Finding Meaning in Racialized Sex

P.R. Manalo
While Celina Parreas Shimizu talks about how Asian female actors have been hypersexualized
in Hollywood and the possible meanings one can get based from them, Darieck Scott inquires into black
gay politics and looks at how meanings have been attached to the sexualities and desires of both black
and white gay men. Shimizu, for example, traces how the theme of hypersexuality has pervaded female
Asian characters in Hollywood in three generations. Lucy Liu, as the contemporary representation /
personification of Nancy Kwan and Suzie Wong, embodies not only the typical look of an Asian femme
fatale, but also the character, that is to say, the attitude as evident in her performances. This observation,
however, is as essentializing as the films themselves. What Shimizu attempts is to not only show the
hypersexuality of Asian actresses in Hollywood (shy, timid, curvaceous, sexy, etc., and also vicious,
ambitious, strong, dangerous, domineering, hard, etc. at the same time) but also to illuminate the
possibility of altering the American way of viewing Asian females, in general, as manifested in films.
Despite the seeming constriction and slavery the American film industry poses to Asian actresses,
Shimizu says that this very restriction can be an avenue for empowering them and their race. In order to
do this, Shimizu proposes that narratives that will tell each Asian-American femme fatales unique story
be told. This will result to a wider and more inclusive understanding of sex, a form of continuing
resistance that is also circumscribed within the space of sex. For instance in an interview, Lucy Liu shares
that while she accepts roles that appear to be perpetuating stereotypical roles for Asian women, she adds
that it is a matter of opportunities. She needed to create options first before she can eventually create
new opportunities whereby stereotyping will be moot.
For his part, Scott finds meaning in how gay people formulate their peculiar desires. According to
him, desire, as something that is essentialized, cannot be located at one point. In other words, it cannot be
a fixity. Desire for him entails constant shifting of objects. In this way, experiences and identities are also,
like desire, sustained by discontinuities and ruptures. The danger, then, lies in stability and rigidity, or
when one cannot change. Change, or the possibility of change, is what is important for Scott. Following
this, it is therefore not surprising why black people, at least gay men, do not want their own but instead
desire for the other, that is, the white, and vice versa.