saved him from being expelled from the undergrad program, as he was on academic probation already.[...]"However, if you're a tech and you violate the privacy of people who have entrusted their lives and data to your care - you are an asshole. Plain as the day. That's some seriously fucked up shit. Lulz, yeah? No, I don't think so."

My experience is quite different. Doing grunt work like transferring data to upgraded/new machines I see this stuff on a fairly regular basis. Not the actual porn but telling file names or directory structures. Copyright infringement is rampant and porn is common. Students are shameless about porn on their machines (and even network storage). Wallpapers are the just the most glaring example.

Copying stuff from clients is immoral and unprofessional but one doesn't have to go looking for it very hard if you want to cross the line.
posted by Mitheral at 8:07 PM on February 12, 2008

OK, maybe it's not actually racist. I didn't like the framing of it - AFAIR "Hong Kong fooey" as a catchphrase actually originates from a (rather lengthy) era of American history when Chinese were at best regarded as benign cartoon characters or much worse. So, perhaps you were unaware of that.

But my reaction to the framing is in complete ignorance of the Asian media surrounding the kerfluffle, or the background of the celebrity in question, so perhaps my feelings about your motives are entirely misplaced.

However, what I'm standing by and trying to point out is that by helping propogate this "news" women are actually being victimized by you propogating this "news".

I don't particularly care if they're supposedly squeeky-clean media darlings. I don't care if it's a paparazzi upskirt shot of a drunken narcissistic starlet. I don't care if the story is "everywhere". You chose to post it and partake in that culture.

A woman is still being victimized and objectified. In this case, it appears that multiple women are being victimized and objectified.

And in the case this (or that, or whatever theoretical sexist news media behavior) is a planted leak for fame-seeking attempts, that the attentioned is desired - just makes all of this kind of stuff even worse. It's an indicator of some pretty seriously malformed and unhealthy values, IMO.


Imagine if this was your mom, or grandma, or your sister. Let's say your mom is the CEO of a company, or on the school board, or mayor - or an actress. Let's say some creep took pictures of your mom with her husband/boyfriend/girlfriend doing whatever it was that made them happy together, or maybe this creep found them on her computer when she brought it in to be fixed.

Imagine the news media jumping all over that story and sharing those pictures with the world?

Still want to post that link? Directly to articles that share those pictures, lightly censored?

Still not angry or annoyed at the pervasive culture of abusive objectification? Notice the ads. Imagine those ads. Profiting off of comprimising pictures of your mom.
posted by loquacious at 8:29 PM on February 12, 2008 [1 favorite]

Sorry to be get off my lawn guy here....but Edison Chen....whom I have never heard of other than the Wiki link saying he was in The Grudge II....this is what people care about?

There are naked Asian people on the internet?

I cant do the whole world population demographic thing here, but my gut says this should be about as shocking as the sun coming up tomorrow.

For Jebus sake...maybe this should be a big story somewhere...but certainly not on the blue.

Just sayin....cop throws a quadrapalegic on the floor....thats unworthy.....15th rate asian actor gets laid...thats news

c'mon folks....there are plenty of places to find this kind of crapola....what next....the lead actor in Weekend at Bernies part 5 has old playboys under his mattress?
posted by timsteil at 8:30 PM on February 12, 2008

Sangermaine,

Thanks for asking. It makes me emotional, I get a viceral reaction, and I throw a lot of words out pretty quickly. Still, "incoherent at best"? Be nice. Anyway, I read every word of each link, FYI, trying to sort out what this represents that is, in total, so problematic to me. I think I can say that problem with this post is twofold: First, and more simple, is my assessment that this is basically a pop news story no more engaging than Vanessa Hudgens', with the only shred of interest being that a retail crime was likely the source of the scandal. Not the best of the web, and the salaciousness of the quantity of content in this case bowl me over from category "tittilating entertainment" into "just fucking sleazy".

Second is my issue with representations of Asian women, as a subtype of women's representations, generally. Yes, I say westerners are obsessed with seeing Asian women's bodies to a degree that seems to me disproportionate. Now, representations of Asians and Asian-Americans is one of my favorite areas of study, but always for me inherently personal. On one hand, I understand in detail how images of sexualized women, and specifically Asian women, have been used in media to signify a fantasy of colonialism. The list of films wherein Asian women unleash inner passion for white men, or symbolize the exotic, the futuristic, the duplicitous, etc. is as long as my arm. This trend may be waning, it may not. I really don't think it's time to judge that with finality.

On the other hand, when I think that a contingent of western men (perhaps overblown for me in number) claim a preference for Asian women, the possibility that it may not be entirely a product of the exotic, youthful, sexual traits which representations of Asian women have projected upon them, it makes me plain old insecure about my total attractiveness potential. As a white educated middle class American, the slightest threat of lessened privilege stings like a motherfucker!

So, while the unauthorized distribution of any woman's pornographic image would bother me deeply, the massive number, the salacious tone, and the Asianness of the subjects all work together to make me feel rather that this is an iteration of Orientalism and not value-neutral territory. I also suspect that the more you know these actresses' work, the less an effect of exoticism these pictures have. I actually don't! I am not up on hk cinema, which is totally my bad. Since college, I've been mad lazy with the non-romantic language subtitled pictures.

And it's hard for me not to feel racist when viewing images of Asian women, because I am deeply cynical in my viewership of Asian representation, and have seen so. damn. many exoticky, lolitafied Suzy Wongs and Cho Changs in cheongsams that I just don't want to see any more. Representations of seuxalized Asian women mean bad things to me. So not hot. And that's a little racist. Mind, this is uniquely regarding representations of them, not actual Asian people in my life. I hope I can say with clear conscience that I'm not problematically racist against any ethnicity.

If all this doesn't ring true to you, or to other people, I think that's fine. If you're colorblind, stay that way. You missed the real party of racist representation that was going on back before 1970, but I went to school for this and watched movies all day, so I didn't, and got a little vitalized on this particular cause. I'm willing to see the skew to my perspective, there.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 8:30 PM on February 12, 2008 [1 favorite]

Klang, I thought the story was interesting. Not because "omg naked Asian girls", but because of the wildly disproportionate cultural response. I had no idea how the HK cinema machine worked.

I didn't have to go hunting for the actual pics to find value in the story. Assuming that everyone must be only capable of taking the prurient interest feels as offensive to me as any alleged objectification.

AV, I am really speechless about that other stuff. I felt more uncomfortable after your last comment than anything else I've seen in this thread. All I can think to say is that I'm sorry you have the issues you do regarding Asian women. But, please - I don't think this is the place to work that out.
posted by pineapple at 8:52 PM on February 12, 2008

loquacious writes "A woman is still being victimized and objectified. In this case, it appears that multiple women are being victimized and objectified."

Is the man being objectified too? If not why? If yes how come your comments don't include him?

Ambrosia Voyeur writes "So, while the unauthorized distribution of any woman's pornographic image would bother me deeply,"

Again why concentrate on the woman being the victim?
posted by Mitheral at 8:56 PM on February 12, 2008

Oh dear.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:00 PM on February 12, 2008 [2 favorites]

Which is to say, this should be interesting.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:01 PM on February 12, 2008

I always get really uncomfortable reading FPPs involving Asians, because somebody always has to come in and make a predictable borderline racist joke about Asians. Maybe it's just me, but it always seems such jokes about Asians are considered more acceptable than similar jokes about, say, black people. Anyhow, I was happy to see there wasn't too much of that in this thread - someone even pointed out the FPP title. I agree that it's pretty predictable "oh I should name it something Orientalsounding since this is about Hong Kong" but I didn't find it that offensive, personally, maybe because of desensitization to such things.

I think there is definitely an issue regarding portrayal of Asian women (and Asians in general) in the Western media, but to me this FPP just seems to be a bit of scandalfilter that happens to involve HK actresses.
posted by pravit at 9:02 PM on February 12, 2008 [2 favorites]

Just sayin....cop throws a quadrapalegic on the floor....thats unworthy.....15th rate asian actor gets laid...thats news

That cop flooring a quadriplegic got deleted because the post was crap, not because the event was "unworthy". And stop using so many damn ellipses, you're not even using them right.

And with that, I'm bailing on this thread because it just keeps getting weirder and weirder.
posted by puke & cry at 9:18 PM on February 12, 2008

For God's sake why is this post still here?

Is there truly anyone left on this planet that doesn't realize that they should assume the minute they take off all their clothes and jam a penis in their mouth in front of someone with a digital camera it is just plain out there for all to see?

Damn, I have no idea who this guy is, who any of the women are, and I swear you can insert any damned ethnic subset you want into this and it makes no difference.

Asshole guy with camera plus stupid women equals internet porn.

Again....where the hell are the metacops who delete this sort of stuff?

The fact that these women are asian really doesnt matter to me. I know there is some culture of guys who fall off their high chairs every time they see one, but its just not my thing. Altough it may explain to some degree why Linda Yu, Nesita Kwan, and whoever the other one is keep nailing TV anchor ratings here in Chicago.

I think the saddest thing is that, if this is truly your thing -- an attraction to naked asian women -- is that it somehow matters that....whoever this Edison Chen twerp is involved.

As far as the whole "a woman was victimized" thing....she spread em for the camera, and while I only saw one or two pixelated images before getting bored, it didnt look like any were at gunpoint or under any sort of duress.

In the end...I guess my weakly argued point is this:

Ladies:....If you don't want to end up all over the net...best to keep your clothes on and the dicks out of your mouth when someone pulls out a camera.

Guys: While I suppose we are all glad ya got some, when you take pictures of someone who has offered themselves to you in this way, then post them all over the internet, mostly people just feel sorry for you because you are a rank asshole.

If the girl was a porn star to begin with, we just figure you are sad for having to pay for it to begin with, and if she is some poor sap who was overcome by your dumbass C movie stardom, then you are just plain sad all around.

Just seems everyone involved here knew what they were getting into at the gitgo, and I have little sympathy for anyone involved.

Move along will we?

And get the hell off my lawn!
posted by timsteil at 9:24 PM on February 12, 2008

For the past fifteen minutes now, you've just been droning on with names. Toby...Toby...Toby...Toby Wong...Toby Wong...Toby Chung...fuckin' Charlie Chan.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 9:29 PM on February 12, 2008

Ambrosia Voyeur

You're right, that was mean. I'm sorry. I was just struck by how angry your comments seemed. It's not that I think I'm colorblind, but to me this issue has a far less sinister explanation than yet another example of media objectification of Asian women.

I don't know if you follow the c-pop scene, but the people mentioned are mega-mega stars. Imagine if, their late-90s heyday, photos and videos of Brittney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson, etc with Justin Timberlake came out. (The situation's not exactly the same, I'm just trying to find an American equivalent.) It would have been huge. I think this just shows that the public loves sex and scandal and the media loves to serve it up, regardless of race. This to me seems to be a separate issue from general media portrayal of Asian women.

As for the actual merits of this post about said mega-scandal, eh. It is kind of borderline shock-value in my opinion, though if you aren't familiar with HK media culture it's an interesting look at how it compares with ours.
posted by Sangermaine at 9:31 PM on February 12, 2008

Is the man being objectified too? If not why? If yes how come your comments don't include him?

They do, inherently but not explicitly. Just because I support one thing doesn't mean don't also support another, and being anti-sexist doesn't work without supporting such rights for both sexes. It's a self-solving element of logic, yo.

Anyway I don't see him spread eagled on his bed. Most of the pictures are of his lovers. I'll wager good money that people would be less interested in all of this if he was just naked and alone.

And generally speaking - visual objectification doesn't usually actually work like that in the real world, and you're splitting hairs. I feel comfortable with this generalization. As evidence I offer you the entire porn industry which is readily accessible from your own computer. Simply go to google image search, turn off safe searching, type in "porn" or "pornography" and try to view the results with a truly open and objective mind.

The majority of the first few pages of results are pretty degrading to women, emphasizing either submissive postures, themes of male sexual dominance and female sexual subservience. This sort of thing is startlingly pervasive in media.

No, this isn't new. I just want it to be old and done with.
posted by loquacious at 9:34 PM on February 12, 2008 [1 favorite]

Ambrosia:

Your claim of Orientalism is a bit unconvincing in face of the fact that most of the framing and salacious presentation of this scandal has taken place in the Chinese media, not in the Western media. If you want to accuse klangklangston or Shanghaiist of Orientalism, then I suppose you can do that, but if you want to talk about "the massive number, [and] the salacious tone" of the distribution of the images in general, I think that you need to take into account the context.
posted by ssg at 9:58 PM on February 12, 2008 [2 favorites]

As a woman completely livid at the prospect of spending a lifetime with many men who believe one race of women above all others to be the most attractive, and believing that to have awful political underpinnings among the simple preferences, I want special attention paid to this type of woman to ebb, because my emotional revulsion and intellectual suspicion of any representation of Asian Women Naked begins to feel, itself, like racism.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 7:54 PM on February 12

What the bloody hell are you talking about?

I've read that paragraph 3 times and I can't parse any of it.

Are you really saying you're pissed off that some white men find asian women attractive? You're jealous?

Sorry if that's wrong. I honestly can't make heads nor tails of what you're saying, and your follow-up didn't really clear anything up.

If nothing else you're a couple decades behind the curve. White guys have been all about the hot latino women for a while now. And even that is an incredibly broad generalization.
posted by Ynoxas at 9:59 PM on February 12, 2008

Is this thread sexist and does it lasciviously bring attention to depravity, or is it racist because people are dismissing as un-MeFi-worthy coverage of an event that there would be no question about if it was ending as many careers in Hollywood instead of Asia? A veritable buffet of outrage-bait, I just can't decide what to get offended about!
posted by XMLicious at 10:18 PM on February 12, 2008

Yes, I say westerners are obsessed with seeing Asian women's bodies to a degree that seems to me disproportionate.

That's quaint, but I like my women round and brown. So there's that.

And if it were a proportionate obsession would you be mollified?
posted by oncogenesis at 11:16 PM on February 12, 2008

Not to be too blunt, but do your comments say anything other than "Asian women are hotter than me, and I don't like that"?

Uh, okay, not cool. That's not blunt, that's being an asshole.

Object that this isn't sexist, or that she's got a weird or contradictory definition of sexism. Even joining in with the dismissal of her statements as incoherent is kosher, if silly.

But insinuating that she's ugly and that's the only reason she's taking this position? And trying to dress it up by claiming that you're just being blunt, because you're such a straight shooter gosh darn it, instead of a total boor? Pathetic.
posted by XMLicious at 11:24 PM on February 12, 2008 [1 favorite]

Wow, this thread was a great read. I didn't even look at the pictures. Maybe when I wake up in the morning there will be twice as many comments.

I can think of a scandal like this in the US - Paris Hilton sex video. After her fiasco made her more famous, people "leak" their own sex tapes for publicity.
posted by Titania at 12:56 AM on February 13, 2008

...it always seems such jokes about Asians are considered more acceptable than similar jokes about, say, black people.

I suspect you're talking about the American media here - those jokes (and the only ones I saw reading the thread were of the form "all asians look the same" and "asian food is not satisfying") just would not fly in Australia (well, Sydney at least), they'd be considered gauche at best and offensive at worst.

I think it's to do with the high level of for-real, no-shit racism directed against Asians here.
posted by claudius at 1:12 AM on February 13, 2008 [3 favorites]

loquacious writes "Still not angry or annoyed at the pervasive culture of abusive objectification? Notice the ads. Imagine those ads. Profiting off of comprimising pictures of your mom."

Or your mom, that's not the point. It's the story that is often constructed around the picture , which contains some bits of information, around and on which some can build stories plausible to a credulous audience. To them, the exploitation is irrelevant because they are not the ones being exploited, it's just the equivalent of fantasy trip and it is not more real and relevant than that.

Take for instance all the bruhaha around Amy winning the Grammy or Emi or whatever that stuff is called ; the juicy bits are understood to be her being a trainwreck of abuse and instability, her singing being of secondary importance, but still fine enough to attract some audience. Now is that exploitation ? No doubt it is, but is the victim a person willfuly kept by others on the edge , or abandoned because her edge is her alleged self destruction ? Or is she acting ? That's make everything so interesting ! Or is it the substance of being a Rock Star, trasgression and abuse ? Could it be 50% staged and 50% true ?

Now there probably are externalities, aka socialized costs caused by all these actions, but you will have to expose them. The first that runs to mind is that constant distraction prevents from focusing ...and focusing on the life of others too much may imply your are not interested in your own, which can be a sign of trouble...but is not caused by the shows themselves. Another consequence is the predominance of utter complete bullshit , the tabloidification of mass media, which can possibily have the effect of keeping people well informed about something utterly irrelevant, such as Matt' sexual escapades.
posted by elpapacito at 1:19 AM on February 13, 2008

I do not see the FPP as sexist. I see it as Newsfilter-ish, if anything.
posted by gen at 1:22 AM on February 13, 2008

Ambrosia Voyeur has told me she's taking a break from Metafilter for a few days. She's chosen to set this thread aside, and while I know she's perfectly capable of fighting her own battles, this pile-on has gotten so personal and mean that I'd feel remiss if I didn't say something on her behalf. I'm not a big presence on this site, but as AV's partner of 6 years I hope I can offer some insight into what she said above.

The "Asian fetish" absolutely exists in Western culture. I've known white guys who claimed to only be attracted to Asian women, and dated them exclusively (they dated the women, I didn't date the guys.) To use a rough metric, typing "asian porn" into Google yields over 7 million results, compared to 2.5 million for "latina porn."

AV was responding to this story in that cultural context, and her comments about it being particularly bad that Westerners are seeking out and viewing these nonconsensually-obtained images were based on the already-poisonous exoticized view that a large segment of Western culture holds toward a particular physical and cultural stereotype. The fact that this is a celebrity sex scandal with nothing to particularly distinguish it other than its location, makes this a pretty shaky, sensationalist-newsfiltery FPP.

I find it pretty disheartening that when Ambrosia Voyeur qualified her criticism by copping to her own insecurities about the idealization of Asian women and what it means for her personal self-image, so many people rushed in to call her an incoherent racist instead of reading her valid and well-informed criticism, taking it along with the qualifications she quite openly supplied. We in the US live in a racist culture, and hard as we try, that racism affects us all in one way or another. We can admit that influence or try to keep it hidden, but it's there nonetheless. When somebody makes the brave move of confessing it, please don't beat them down for it.
posted by contraption at 1:22 AM on February 13, 2008 [3 favorites]

Titania: I can think of a scandal like this in the US - Paris Hilton sex video. After her fiasco made her more famous, people "leak" their own sex tapes for publicity.

I hate to state the obvious but Hong Kong is not the US. Hong Kong/Chinese laws on indecency are not the same as those in the US. Please don't compare the two as the are not comparable. These Chinese celebrities did not "leak" these images on purpose.
posted by gen at 1:26 AM on February 13, 2008

Gen's right, they weren't leaked on purpose, and as Hong Kong's obscenity laws are different from those in North America, the fallout has been considerable.

My main beef is the way Hong Kong's rabid media horde continues to drag out the story as though it were the most important issue facing the city.

It's not.

Who gives a rat's ass about lame sex photos when government inertia prevents it from doing anything meaningful about cleaning the air we breathe? Or protecting Victoria Harbour from being filled in? Or saving heritage buildings?
posted by bwg at 1:54 AM on February 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

Weird.

I'd never heard of Edison Chan until last night, when I watched Dog Bite Dog. In contrast to his usual frothy pretty boy roles, he plays a Cambodian hit man who travels to Hong Kong for a one off hit. Fantastic movie, and the best HK fare I've seen since One Night in Mongkok.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 2:00 AM on February 13, 2008

Weirder and weirder.

The lead actress in One Night in Mongkok was Cecelia Chung -- one of the women photographed banging Edison.

Both are really great films. Somewhat nihilistic, but still way better than any of the US films I've seen lately.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 2:29 AM on February 13, 2008

metafilter: a paparazzi upskirt shot of a drunken narcissistic starlet.
posted by lapolla at 3:24 AM on February 13, 2008

When somebody makes the brave move of confessing it [racism], please don't beat them down for it.

I certainly wouldn't agree with the beat down of anyone, ever, but I think it's fair to request an explanation of statements that appear racist. How else can you get someone to explain that it's all just a misunderstanding or, if need be, to reconsider their own prejudices?

And confession of one's shortcomings and prejudices is admirable, but Ambrosia wasn't taking the tone of, "I have these problems, what steps can I take to deal with them?". If she had, I suspect the responses would have been completely different.
posted by surenoproblem at 3:38 AM on February 13, 2008

Ambrosia Voyeur has told me she's taking a break from Metafilter for a few days.

Metafilter: the only way to lose is not to play.

Besides getting banned, I suppose.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 4:11 AM on February 13, 2008

Some guy with the first name of a famous inventor is getting loads of ass and documenting it for, I suppose, posterity. Good for him. Why is this a scandal?
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:48 AM on February 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

Also:

Yes, I say westerners men are obsessed with seeing Asian naked women's bodies to a degree that seems to me disproportionate.

ftfy.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:52 AM on February 13, 2008

Well, there are other aspects to this that make it a bit more than sex photos feeding the HK media. ESWN covers most of these:

• the police force was quite quick to raid people's homes and make public arrests; some of those people arrested have been released without charges and some have been denied bail but at the same time have not been charged and have been kept in custody for weeks now
• this has promoted the perception that the police are making a big show of doing something because it involves celebrities and a powerful media tycoon with links to the triad and that if it were anyone else, nothing would even happen
• the police at first started that merely possessing these images was criminal, now they say having and distributing these images amongst friends is OK but public distribution is not; this furthered the perception that police aren't even clear on the legalities of the case and made those arrests simply to please certain high-influence people
• as for the actresses themselves, they have always forwarded the chaste image but their real lives are much more normal like the rest of us and the hypocrisy that the industry is, is caught red-handed in a high-profile way and this itself has spark discussion
• finally, there are the various newspapers' reactions, from running this as the frontliner for 15 days now, to publishing think-about-the-children editorials bemoaning of the imminent collapse of society now that teenagers are searching for and looking at these pictures, to the discussion of how far should free-speech go and the talks of requiring forum administrators to hand over all personal information about their members whenever requested by the police

For some of us HKers, the photos themselves are boring but the repercussions of the incident and the way the various parts of HK society has reacted is interesting. And yes, the FPP could have been better written to mention more of this other aspects.
posted by tksh at 6:27 AM on February 13, 2008 [3 favorites]

loquacious writes "Imagine if this was your mom, or grandma, or your sister [...] some creep took pictures [...] with her husband/boyfriend/girlfriend doing whatever it was that made them happy together, or maybe this creep found them on her computer when she brought it in to be fixed."

While that would be really, personally awkward and difficult for me, well... I have a hard time getting indignant for one simple reason:

timsteil writes "Is there truly anyone left on this planet that doesn't realize that they should assume the minute they take off all their clothes [...] in front of someone with a digital camera it is just plain out there for all to see?"

...pretty much says it all. When the photos are consensual, the "creep" in question is the husband/boyfriend/girlfriend that is making mom/grandma/sister happy. This is not a case of a hidden camera or similar, this is apparently one person's consensually obtained porn collection leaking (intentionally or accidentally). My wife has no naked photos of herself on the net because there are no naked photos of her. We both realize that as easy as it would be to snap a few just for fun, if they exist the possibility for other people seeing them also exists. She doesn't want that, so I don't take naked pictures of her.

Now, whether we should be angry that a third party has decided to leak the photos, that's a different story. Personally I think it's a sleazy move, but I also realize that a voyeuristic drive exists in pretty much everyone. We all have an urge to slow down and look at the car crash. A few of us resist the urge, but it's there nonetheless. It's that urge that keeps idiot bottom-feeder enterprises like Entertainment Tonight and the National Enquirer in business. We're fed a constant diet of celebrity gossip. Even if you truly don't care, you still know that so-and-so is knocked up or on drugs or dating whats-his-name, because it's jammed into the news as if it actually were news instead of one person's private life.

What do we learn from all this? Probably not a goddamn thing. I am left with a question, though: In Hong Kong, a photo of the starlet in her bra can ruin her career. In the US, taking one's top off is often the path to bigger roles. So which of these two societies is more fucked up?
posted by caution live frogs at 6:32 AM on February 13, 2008

contraption: "this pile-on has gotten so personal and mean that I'd feel remiss if I didn't say something on her behalf."

I don't see too much that is "personal and mean" in the thread so I'm going to assume that some stuff got deleted by mods. But I hope you are not speaking of my comment following AV's; it's neither personal nor mean to say, "Whoa, not sure that the direction you're going is appropriate here."

contraption: "The "Asian fetish" absolutely exists in Western culture. I've known white guys who claimed to only be attracted to Asian women, and dated them exclusively (they dated the women, I didn't date the guys.) To use a rough metric, typing "asian porn" into Google yields over 7 million results, compared to 2.5 million for "latina porn."

I'm sorry, but your justifications are weak. Because you personally know white guys who are only attracted to Asians, doesn't create a Western fetish; it's merely confirmation bias. Because you apparently believe that something is wrong with a person of one culture being exclusively attracted to people of a different culture, doesn't create a fetish at all. And that there is more pornography of Asian women available on the internet than pornography of Latina women doesn't prove causation in the slighest. I can think of a dozen reasons why there might be more porn of women from one culture available online over another. There's also more porn of Asian women out there than of Norwegian women -- does that mean that Norwegian women are being oppressed?

Again, I'm not rejecting the idea that there is an issue of colonialist racism at play with the incidents in the FPP or the ensuing media flap. All I'm saying is that I have a problem with the arguments that are being made, essentially pseudo-scientific, to justify what was at its core a subjective statement of personal bias.

contraption: "AV was responding to this story in that cultural context, and her comments about it being particularly bad that Westerners are seeking out and viewing these nonconsensually-obtained images were based on the already-poisonous exoticized view that a large segment of Western culture holds toward a particular physical and cultural stereotype.

Okay, if you say so. But in my opinion, she didn't make that case successfully. As I read it, her position was primarily personally informed, about her own issue, and little to do with the larger cultural context.

contraption: "The fact that this is a celebrity sex scandal with nothing to particularly distinguish it other than its location, makes this a pretty shaky, sensationalist-newsfiltery FPP.

This might be true. But that's a completely different issue, and should be argued on its own merit, not conflated with "This bizarre thing was said over here, which is acceptable because... the FPP was shit anyway."

contraption: "I find it pretty disheartening that when Ambrosia Voyeur qualified her criticism by copping to her own insecurities about the idealization of Asian women and what it means for her personal self-image, so many people rushed in to call her an incoherent racist instead of reading her valid and well-informed criticism, taking it along with the qualifications she quite openly supplied. We in the US live in a racist culture, and hard as we try, that racism affects us all in one way or another. We can admit that influence or try to keep it hidden, but it's there nonetheless. When somebody makes the brave move of confessing it, please don't beat them down for it."

Time and place. MetaFilter is usually not the right spot for personal airing of emotional and psychological laundry. I wouldn't call AV's comment either a "confession" or "brave" -- I would call it what she did: visceral, and livid. If not incoherent, her statements were bizarre and surprising to many. And she pointed out the racism herself, so it's not right to take to task anyone who saw the same things in her words that she did. Whether her criticism is "valid and well-informed" is highly, highly subjective -- I don't see it as either, as I've already pointed out.

"We in the US" might live in a racist culture, but don't go down the road of alluding that AV was brave enough to admit some objective truths to which the rest of us are just colorblind because we're too busy lusting after the "exoticky, lolitafied Suzy Wongs and Cho Changs in cheongsams". What was said is what was said -- and whether or not it was said in regrettable, ill-conceived haste, it's weak sauce now to try and reframe it in a more palatable context... one that happens to ask us to suspend too much disbelief and also accept joint culpability merely by dint of being Western or American. I realize that you want to ride to her defense because of your personal relationship, but I think it would be much better to just drop this completely. This too shall pass.
posted by pineapple at 6:53 AM on February 13, 2008 [7 favorites]

contraption: I did call AV's comments incoherent, but I nowhere even hinted at racism, anywhere. And I was being serious. It was like someone typed random words in sequence. I could not penetrate what she was actually saying. I still don't understand it, but your follow up did at least get me in the ballpark.

If I just type "porn" into Google I get 275 million results, which I assume is probably due to some google engine reporting limit rather than actual results. But, that means that your 7 million "asian porn" links are but a tiny sliver. You're barking up the wrong tree.

I don't think AV is racist or sexist or anything. I think she does suffer from low self esteem, which probably 90% of american women do to some degree, which in itself is a tragedy.

I'm sure AV is a lovely creature. She would be better served appreciating her own unique beauty and value instead of worrying about white guys lusting after asians.

The fact that you know guys that are into asians doesn't say anything except that you know guys that are into asians. I'm into women. The race doesn't matter much, although typical asian features are not my favorite, so I refute your and AV's assertion that "all men luv teh asians" with my own experience. But, I've seen some incredibly beautiful asians, as well as latinos, blacks, whites, eskimos, and even some aliens (in the movies).

Since we are relating anecdotes, the guys I know would pick J. Lo over Lucy Liu about 10:1.

Wait a damn minute. I just looked at your profile, and you're in Santa Cruz, California. And you're wondering why you know a lot of guys who are into asians? For the love of christ.

Civil_disobedient has it above. Men like naked women. Do you and AV REALLY think, even for a moment, that if it had been a story about naked caucasians noone would have clicked and everyone would have just said it was simply deplorable? Are you insane?

I will bet you a steak dinner that the Paris Hilton video and the Britney Spears no-panty pictures have 10x the number of views from US based IP addresses that these pictures do.

Naked is nice. I'll look at anyone naked, and enjoy it. Jonmc, I'm here for you bro.
posted by Ynoxas at 8:17 AM on February 13, 2008 [2 favorites]

Do you and AV REALLY think, even for a moment, that if it had been a story about naked caucasians noone would have clicked and everyone would have just said it was simply deplorable?

This is a really peculiar thread. AV's flame out aside, not only does it have virtually no boyzone comments -- which for a thread that can be framed as being about nekkid asian chicks is something short of a miracle -- but it has a surfeit loud and emphatic people insisting that they wouldn't look at pictures of nekkid asian chicks if you paid them, and they're shocked, shocked, I tell you, that everyone else doesn't feel the same way.

Here's bwg, biovating on his blog:

"In research of this piece I viewed some of the photos, which were not only dull, they were repulsive."

Repulsive? Really? I haven't actually looked at the pictures myself, but I'm awfully tempted to, given this typification. What's going on in them? Scat? Bukakke? The little that I've seen of them (from the front pages of magazines, as posted on that ESWN blog linked earlier in this thread), they appear to be fairly standard pictures that people take of their lovers during sex. I've done it, as have most of the people that I know. Fortunately, it was in an era when the rapid mass transmission of digital imagery wasn't as easy as it is now, or who knows, it might have been my body up there, and then you'd really have something to scream repulsive about.

I've developed an interest in Asian cinema recently, so as I said above, I've been watching some of the movies that these characters appear in. One of the things that's interesting about Asian cinema is that the society and the culture that these people occupy in many ways seems so wildly different from our own. For example, they'll show terrible violence -- including sexual violence, yet seem to shrink at showing explicit nudity.

While it might not have been the most important thread that's ever been posted on Metafilter, I certainly found it interesting and illuminating for reasons that had nothing whatsoever to do with OMG BOOBIEZ!!1! and am very glad that klangklangston posted it. ESWN in particular, was fascinating, not just for it's discussion of this topic, but for a whole pile of other stuff as well.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 9:02 AM on February 13, 2008

pinneapple, Ynoxas: Maybe this is something that is stronger on the left coast, but there is just no way to deny that Asian women are highly sexualized in our culture. This is well beyond the realm of confirmation bias and I'm pretty surprised to hear you arguing that it doesn't exist.

Ynoxas: Writing about AV's self esteem, especially after she has left the thread, is really low.
posted by ssg at 9:09 AM on February 13, 2008

...there is just no way to deny that Asian women are highly sexualized in our culture.

Fixed?

I'd say that asian women have a ways to go to catch up to white, big-breasted, small bodied blondes if we're talking about cliched desires of the North American male. Isn't asian pornography considered a niche?
posted by ODiV at 9:23 AM on February 13, 2008

look at pictures of nekkid asian chicks if you paid them

I find your ideas intriguing and will be sending in my CV.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 9:31 AM on February 13, 2008

Civil_Disobedient writes "Some guy with the first name of a famous inventor is getting loads of ass and documenting it for, I suppose, posterity. Good for him. Why is this a scandal?"

Not everywhere has the mores of your home town.
posted by Mitheral at 10:19 AM on February 13, 2008

This is what I was thinking of when I titled the post. Scatman was stuck in my head.

"However, what I'm standing by and trying to point out is that by helping propogate this "news" women are actually being victimized by you propogating this "news"."

I disagree. First off, I don't think there's anything inherently victimizing about this post. I'll concede complaints of "newsfilter," though generally my beef with newsfilter is that Metafilter's a poor place to get stories that are already covered in the mainstream Western press—I think this is interesting in that it's a huge deal on the other side of the world from me, and isn't being covered here. I'm not posting it to "raise awareness" or anything, but I think that examining non-Western media reactions to something that happens here with regularity can illuminate all sorts of cultural assumptions about how fame should be treated and the proper role of reporting. I don't mind criticism of the way this story is being handled, or the (apparent) saturation in HK media—I find that interesting too. But perhaps because I come from the side of reporting, I don't have a tremendous amount of regard for the privacy of celebrities—that these photos have come out IS a story, and the reactions of the press and public ARE stories on their own. The actual photos are the least interesting part of this for me. So yeah, scandalfilter, whatever, but perpetuating the victimization? If so, only in an ancillary way.

As for the whole "Yer ma" part, well, I grew up with a fine art photographer mom—I've had naked pictures of her up in the house and not been unduly scared by it. If she was somehow famous, I'd still be interested in the story without looking for those pictures. I appreciate the attempt to appeal to me ad hominem, but I think I'd have about the same reaction.

"First, and more simple, is my assessment that this is basically a pop news story no more engaging than Vanessa Hudgens', with the only shred of interest being that a retail crime was likely the source of the scandal."

See, and here I disagree with the assumption that Vanessa Hudgens' "scandal" wasn't interesting—I thought her blasé handling was both canny and interesting. And I think the contrast here is interesting too: Hudgens will continue to have a career, even with Disney, whereas Chung likely won't. I find the Fatty Arbuckle and Evelyn Nesbitt scandals interesting too. And I think they can all be discussed by adults in an interesting manner. And I think it largely has been here. Shame you left, AV, since I was enjoying what you had to say, even if I disagreed with it—I don't think this is much evidence of Western consumption of a fetishized other, mostly because this is primarily an internal discussion in Asian media. There's no doubt some minority here who are perving on the nude Chinee pixxorz, but I don't think that's the dominant thrust of this conversation or of what interests me about it.

Again, I think part of the disconnect may be that I knew who these people were, but hadn't heard about this scandal. For folks who don't know who these actors/musicians were, it's probably not as interesting, and for folks who did know about the scandal already, it's probably not as interesting, but I figured a fair amount of the HK-cinema lovers here would be like me.
posted by klangklangston at 10:53 AM on February 13, 2008

I thought her blasé handling was both canny and interesting.

Oh, me too. The scandal broke when she was just 18, which implied to me that the pictures were from before she was 18, but no one said anything about that- not a peep. That's how you control a scandal, right there.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 10:57 AM on February 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

. . . that these photos have come out IS a story, and the reactions of the press and public ARE stories on their own. The actual photos are the least interesting part of this for me.

Same here. The photos are neither special nor disgusting. The enormous furor they unleashed over there is fascinating.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 11:26 AM on February 13, 2008

Well, the thing about that is that the pictures came out pretty quickly after they seemed to have been taken—they were ostensibly from her and Zach's trip to Mexico, which was just a couple weeks prior to the leak. So while it's possible that they were from when she was a minor, it's unlikely.

But yeah, she just kinda went "Yeah, no big," and everyone around her closed ranks. It was the ideal quashing, because no one seemed ashamed, so it fell off the news cycle.
posted by klangklangston at 11:26 AM on February 13, 2008

That was to TPS, obvs.
posted by klangklangston at 11:27 AM on February 13, 2008

I'd say that asian women have a ways to go to catch up to white, big-breasted, small bodied blondes if we're talking about cliched desires of the North American male. Isn't asian pornography considered a niche?

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills, as Lewis Black would proclaim.

Do we really have to explain this?

ssg: You are badly misunderstanding my sentiments. I was trying to empathize with AV, and I declared it a tragedy that so many women in america suffer from low self esteem. How is that even a tiny bit offensive or a low blow? I complimented her the sentence before.

Unless you are disagreeing that american women have self esteem issues, in which case I do not have the time nor the inclination to prove to you that water is wet.

As I said before that some missed... do you REALLY think that if it had been naked white women celebrities that noone would be interested? You REALLY think it's the ASIAN part, and not the NAKED CELEBRITY part, that is interesting people? Really? Come on, you can't be serious.

And yes, it is more than a slight left-coast bias. I'm surprised I have to explain this to you.

Disclaimer: I have not seen the pictures... somehow I was able to resist the heretofore irresistible siren song of an image of a naked asian woman.
posted by Ynoxas at 11:44 AM on February 13, 2008

pineapple : I don't see too much that is "personal and mean" in the thread so I'm going to assume that some stuff got deleted by mods.

Yeah, there was some boorish personal stuff that got deleted.
posted by XMLicious at 1:10 PM on February 13, 2008

ssg: "pinneapple, Ynoxas: Maybe this is something that is stronger on the left coast, but there is just no way to deny that Asian women are highly sexualized in our culture. This is well beyond the realm of confirmation bias and I'm pretty surprised to hear you arguing that it doesn't exist."

I'm surprised that you're surprised over something I never said. I'll reiterate from my earlier comment and emphasize for clarity:

contraption: "The 'Asian fetish' absolutely exists in Western culture. I've known white guys who claimed to only be attracted to Asian women, and dated them exclusively (they dated the women, I didn't date the guys.) To use a rough metric, typing "asian porn" into Google yields over 7 million results, compared to 2.5 million for "latina porn."

pineapple: "I'm sorry, but your justifications are weak. Because you personally know white guys who are only attracted to Asians, doesn't create a Western fetish; it's merely confirmation bias.

...Again, I'm not rejecting the idea that there is an issue of colonialist racism at play with the incidents in the FPP or the ensuing media flap. All I'm saying is that I have a problem with the arguments that are being made, essentially pseudo-scientific, to justify what was at its core a subjective statement of personal bias.

It doesn't matter whether Asian women are highly sexualized; whether they are or are not, neither excuses the comment that contraption's argument was introduced in order to justify. If contraption uses the fact that he or she knows a white man who only dates Asian women as proof of 'the Asian fetish', that is absolutely confirmation bias. That there might be other "proof" available doesn't have much to do with it.

Sorry if my position was unclear.

And while I'm at it: "on the left coast" means nothing to me. If I believe that Latina women are highly sexualized in US culture, and I develop a personal issue around that, and I start making statements about my negative feelings toward Latina women, or I tell you that if you don't see Latina women like I see them, you're in denial... do I get a pass on that behavior because I live in a border state or a majority-minority state?

XMLicious: thanks, I figured it had to be so.
posted by pineapple at 1:20 PM on February 13, 2008

I feel like a case could be made for this being a good post. It could have used a couple of more links to increase the scope of it (demonstrate how another culture/country is dealing with a media scandal not unlike many that have happened here in the U.S. Other issues like censorship, the disconnect between celebrity's images and their "real lives", etc.,)

I'm not picking on AV, or her friends or whatever, but the exotification argument only exists in this thread because she/a few people interjected it. Like I said, this wasn't the greatest post ever, however attacking it from that angle just doesn't jive. AV original post was... strange to say the least

I hear a lot about (in NY) about Russian/Polish women. Or women from the DR. Or Italians. Men are horny assholes, and will fetishize anything with a vagina in accordance with their personal taste. I'm not gonna argue that Asian women have gotten an unfair shake (cause it exists, yes of course), but I didn't get that vibe from this post.

I think this thread could have yielded a decent discussion, but it didn't. Oh well. Sometimes I enjoy reading these threads more than the ones where people actually discuss something.
posted by rosswald at 1:47 PM on February 13, 2008

Somewhere in this mess is a joke about striking union workers, exporting jobs to China, and the American trade deficit.
posted by ryanrs at 4:17 PM on February 13, 2008

pineapple: OK, my mistake. You weren't arguing that it doesn't exist and I shouldn't have said that. However, calling it a "subjective statement of personal bias" makes it seem like you lean to the denial end of things. In any case, I don't think anyone in this thread is going to meet your demand for proof that Asian women are highly sexualized in our culture.

All I was trying to say about the left coast thing is that I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Asian women are more highly sexualized in culture on the west coast (for obvious reasons). That there are regional differences in culture that may apply in this case was the entirety of my point. Maybe, I thought, it is a little harder to detect this sexualization in areas where it is not as prominent.
posted by ssg at 6:51 PM on February 13, 2008

All these Asian sex scandals look alike to me.

...it always seems such jokes about Asians are considered more acceptable than similar jokes about, say, black people.

I suspect you're talking about the American media here - those jokes (and the only ones I saw reading the thread were of the form "all asians look the same" and "asian food is not satisfying") just would not fly in Australia (well, Sydney at least), they'd be considered gauche at best and offensive at worst.

Brings to mind this article from the current issue of Newsweek:

I’m Not Who You Think I Am
"Being confused for every other Asian woman used to be maddening—until I fell into the same trap."

posted by ericb at 7:48 PM on February 13, 2008

All these Asian sex scandals look alike to me.

For the past fifteen minutes now, you've just been droning on with names. Toby...Toby...Toby...Toby Wong...Toby Wong...Toby Chung...fuckin' Charlie Chan.

This is kind of what I'm talking about - in every thread about Asians, somebody has to drop in some borderline racist quip about Asians because they have nothing better to contribute. It would be like someone making fried chicken and watermelon jokes in every thread about Barack Obama. Of course the jokes about blacks would never fly, but for some reason it's just silently accepted when it's about Asians.

I have no idea why people do this, other than being unfamiliar with Asians and feeling they have to say something because of the novelty.
posted by pravit at 8:14 PM on February 13, 2008

ssg: "pineapple: OK, my mistake. You weren't arguing that it doesn't exist and I shouldn't have said that. However, calling it a "subjective statement of personal bias" makes it seem like you lean to the denial end of things. In any case, I don't think anyone in this thread is going to meet your demand for proof that Asian women are highly sexualized in our culture."

Sigh. Sure, I'll go through this again.

Calling what a subjective statement of personal bias? Because the only thing I referred to in those terms was Ambrosia Voyeur's comment. How does that indicate "denial" in any way?

"In any case, I don't think anyone in this thread is going to meet your demand for proof that Asian women are highly sexualized in our culture":

Which proof am I demanding, exactly? Something beyond "I know a guy who knows a guy"? And that is some wildly exacting burden of evidence?

ssg, you seem really intent on making me into someone who denies the existence of this particular flavor of racism. And I'm not.

I just want people to stop saying that "because this racism exists in some form, therefore it's okay for other people to make racist comments." Which right now is looking like the crux of your point.
posted by pineapple at 8:43 PM on February 13, 2008

"This is kind of what I'm talking about - in every thread about Asians, somebody has to drop in some borderline racist quip about Asians because they have nothing better to contribute."

I know that it won't stop you from wearing the sandwich board and moaning about racism, but that's a line from Reservoir Dogs. The reason why I let that line pass without comment is because I got the damn joke, not because it's OK to slag Asians. Feel free to facepalm now.
posted by klangklangston at 9:09 PM on February 13, 2008

pineapple: I haven't read anything approaching that position in this thread and I certainly haven't said anything at all like that. I'd appreciate if you could refrain from painting me as an apologist of racism.
posted by ssg at 9:12 PM on February 13, 2008

I know that it won't stop you from wearing the sandwich board and moaning about racism, but that's a line from Reservoir Dogs. The reason why I let that line pass without comment is because I got the damn joke, not because it's OK to slag Asians. Feel free to facepalm now.

I wasn't targeting you in particular, just pointing out a couple of examples of what I'm referring to. I don't see how it being a quote from a movie changes anything. I just get tired of people making Asian jokes in every thread about Asians and it being generally accepted by users of this website (again, not you in particular) when such behavior usually gets called out when its about blacks, women, Mormons, etc.
posted by pravit at 9:42 PM on February 13, 2008

"I don't see how it being a quote from a movie changes anything."

Chung, Chen, Chan, Cheung are all surnames involved in this scandal. Referencing, with obvious irony, a line in which a white character declares that obviously differently sounding names all are equivalent.

I'm sorry, if you're not getting this, you're either not trying or you're being disingenuous. I realize that you're not specifically gunning for me here, but I think this points to a pretty obvious confirmation bias on your part—this allusion was fairly apparent if you know the context, and now that you know the context, the proper response is "Oh, yeah, sorry."

I'm sorry if I'm touchy here, but I kind of feel like this post was derailed in significant part, at least for me, with allegations of racism all 'round, and seeing another instance of NOT RACISM trotted out by someone who didn't get the joke to justify a "my minority is more oppressed" moment annoys me.

As for the other ones, hey, maybe you could go with the assumption that someone canny enough to snark with a tired line about being hungry after eating Chinese food knows that there are Asians here, and may even be Asian, and feels like it's understood that they're obviously parodying a racist statement.

Again, feel free to take it to MeTa if you disagree—we can have a long talk about racism there. But know that, to me, you're coming off as over-sensitive and kind of whiny.
posted by klangklangston at 9:54 PM on February 13, 2008

feels like it's understood that they're obviously parodying a racist statement.

The problem is that it's often hard to distinguish between parody and racist statements, and you - sorry, not you, one - can often often get away with the latter by framing it as a "harmless" joke. I get the joke now and can see that wasn't the intention there, but for someone unfamiliar with the quote it just comes off as another random quip about Asians. I'm just saying people should be more aware of these things, that's all.

Anyhow, I realize you're annoyed with the multi-derail (I find the whole discussion kind of bizarre myself) so I'll drop the point. It was a bad time to bring it up.
posted by pravit at 10:20 PM on February 13, 2008

I have found all of this very interesting. It is true that the level of violence and sexual violence in Asian cinema is much more severe than their western counterparts, as opposed to the sexual content, which is more coy. Maybe there is a sliding scale of violence/sex that must be kept in balance? gorno---¦-------porno

Also, it is interesting how plain and normal the various starlets look in the photos. Kind of makes you realise there is some skill to taking quality pr0n pictures.

I can say this because I have an Asian girlfriend. j/k
posted by asok at 7:14 AM on February 14, 2008

ssg: "pineapple: I haven't read anything approaching that position in this thread and I certainly haven't said anything at all like that. I'd appreciate if you could refrain from painting me as an apologist of racism."

Sure. Soon as you stop reinterpreting my comments to make it sound like I'm in some sort of denial about the existence of discrimination toward Asian women. There's plenty of misinterpretation of other people's positions going on in this thread, but you don't seem to be acknowledging your own role in that.
posted by pineapple at 8:04 AM on February 14, 2008

As for the other ones, hey, maybe you could go with the assumption that someone canny enough to snark with a tired line about being hungry after eating Chinese food knows that there are Asians here, and may even be Asian, and feels like it's understood that they're obviously parodying a racist statement.

Again, feel free to take it to MeTa if you disagree—we can have a long talk about racism there. But know that, to me, you're coming off as over-sensitive and kind of whiny.


Well, I think if it's not acceptable in any way to say the equivalent comments about say African Americans (watermelons, fried chicken or the like) then it's not ok to make the comment about any other race. Even if in jest. Could you say those things and get away with it if it was about blacks.. it would be in extremely bad taste.. so it is the same here..

Also, if this wasn't the Internet, would you say it in front of another Asian or in front of your spouse? Your statements already sparked a pretty big reaction which would indicate that your statements have crossed the line.
posted by pez_LPhiE at 8:39 AM on February 14, 2008

Just to clear things up, klangklangston didn't say anything. Those comments were made by someone else.

I think the issue I pointed out exists, but this thread was a bad example and the wrong time to bring it up. Anyhow, this thread is a mess, so I'm bowing out now. Sorry to add to the derail.
posted by pravit at 10:03 AM on February 14, 2008

Okay, I'm back. Goddammit, earlier than I planned. Haha, metafilter, you win, I'm bored. I really wanted a little break because what you saw upthread from me, in my opinion, amounts to a shamefully clumsy fumble. I care a lot about issues of Asian representation in American media, and that my comments were able to be read by anyone, nevermind several people as "oooooh I hate those azn chix w/their little asses" was like, paaaaainful. It was just a particularly addlebrained day, so I really apologize and hope whatever ickiness anyone saw in my comments can be given the benefit of the doubt, because I know I'm coming from a reasonable and a reasonably well-informed place.

I understand frustration and disbelief and anger in the process of addressing this really contemporary issue, one which I think we, as a culture, need to talk about as it is happening, so it's not left to forces beyond our ken to determine why and how we perceive race on screen. If somehow, one day, racial equity in media is attained, I don't really want people to never have known the ways the inequities were formed, mutated, and reinforced for decades.

In the specific case of (east) Asians, here in the USA (I can only speak from a white US, critical studies perspective) it's largely their absence in the cultural imaginary, as represented by mass media, which needs addressing. (My final paper in Asian-Americans in Media was basically "Where the gorram Chinese in your Sino-American universe, Joss Whedon? Prick.") Only the past five years, imo, there's been a notable uptick in the appearance of Asians and Asian-Americans in US media, but I can still count on one hand the Asian-Americans with widespread name recognition (Lucy Liu, Justin Lin, John Cho, Sandra Oh, BD Wong, maybe? I'm sure you all can name some more). Imported content, foreign film and other media, is a distinct subset, and obviously applies to this post. The more foreign press and media US residents absorb, the better, in my opinion. Full stop. Again, this is a deficit that is improving enormously and rapidly in the globalizing culture. Despite these facts, I still assert that there remains a dearth of representations of Asians for John Q. Public. To get to sex, I believe that the likelihood of a given image seen by a US resident of an Asian Woman being a highly sexualized one, or simple pornography, is disproportionately high. If that's true, it's a huge problem.

It's important for me to set the record straight that I view "Asian Fetish" whether as a spectre in behavior in people I've known, or as a category of porn, as a symptom, a result, of an unquestionably Orientalist legacy. The insecurity I voiced comes from the worry over how unchallenged this fetish remains, and how unremarkable it seems to be to people that men would prefer this, or any race, sexually. Could there be a biological source for these preference? What a tricky question. I hope we aren't racist in our attractions, but I suppose I would rather it be biological than cultural. I'm not even sure. It's a rather distasteful ponderance. So, forgive me if I count "failure to be Asian" in the panoply of reasons the US media supplies me to be insecure about my ability to attract mates. I think that's somewhat representative of female experience, and not unique to me. I don't like, massage my epicanthic folds in the mirror or anything. I'm tall, blonde and curvy. It's super. Not the point here, really.

The illnesses of racist representation and of persistent Orientalism (which I'm not really sure how to describe in this cultural moment), not their symptom, are worthier of attention.

The racism in myself I was addressing is not about Asian women, but representations of them. My complaint of myself is that I can't really shirk their legacy of sexualization. When I see sexualized images of Asian women, a lot of things flash through my mind, like the girls being fed to leeches in Burma when they're not being used for sex, like the comfort women, like why the hell did Cho Chang wear a cheongsam to the Yule Ball in the Harry Potter movie, like why doesn't Nancy Kwan think Suzie Wong was a horror, like images from one of my all time favorite films, The Good Woman of Bangkok... a lot of history and a lot of disgust are water under the bridge for me here, and probably I have some form of medical student's disease for film schoolies... But basically, Asian women are still serving a role as the world's sex workers, and I'm disgusted and heartsick, and they're maligned in media to this effect to boot, and I can't stop seeing that when I see regular old porno with them in it. And that inability is basically racist of me, to question their agency like that. But the women in this FPP are not in porno, they are being seen against their wills, and it's a violation I can't get behind.

Splashing stolen pictures of Asian women (and a man) across the American part of the internet (and I count Metafilter there, because I'm in America and using it), where they are unfamiliar personalities, no more than inscrutable sexual figures, without some rigorous comment as to why, smacks of objectification in a particularly racialized and historically problematic way. I know that's not klangklangston's intent, but it's certainly one outcome, my outcome. Is that fair?
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 10:42 AM on February 14, 2008

I don't think AV is racist or sexist or anything. I think she does suffer from low self esteem, which probably 90% of american women do to some degree, which in itself is a tragedy.


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
I'm sorry, have we met?
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 10:48 AM on February 14, 2008

Just to mention some other Asian-Americans with name recognition: Michio Kaku, Yoko Ono, Grant Imahara, Judge Ito and Mr. Fong, Connie Chung, Vera Wang, Masi Oka, Wendy Deng (Murdoch), Suzy Nakamura, Ming Tsai, Apolo Anton Ohno, Suzanne Whang, Chang and Eng Bunker, Carol Lam, Ang Lee, and lots of baseball players, golfers, and olympic atheletes (and mathematicians and physicists if you're a geek like me.)

(I just went through a list and picked out the ones I recognized immediately. I actually didn't recognize half the ones you mentioned.)

As far as the fetish stuff, I don't think you're going to find a rational reason for it - not even a reason as rational as racism - any more than you might for any sexual fetish ethnic or otherwise. But if this makes any sense it seems to me that "digs Asian chicks" is the cliché of an ethnicity-based sexual fetish, that might be why it gets mentioned more frequently than others?

Because ethnic porn definitely isn't limited to Asians. In fact there seem to be porn niches for the most specific physical characteristics, like hair color for example.
posted by XMLicious at 11:44 AM on February 14, 2008

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
I'm sorry, have we met?
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 12:48 PM on February 14

Just because something is your pet interest doesn't mean it is a rampant social problem.

It is offensive because Americans don't watch enough asian films, so the only time they are likely to see asians is when they peruse the 2.5% of porn that is asian????? You can't be serious. Your state is >12% asian! There are more asians in California than blacks!

Again, you are pretty much impenetrable. By now I can only assume this is your goal.

Because you surely can't be so dim witted to be mocking my noting of the self esteem problem of women in america when you just referenced it in the POST RIGHT ABOVE THAT ONE, and further up the thread another time.

Jesus H. Fucking Jumping Christ on a pogo stick.

qing ren jie
posted by Ynoxas at 11:46 AM on February 14, 2008

Just because something is your pet interest doesn't mean it is a rampant social problem.

I'm not saying this is worse than hunger or something, dude. But it's a pretty major developing issue within media criticism, which as I stated, is the context from which I speak. There is an open dialogue and protest in the Asian-American community regarding casting practices. Try telling an Asian-American actor that it's not a rampant problem. Good coverage here.

the only time they are likely to see asians

Media representations of Asians. Like, on the teevee? Why is that not sticking?

...And I was laughing that you decided I have low self-esteem. Stereotype of women FAIL.

XMLicious: Daniel Dae Kim! Maybe it's 10, not 5, but I bet 20 years ago it would have been 5 for the average schmuck, and there's not twice as many Asians here since then etc. And okay, maybe "Asian Fetish" exists wholly apart from super-sexualized Asian women in historical media, but if so it's an awfully odd coincidence. Jeez, I wish Picturing Oriental Girls was available online.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 12:23 PM on February 14, 2008

I don't think I'm disagreeing with you. I'm not saying that there isn't prejudice against Asians or that it hasn't been changing recently. I'm just not sure that at this point it's quite as negative as you think it is. My point in making that list was to show that contrary to what you said there's more than you can count on one hand.

I wasn't trying to say that Asian fetish porn is something separate from super-sexualized Asian women in historical media. I would say that it's the same thing actually, that super-sexualized representations of Asian women are there for the same reason there are any super-sexualized representations of women.

Also, when looking for sources of sexualized representations of Asian women it seems important to look at sources authored by Asians themselves like animé, porn and otherwise, as well as Asian forms of pornography like bukkake.
posted by XMLicious at 1:20 PM on February 14, 2008

And yeah, qing ren jie and kung hei fat choi and all that.
posted by XMLicious at 1:24 PM on February 14, 2008

Is that fair?

When your argument seemed to be: "This is a bad post because I have some very personally specific issues when I see naked pictures of Asian people," unfair, but I guess you've admitted that as a "fumble".

If you argue that it's a bad post because klangklangston didn't put big all-caps disclaimers about NOT ASIAN FETISH-IST I think you're overprojecting your personal interests onto the post. When I looked at it I learned a tiny bit about how a foreign country/culture deals dysfunctionally with sex in different ways than this one does. This was not American popular media spreading these images, reports, and general shitshow around, it was all local. There's no Orientalism in the post's presentation (unless, I guess, you want to read a lot into "Hong Kong fooey").

I feel surprised there wasn't a metatalk about this but it's like this whole thread has become its own metatalk thread.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 1:34 PM on February 14, 2008

Tim, quoting myself:
First, and more simple, is my assessment that this is basically a pop news story
Second is my issue with representations of Asian women

Orientalism is "us" looking at "them". That's what it is. Further connotations are not entailed, though I don't mind that they're implied, if that implication incites a reflection on how and why we're looking. Because of this post, we're looking at coverage of their culture, sure, but it just so happens that we're also looking at and re-violating their women. Why do this?
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 2:12 PM on February 14, 2008

I wrote 'Orientalism' in terms of "mysterious exotic inscrutable East" sentiment, not merely anything involving Western culture looking at an Asian culture. I see that's a connotation, not the actual meaning I thought it was. I don't think it's wrong for people of one culture to "look at" another culture.

we're also looking at and re-violating their women.

1. Nothing wrong with looking at "their women" unless you're into the antimiscegenation laws.
2. My viewing of the images in those links did nothing to harm anyone in them. The people who, seeing them or hearing about them, apparently may decide to ruin her career are committing harms, but me, I just saw some pictures.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 2:47 PM on February 14, 2008

This is such a weird thread, and I fell behind in reading the conversation, but I'd like to thank sebastienbailard for this comment because that blog?--is full of awesome.
posted by one teak forest at 3:17 PM on February 14, 2008

This is the most boring thread that there has ever been on Metafilter.
posted by unSane at 4:19 PM on February 14, 2008

Orientalism is "us" looking at "them". That's what it is. Further connotations are not entailed, though I don't mind that they're implied, if that implication incites a reflection on how and why we're looking. Because of this post, we're looking at coverage of their culture, sure, but it just so happens that we're also looking at and re-violating their women. Why do this?

Ekkkkkk. Well, this is tricky, for a number of reasons. For one thing, who are "we"? Is it fair to equate "western" with "white," or even "non-Asian"? I'm white, you're white; but a number of westerners are not. Is it better for them to look? And not just the Asians -- is it better for black or Hispanic Americans to look? Or Native Americans, for that matter? I mean, no one can call them colonialists, amirite? All of them would be looking at surreptitiously obtained photos, but would they all be re-violating "their" women? Plus, when did they air the episode where you and I violated their women? We must have, if we can now re-violate them. And when violation become as simple as looking at a picture someone was too stupid to take off his hard drive? Presuming the tape was not meant to be seen by the general public (quite a presumption, but bear with me), is anyone who's seen the Paris Hilton sex tape violating Paris Hilton? If not, why not?
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:56 PM on February 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

I'm actually mildly upset about this - I love the Twins and own more of their CDs than the rest of my CD collection combined. Which doesn't say much about my CD collection, just about my adoration for their songs. I will be watching this thread, but I'm a bit disappointed that the thread has turned into a rampant OMGracism debate in what I see to be a bit of a derail. Oh well, interesting read nevertheless. Thanks klang.
posted by Phire at 2:47 PM on February 16, 2008

Edison Chen eats humble pie (Cantonese introduction, but he speaks in English).
posted by tellurian at 9:39 PM on February 26, 2008