Happier Abroad Forum Community

Interesting video review about Western movie classics that fetishize Asian women and cater to white men's fantasies of a submissive docile humble sweet Asian woman of their dreams, such as "The World of Suzie Wong" from 1960. The narrator claims he is not bashing the fetishizing of Asian women nor is he trying to score "woke points" however you can sort of sense that he is downplaying it even though he pretends to be neutral. What do you guys think?



"Correction: In the original novel Lomax is a painter not a novelist (it read "painter" in my video script - no idea why I said novelist).

This video explores the US-British film 'The World of Suzie Wong' (1960) as a way to understand how the fetishization of East and Southeast Asian women (ESEA) was imbedded within British and North American cultural history.

In the title, the word ‘Asian’ is used as a shorthand to refer specifically to ESEA women and their connections with the ‘oriental woman’ construct. However, there are similar avenues to take when assessing how the West created narratives for women from all over the Asian continent and beyond.

Yes, it's not an East Asian film, but it does however, help people like myself appreciate how certain ideas or biases from Hollywood and British cultural text can influence Western imagined ideas of ESEA people."

Invention, Inversion and Intervention: The Oriental Woman in The World of Suzie Wong, M. Butterfly, and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert by Peter Kwan

https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage? ... =9&id&page

Comments I left below the video:

Happier Abroad - Expat Living and Dating Overseas
0 seconds ago
There's a reason why many western men in Philippines and Thailand say they NEVER want to go back to their own country. Myself included. Once you experience why you will understand and see the light. America is the most antisocial country in the world for dating. I swear.

Happier Abroad - Expat Living and Dating Overseas
1 second ago
None of this is surprising, since in America, women are NOT sweet like in Asia, but rough and tough, and very cold, masculine, airheadish and degenerate. A totally different breed. Even the white women in Europe are very different, they are much more mature, down to earth, and evolved than the white women in America. Go abroad and you will see what I mean. So you can't blame many western men for fetishizing Asian women. It's natural and understandable. Problem is with America. Denying it doesn't change that fact.

Mitsy Seaga (pictured on the left):

“Winning Miss Jamaica at the National Stadium was incredibly exciting. The stage was erected across the football field and the stands were filled with spectators. I remember well my dress was close fitting and I had not gone to Flossie for a final fitting, so when she brought it to the stadium that night and I put it on to go on stage, I realised the hem was very narrow and I wasn't able to walk normally. Oh dear, I was worried as the runway was so long! However, I came out on stage to a pretty full stadium and strutted my way on stage to the shouts of 'Suzy Wong yuh dress too tight!''