Anyone who is a fan of MadTV or has even heard of the show has probably heard of the character Miss Bunny Swan: an Asian character that was played by Alex Borstein, a white actress. Miss Swan (pictured at right) was the embodiment of almost every stereotype of Asian-American women. In the many skits in which Borstein played Miss Swan, audiences were subjected to the stereotypes of the Asian woman as unable to understand or speak English, hypersexualized, and as a bad driver.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWGsY8TcIqI
In every instance in which Miss Swan appears she speaks in a stereotyped voice style which has been generalized to all Asians. One particular example of this is the skit in which Miss Swan goes through the drive-thru at "McRonald's." In this skit (link above) she is trying to order food, but confuses the man working in the drive-thru when she cannot understand him. Her answers do not match his questions, and eventually he becomes fed up and the skit concludes with him simply throwing the food into her window. Her final words state that she has done this on purpose in order to get the free food. This instance portrays the stereotype that Asian immigrants to the U.S. are either too lazy to learn to speak "proper" English or do not learn "proper" English in order to manipulate situations. The latter of these two scenarios is not as widespread as the first, but in my dealings with others, I have often heard people say that Asians really can speak "proper" English, but they choose not to in order to be annoying. This stereotype was popularized in the film Dude, Where's My Car?, which starred Ashton Kutcher and Sean William Scott as two stoners out to find Kutcher's car. While in search of the missing car, the pair go through a drive-thru Chinese restaurant where the employee in the drive-thru keeps repeating "and then..." to the point at which Kutcher become so flustered that he starts smashing the drive-thru speaker. This stereotype became immortalized in that moment, and has been further perpetuated by the endless "and then..." jokes told by those who have seen the film. Miss Swan's manipulation of the "McRonald's" drive-thru employee is also a way in which this--quite frankly--annoying stereotype has been perpetuated.
Below is the link to another clip in which Miss Swan is portrayed as lacking "proper" English skills. The skit portrays Miss Swan as a 1-900 phone-sex worker. A man calls the number, and Miss Swan speaks in her stereotypical Asian accent. She proceeds to confuse the man and aggravate him. This portrayal also shows the hypersexualization of the Miss Swan character. Rarely would one see a portrayal of a white woman as a phone-sex operator on television. While the situation is meant to be comedic, it does subconsciously reinforce the stereotype of Asian women as hypersexualized due to the fact that Miss Swan is "talking dirty" to the man on the other end of the phone call.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF4RyB50Xus
Alex Borstein's portrayals of Miss Swan are another way in which the stereotypes surrounding Asian women are demonstrated within the media. While the show MadTV is known as a comedic skit show, it is easy to see that it is a constant reinforcer of the stereotypes and, therefore, the marginalization of Asian women as well as many other minority groups.
7 comments:
Another way this story can be flipped is by looking at the stereotypes of Asian-American males. For this example we can look at the famous Rush Hour movie series, Shanghai Noon and The Medallion. In all 3 movies Jackie Chan is depicted as a kung fu fighting, broken English speaking person. In most movies that male Asian Americans are depicted in they usually play this same type of role. I can not think of any movies or TV series where they play an “everyday” American that doesn’t get into karate battles and speaks proper English. Unfortunately since Asian-American males are almost always depicted as these types of characters it negatively reinforces the stereotype that male Asian-Americans are only good for fighting Karate battles however don’t expect to have any conversation as they speak broken English and are hard to understand.
Sadly the way that minorities are depicted in movies and or TV never seem to be positive reinforces but always negative. When you think of hit HBO TV series such as the Soprano’s and THE WIRE both Italians and African-Americans are depicted as people involved in illegal activities. In the Soprano’s the cast is an Italian family and they are depicted as mobsters as most Italians are viewed and stereotyped. On the other hand you have THE WIRE where the African Americans are portrayed as drug dealers and gangsters. Unfortunately since both Italians and African Americans are already viewed in this light the media portraying them this way only feeds to the “madness”. Until the media mixes things up and stops depending so much on current stereotypes many minorities no mater if they are Asian-American, African American or Italian will continue to be viewed this way.
i can see this as a potential problem, asian women are seen as this fresh off the boat type of person, but me being of half asian decent, i find it silly that the media portrays asian women like this . you either see them as the asian person with broken english, the oversexualized asian girl that loves guys, or the super smart kid that everyone hates. , but the media goes with what is more appealing to the audience rather then the reality of thing of how most asians are of a peaceful nature , intelligent , and really just your normal everyday person.
I always thought that the Miss Swan skits were very funny on MadTV. I never thought about her race though because I don't even think her race/ethnicity was even revealed in the show. But I guess I can see who she can be stereotyped as an Asian female.
I really never got into shows such as MadTv. The characters that are being portrayed on these shows I found to be absurd and offensive. The miss Swan character has always confused me and I couldn't stand watching any of her skits. I don't know if I just didn't understand where they were going with the character or if I just was being a bit dense. I never found it funny either way you look at it.
Chris Selix
Character inspired by Bjork (note SWAN) and artists' Hungarian grandmother.
This article needs an infusion of HUMOR.
SallysF, why wasn't the character Hungarian then? Why make the character Asian?
tfull30, mostly agree, although Harold in Harold and Kumar is not like that.
Probably because Bjork is not Hungarian. She's Icelandic.
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